Schweinfurt: Public Affairs, Babies, and God

The eight years we have lived in Schweinfurt, Germany has been a wonderful chapter of my life with all of its ups and downs. I want to take a moment here to remember three things that affected me the most in our time here: my fantastic job at the Public Affairs Office, the two beautiful babies added to our family, and the countless hours spent with people learning about God.

Shortly after we arrived in Schweinfurt, I applied for a contract position as a news reporter with the U.S. Army Garrison Public Affairs Office. I was delighted to begin working almost immediately in October 2006. A large portion of my job consisted of contributing articles bi-monthly to the Bavarian News newspaper. The newspaper covered the U.S. Army Garrisons of Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels, Ansbach, Schweinfurt, and Garmisch. I enjoyed the job thoroughly; I loved attending events in the community, interviewing people, and artfully crafting articles afterwards.

In January 2007, the Schweinfurt PAO separated from the Bavarian News newspaper and chose to publish a weekly online newsletter just for the Schweinfurt community called the "Schweinfurt Dispatch". In addition, the articles and news became available on our website in a much more timely manner. I enjoyed this part of my career at the Schweinfurt PAO even more. I became familiar with laying out articles on a news page before going to "print" each week in addition to writing more and taking more photos at events.

The job wouldn't have been nearly as wonderful as it was without the people that I worked with it. Kimberley G., Emily A., Elvira G., Miranda M., and several more made it a comfortable place to work and were good friends, too. My bosses George O. and Mark H. were the best people I ever worked for in my long list of past jobs and they also sincerely cared about me as a person.

Loralynn, 8 months old

 I was privileged to do all of this for three years (October 2006 to October 2009) just before our first baby, Loralynn, arrived. I wanted to give motherhood my full attention, so I decided to pause my journalism career at that point. We also weren't in dire need of my income, so we able to live off of Dan's income. Montana, our second daughter, arrived in August 2011, and I have continued to stay at home for almost five years now. It has been the hardest job and longest hours I've ever worked, but I wouldn't trade it. Our girls are a challenge and delight and each age has required me to learn and teach. I could write mounds upon mounds about these two gorgeous girls, but I won't because you can see already that most of my past posts are about them.

Tana, 7 months old

Lastly, the third thing that took up my time in Schweinfurt was the most worthy of time spent: learning to love and understand God more in community with others. This came about within the all-women's group at the chapel (Protestant Women of the Chapel) and the mixed home Bible study that lasted for seven of the eight years. I helped and lead in almost all capacities with the women-- anywhere from 20 to 70 attending. Our home Bible study shared dinner before doing Bible study and we often hosted it at our house. Dan lead the study portion for most of the years. We had military, civilians, Germans, and other nationalities in attendance. At one point, there were more than 30 people coming, and we had to split into two homes. It's hard to summarize the experience and relationships-- I can only hope and pray that we find a similar community in our next home.

As we close in on our last two weeks here in Schweinfurt, I hope that the fond memories can outweigh the craziness that we will experience in our departure (as all big moves happen to cause). "Auf Wiedersehen," my little Bavarian town and my beautiful village of Hambach!

Our family only 3 weeks after Tana was born in 2011

Repurposing moving boxes

With our impending move comes moving boxes. We got one that was too big a while back and this week Dan was showing me a website of cool and cheap kids' play ideas. So it wasn't my original idea, but I must say that I did something similar at my parents house when I was little. Even with their carpet stairs we were able to slide down them in slick sleeping bags. When we got out the long blue toboggan, we flew down the stairs and hit the front door pretty hard. I remember it being so exhilarating!

The girls really love this cardboard box slide, and I was surprised how fast such a short slide turned out to be. I discovered that it's even faster when they are wearing pants and socks and a little dangerous when they aren't because their momentum can stall suddenly with a foot or knee and throw them forward (and our floor is hard). Yes, it requires lots of supervision.