Moritz Life

It's Sunday morning and I'm sitting in our Super 8 Motel room checking my email and relaxing before we go to service at the church in Clarkston, Washington. Yesterday we drove to Deer Park just north of Spokane where Lloyd had a meeting. We then drove south and east to Lewiston, ID where we spent the night. Lewiston & Clarkston are on their respective state borders and so we had dinner in Clarkston. Then we drove around a bit until we found a trail along the beautiful Snake River. It was around 8 pm and the temperature was in the mid to upper 90's. There was a great breeze along the river that turned hot and cool depending on whether or not it touched the water before it got to us. As we sat on the bench, I'd get goosebumps from the cool air and then all of a sudden it would blow hot and I'd warm up again. It was a very strange phenomenon. We're expecting another hot day today with Yakima going up to 103 degrees. It's been nice to enjoy the hot weather as it was a pretty cool spring.

Nothing new is happening, just the same old construction. We were not late for church today. We got there early for prayer time. Tonight we were down at Potsdamer Platz and had amazing Gelato ice cream. I cant believe I have been here for almost 3 weeks. Tell everyone hi.

After our Citizenship interview and test in early April, we have finally received our notice that our application has been approved and we are to take the Oath of Allegiance at a swearing in ceremony on July 3rd. This is exciting in a number of ways. First, it's our 26th wedding anniversary; second, Lloyd will actually be home; and third, I already took the day off. This will not be the ordinary ceremony that is held every two weeks in Yakima and will not be in the Federal Courthouse as usual. It appears, that this will be the very special 4th of July ceremony that will be held at the prestigious Capitol Theater ( http://www.capitoltheatre.org/ ). If you can attend, please let us know! We'd be happy to have you as our guests. After the ceremony, the Daughters of the American Revolution will be holding a reception to which all new citizens and their guests are invited.

We are living at the community center which will become the new church building. The old church building (where they still meet) is on the other side of the city.

The church's main need is to work on the building, but we have a lot of help from church members and even a guy from Canada who is here to help with construction. It is a lot of fun. We will also be doing things with kids from the community later.

We are going to the Hillsong\Matt Redman concert in Berlin tomorrow (Saturday). The missionaries got tickets for us. It should be cool.

The Euro Cup is going on right now and there is soccer fever here in Deutschland. It is amazing.

Feel free to click on the link to send Jonathan an email - I'm sure he would be happy to hear from you!

The last few weeks have been somewhat dramatic around home as we have had "visitors" invading our backyard, eating our plants and creating other havoc. We have seen marmots and squirrels.

Last week when I was in Edmonton my dad gave me his old squirrel trap. Back home I set it up and sure enough within no time we caught a squirrel.

Hopefully we can get his friends too!

Last week I had the privilege to be in Edmonton for the week. Now that we are closer, it is much easier to make the trek north. I drove, and found that 14.5 hours is what it takes.

It is always good to see family and friends, especially my dad. I timed this trip with the 85th anniversary celebration at First Church of God, the church in which I grew up. There were many people from the past that I was able to see again.

Kathy and I are planning on being back in Edmonton during the first week of September.

So we are working and living at their new church. It is a rundown old community center, that we are transforming into a beautiful church. Right now it feels like a bomb shelter, the thing is completely made up of cement. Walls have been torn down and we are cleaning up tons (literally) of debris and moving it by wheelbarrow into giant dumpsters. It is a lot of hard work, but the missionaries are amazing people. So fun to be around. They are doing great outreach work in their community and have an amazing vision for the church in Berlin. The have three young kids, Joshua, Mark and Claudia. They are so much fun and full of energy. Tomorrow will be the first time we will be at their church (the old building) and we are excited to meet the church members.

We bought month long train passes and have taken the train all over Berlin already. It is pretty simple to get around and we figured it out in no time. It is such a beautiful city.