Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week

It has been another wonderful week here in Germany in so many different ways. The weather has been exceptional. It has been in the mid-20's every day this week. Nice thing about spring here is the low humidity. We have several staff members that hail from the southern states - and they know from humid. With this weather, what we like mostly to do is bask in the warm sunny rays while enjoying (you knew it was coming...) a nice ice cream. Our Canadian friends here had a funny story about being with family on a trip somewhere. During the middle of a conversation about family or politics or Canada, someone piped up: "Did somebody mention something about an ice cream?" and off they went. So now, we have now taken to using that phrase rather often. By telling this story in our blog, I am hoping that the use of this phrase will spread far and wide - it works best of course when not talking about food (So, our family won't be able to use it much...) But, I digress.

It was Teacher and Staff Appreciation week in Germany - I don't know much about these traditions (we never had Software Engineer Appreciation week at Intel...) Our parents lavished us with a special breakfast one day and lunch on another. Our director's Bible Study group took over our cleaning duties on Friday afternoon (I was on downstairs bathrooms, so I REALLY appreciated that). They were all such a blessing to us all. Anyway, on Wednesday, the students brought flowers to their teachers and staff. Wow, what a surprise - I had never gotten flowers before. Each child has a bouquet of flowers - they walk around and present their teachers and the staff with a single flower and soon we were awash in a beautiful flora.

Here are Delynn and I, each at our desks with the beautiful results. Some of the flowers came from the childrens' own gardens, some had notes attached, but each flower was special. I think the students enjoy giving them away as much as we enjoyed receiving them. I think that I win the prize for the biggest bunch! (Please note that the hair is coming in nicely...)

May is also our Cultural Celebration Month at RIA - and boy do we have a lot of cultural to celebrate! We had our students do a take home project: to make a family flag. We then had an assembly where the students shared what their flag means. The vast majority of our families are multi-ethnic - everything from Scottish-Polish to Swiss-German. One family had 4 flags in theirs: Spain (where one child was born), America (younger sibling was born there), China (where the children grew up) and Switzerland (where they currently live). Student after student stood up and presented their diverse, yet seemless integration of cultures. It was a poignant reminder of how far we have come in shrinking this planet on which we live.
Chinese, German, American, French, Scot, Swiss, Polish, Lebanese, Indian, English, Spanish, Columbian - no matter what the nationality, God finds each precious. There is a lot we can learn from children.
Oh, yeah. We got a new chair. Weil am Rhein, the City of Chairs (die Stadt der Stühle) got its most recent edition last month. At a park near the school, the town of Löffingen erected this fine chair - complete with viewing platform! The children underneath were having a game of hide-and-seek at the park.

By the way, this entry is being written on Monday because it is Pfingstmontag (Pentecost Monday) which is a holiday in France, Switzerland and Germany (probably some other places too.) Also, we will be away at a church retreat all next weekend, so the next post will be delayed somewhat. Our church retreat is called "Food for the Journey" - pretty cool when you think about it... Love to all.