Spring and Summer Update!

The last few months have been nothing short of extremely busy! Is summer break time in Germany (well, for a little while longer at least) but we haven’t been taking many breaks! Here’s a bit of an update on what we have been up to out here in our wonderful city, Dresden!

The spring was full of fun events. We had a few visitors come stay with us, Elyse attended her first birth as a doula, Ryan preached another sermon, and we started to really think about what our plans for the future might look like once we’re done with our two year stay with Forum Hoffnung. We have met a few people who have really shown us that the doors are wide open for other ministry possibilities in the city. We had many ideas floating around but no real clear idea of what God was leading us to.

Early summer was celebration time with Elyse’s birthday and Father’s Day both in June. This time was also a time of us really being needed by some friends going through hard times. This was draining at times, but we were glad to see the love of God being able to shine though us to our friends who were hurting. There were also many worship band practices, some garden house meals with friends, and lots of jazz choir rehearsals for Elyse as her group had their first public performance in early July.

The rest of the summer was pretty crazy for us! One of Elyse’s good friends here got married a few weeks ago and asked Elyse to be the photographer! This was a HUGE deal for Elyse since she had never shot a wedding before. It was a long day and night of working but overall a great experience. Through the wedding celebrations we were able to finally witness and participate in some wonderful German wedding traditions that we had never done before! Elyse was also able to attend her second birth as a doula in July! Her jazz choir performance went great but she didn’t really get a break from singing in a choir after her jazz choir took a break for the summer, because right away she joined a community gospel choir to perform at our city wide festival! We also celebrated 7 years of marriage in July! 

So here we are in August. Ryan has been a camp counselor at high school church camp all week and should be getting home now anytime. Thanks for all the prayers from those of you who knew that Ryan was going to be gone all week while Elyse stayed home alone with Oliver. Everything went well and Elyse’s mom actually arrived Aug. 13 and is staying for 10 days!! We have some fun trips planned with her over the next week and she sure has been getting in her fair share of Ollie Time! 

We have some other important ministry updates to share with you, but those probably require their own post. We’ll keep you updated! And in the mean time, thank you for your continuous support, thoughts and prayers. We really appreciate all of you so much!

Note from Elyse: Hey all! This post was actually written a week ago but just now posted. The summer break is now officially over as of yesterday. My mom's visit here was SO much fun and such a great time for all of us. :-)