Did we say Wow!?

Delynn pointed out that we (uh, that would be me) forgot to post one of the pictures we had chosen to share. Did I mention that between Denise, Deanne and myself, we had over 600 pictures? It took quite some time to work though them all to find a nice sampling without overwhelming everyone. In the weeks ahead, I may be pulling additional pictures to liven up the blog.

So, I mentioned in the last entry that on the SOM tour the clouds were low and thick. At one spot, we were overlooking a town on a lake but we couldn't see the lake (and we could barely see the church steeple just a few hundred meters away). Well, imagine our delight when the next day broke clear with huge patches of blue sky. It was the day we had chosen to travel up to Königsee in the Berchtesgarten region of SE Germany. Actually, Berchtesgarten is a little peninsula of Germany that pokes into Austria just south of Salzburg. It is an area of breathtaking Alps and lakes.

We got up to Königsee early for the electric-boat trip out to the St. Bartholomä monastery. Only electric-powered (or human powered) boats are allowed on the German Alpine lakes to keep them unpolluted, the monastery being accessible only by boat at the far end of the lake. We silently cut through the water until the mid-point where the boat stopped. One of the boat captains then played a trumpet so that we could hear the echoes off of the shear cliff walls.

On a more somber note, we also visited the Nazi Documentation Center in Obersalzburg. It houses a display discussing the history of the Nazi use of the Obersalzburg region (the location of Hitler's Eagles Nest) and progression of how the National Socialist party took over and consumed the German people during the 30's and 40's. Much of what the did (social help for widows and orphans, institution of vacation time and better working conditions) on the surface was seemingly for good and noble purposes, but just under the facade, where most people really could not (or would not) see, the political party's purpose was evil. I am thankful that over the last decade or so, Germans have been begun to reexamine this part of their collective history in a healthy, more open manner. Whenever I visit places like the Documentation Center, it reaffirms in me the call to look at our own country's attitudes and government institutions with a more discerning eye.

As part of the tour, a small portion of the vast underground bunker complex is open to the public. Unfortunately, the Eagle's Nest was closed for the season (too much snow...). We also didn't get a chance to visit the Salt Mines that are located in this area of Berchtesgarten. I have been on the tour before and it is also well worth the time. So much to see and so little time. We recommend a trip to Berchtesgarten and Königsee to anyone that is traveling in this part of Germany.

What can we say but Wow!

We have had the most wonderful Easter holiday break. For those of you that don't know, Delynn's sisters, Deanne and Denise, flew over from Vancouver, Washington to give us a visit. They were staying for 10 days (which is not nearly long enough), so we planned to show them around the Swiss, French, German, Austrian area since it is all so close at hand. We started off slow, taking a quick trip up to Freiburg for their first full day in country. This allowed them to experience the regional train, see a little country side and see the Alt Stadt (Old Town). Oh, yeah, Delynn also wanted to show them the yarn store there... Go figure... In the center of the Alt Stadt stands the Münster (Cathedral) with its daily market on the Münsterplatz. They have probably been holding markets there for the last 500 years, so we joined in. And what does one do at the market? Eat of course! This was the girls first experience with wurst (sausage), leberkäse (can't explain), brotchen (fresh rolls), senf (mustard) and Apfelschorle (Apple juice & mineral water concoction). After explaining all the different options, we settled on various wursts for our lunch. Here we see the happy travelers - makes you kind of hungry, doesn't it?

So, our big excursion was a trip to Salzburg, just across the border in Austria. We chose it primarily, not because it is the birthplace of Morzart, oh no. Not because it has a magnificently complete fortress that has never been taken by force, oh no. (Well, they did surrender it to Nepolean without firing a shot...). Not because it has a wonderfully preserved old city with a Cathedral and churches dating back 1100 years, oh no. We went to Salzburg because it is the backdrop for the Sound of Music!

Even though it was the first days of spring, the weather took a definate winter-like turn for us but we loved it. We agreed that if it is going to precipitate, it is best to come down as snow rather than rain (we can get all the rain we want in the Northwest U.S.). We took the Sound of Music tour to see the various sites in Salzburg and in the surrounding Salzkammergut. Unfortunately, the clouds hung so low in the sky that we were unable to get a view of the Alps, but that was okay because we could ride along and sing the "I am sixteen..." and the "Do rae mi" songs without getting pulled over by the police.

It is very sad, but visiters can no longer go into the Sound of Music (SOM) gazebo. Apparently, there have been a couple of accidents recently; you know - fifty or sixty-something folks thinking they are Liesel or Rolf and that they can jump from bench to bench. So, they had to lock the doors for public safety reasons. Above is a picture of the Salzburg fortress from the Mirabelle gardens (another SOM backdrop). You can see that we had bits of snow hanging around but the city was just as magical as ever. We had the good fortune of being in Salzburg for Easter Sunday. To celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we attended worship at the Salzburg Cathedral. They were celebrating a Mass in music. It was one of Hyden's with an orchestra, choir and soloists. It was wonderful. The voices and music soared within the cathedral's high ceilings, the praises (much of it in Latin) joined all of our souls together - it was a once in a lifetime experience. One of the really magical things about Salzburg is the number of churches that all toll the time as well as call the faithful to worship. It was exceptional on the Easter weekend. The video below is of St. Sebastian's church which was taken from the window of our hotel. Imagine these bells tolling for 10 minutes! It was sooooo cool.

After Salzburg, we drove down to the "castles". The castles are called Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau and were the homes of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. He was the king of Bayern in the 1870's and nearly bankrupted his kingdom by building elaborate fantasy castles. Neuschwanstein was the inspiration for Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle. We stayed the night in the nearby town of Reutte. We awoke to about 6 inches of fresh snow that had fallen overnight. I was a little stressed because I haven't driven in that much snow since living in Augsburg, but we went ahead with our plans to tour the castles and, as you can see by the pictures, we were not disappointed.

One very interesting item: at the hotel in Salzburg, we met another family visiting the area and found out they were from Beaverton, Oregon. It seemed like a very improbable occurance until we went to Reutte. There we met a family that came from Vancouver, Washington! They live in the Fisher's Landing area - what are the chances of that?

Anyway, here are the pictures.

Neuschwanstein castle in the snow...

Ludwig II lived in the castle slightly less than six months before he died under mysterious circumstances. At the time, only about 10% of the 200 rooms in the castle were complete. Within six weeks of his death, the castle was opened to the public. I think they have made back their money by now...

Plansee - on the road to Reutte. This is the kind of stuff one comes across in the Alps. You are just driving along the road between two towns and then something like this just explodes in front of you. The lake is slightly frozen but I wouldn't venture out upon it.

Hohenschwangau - this is where Ludwig grew up. Nice digs.

Oberammergau, Germany. This is the town that was spared from the Black Death in the 17th century. As a result, they have held the Passion play every 10 years since that time.

Delynn and I are preparing to return to school tomorrow. We are very excited as we race toward the finish of this school year in about 10 weeks. Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and support, they have sustained us and blessed us beyond what we can say. Love to all.

Here are the pictures (finally)

It has been a busy week here, so I'll spare you the gory details, but the pictures finally uploaded successfully. We will work on another update soon.

See - it really did snow! You can see the staff parking lot to the right...

Our friend Jennifer coming in from the cold. This is after about a 6 minute ride. Brrrr. Someone told her it would be easy riding a bike in the snow.

Below are our pictures from the retreat at Lagenbruck.

When the fog lifted, it was a beautiful view into the valley.

Here's the group.

It is a nice group of friends.

Well, wouldn't you know.

It seems like we are having some slight server problems uploading pictures, so that means you won't be able to see what we saw this week. Sheep? No, that was last week. Students dilligently studying? No, we see that every week. Snow? Yes. That's it. We had snow flurries earlier in the week. We got a few centimeters, which drives the kids crazy with excitement. The snow layered the city and surrounding area with that beautiful layer of white that makes one think that all is right with the world. I reflected to Delynn as we walked to school that if the same percipitation was coming down as rain, we would just trudge along and wish for sun. However, when it comes down as big fluffy flakes, gently floating to earth, we say: "Isn't this nice, ahhhhh" Now, I'm sure for all of our friends that are getting TONS of snow this winter, it is not quite the same reaction, but this is the first significant bit of snow we have seen since we have lived here.

Guess what else you don't get to see? Pictures from our Life Group retreat in Switzerland. Well, I will get something posted as soon as I can. We traveled up to a retreat center run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship in the hills outside of Basel. It is interesting because these "hills" might be considered mountains depending on your perspective... It was a quick overnight retreat with 13 members of our Bible study group, but it was very peaceful, restful and spiritually fulfilling. This is the same place to which the whole church will be holding a retreat in May. It will probably be very different then (i.e. no snow...). So, the weekend has gone very quickly. We had another wonderful worship this morning - the music seemed to go just right and that does so much to enhance the worship experience.

Oh, did I mention that March is reading month at the school? The students are keeping track of all the pages they read, both for school and for pleasure. The goal for our school is 50,000 pages! That averages out to over 1,000 pages for each student. And do you know what the prize is for reaching the goal? The librarian will shave off all his hair. OH WAIT! I'M THE LIBRARIAN! Rats! I should have thought this through before suggesting it at that staff meeting... Of course, the upper elementary grades are quite keen on seeing Mr. Walz sans hair, but it is a very aggressive goal, so I may get to keep my curly locks yet. I'm sure that if the kids win the challenge that lots of pictures of me losing what precious little hair I have left will be making it onto the blog.

Well, I just tried uploading again and no joy. You will just have to imagine the wintery, snowy, spirtually wonderful weekend. Hopefully, I can get the pictures posted tomorrow.

Peace be with you.

Sheep Thrills

Okay, it must have been a slow news day... Last Friday was a teacher development day. We were blessed to have a staff member from our Seoul school help us develop our biblical integration skills. Sarah and her husband Stephen, have been visiting all week as Stephen was performing an internal financial audit for us. They were wonderful to have around - we sometimes forget that we are a part of a much bigger network that spans the globe. Well, just like every week, we finish our Fridays with janitorial duties. As we were working through our chores, the principle called "sheep!" from her upstairs vantage point. We ran outside and the hill across the road from our school was alive with migrating sheep. We ran around trying to find cameras to record this unique event - we were giddy with excitement.

The shepherd, his son and their dog paused the sheep just opposite the school for about 5 minutes as they prepared for the next leg of their journey. It was just a perfect place to take a picture of our school's sign with a nice woolly background (makes it look like we are out in the sticks!) It was so cool to watch the dog keep the sheep in place. At one point, a couple of strays were walking out onto the road (soon to become lambchops and fuzzy slippers) when the shepherd yelled and the dog raced off with amazing speed to bring the strays back into the fold. There is something spiritual there if you ponder it...

It is a bit harder to tell, but the picture below shows the next leg of the journey for the group - they just walked down the middle of the road! You can see the little baby sheep with their mothers toward the back of the herd and one itty-bitty little black sheep. (Sheep are so cute!) The pickup was a part of the herding team (they keep their emergency flashers going so people know that there are sheep ahead... like they couldn't tell...)
After the excitement of the sheep drive, we settled back down into finishing up our school chores (Sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms, etc.). We ended our Friday evening with a big dinner out with our visiting friends. They treated us to an Argentinean steak house in the neighboring town of Lörrach. It was the first beef steak I have had since we got here - you don't want to know how much it cost! Did I mention that the € to $ exchange rate hit another record high? - it now costs us over $1.50 to purchase €1. Ouch! But God always provides.

Other than our "Sheep Thrills" last Friday, it was a normal week. Delynn was sick the first half of the week before passing it to her favorite person (uh, me) to let me carry the ball for a few days. Michael started his German class at night school. At the first meeting, we had 16 students and our teacher. Together, we represented 17 different countries! Wow, what diversity. Individuals from Viet Nam, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Algeria as well as France, Italy, England, Sweden, America (me) and Canada (my colleague Jennifer). We are looking forward to the opportunity to meet and talk with this eclectic group.

Next weekend our Bible Study (we call them "Life Groups") is having an overnight retreat. Hopefully, Delynn and I will both be healthy and ready to go! We have a great group of people in our group and look forward to diving deeper with them.

We appreciate all of you who are following our blog. Our friend Howard mentioned in his blog that we are "vacationing" in Germany for the next 18 months (he also clarified that statement). It is true that we are enjoying many new experiences, but our primary joy is giving a quality Christian-based education and community experience to our students. We are so thankful for all of you who faithfully support us in the many ways that allow us to accomplish this. We love you and miss you all.