LST in Cologne, Germany

Hey all,

So we are back in Germany for another round of LST. This time in Cologne! I'm trying the blogging thing again, maybe I'll be more consistent this year! We've been here a few days already and
I haven't really gotten around to taking many pictures, but here's a lovely image from travelogx.com of a bridge I haven't seen yet.

We landed in Frankfurt at 9am on Saturday morning after 9.5 hours in the air. The plane ride was long, but otherwise as good as one could hope these days. Lufthansa is a good airline and if you asked me I would recommend it. (Though Delta still has my heart, if I'm honest).

After we picked up our luggage and I realized the handle on my suitcase had been bent in transit and is now permanently stuck in the extended position, we headed to the next leg of our journey. The journey from Frankfurt to Köln meant another 1.5 or so hours on a train to Cologne. Once on board, we traveled down most of the length of the train, luggage in tow with another American and her daughter, searching for "reserved seats" on a car that didn't exist. Eventually a German lady took pity on me and told me we could just sit anywhere because the train was different than the one originally scheduled to pick us up, and so I did.
Once we got to the Bahnhof in Cologne, we realized that we didn't know where to meet our hosts, Uli and Barbara. As it turns out, we had strolled right past them, but they did eventually catch up with us. We took our stuff to the car and then were privy to a tour of the immediate area, which including walking all around and briefly stepping inside the magnificent Dome right outside of the Bahnhof.

This is not my photo, thanks Pinterest! 

It's taller in person and bigger on the inside :) 

We were treated to lunch at an open air cafe outside of an art museum that I am dying to go back to and tour. Afterwards we walked around a bit more and went out onto the original love locks bridge (it didn't start in France after all). At this point I was dead on my feet. I hadn't slept more than 45 minutes on the plane. I hadn't slept much the night before we left, either, so I had no idea what energy stores I was running on anymore. We finally made our way back to the car and were taken to the site, with one stop off at a 300s era church that has mostly been rebuilt but still maintains part of the original Roman architecture. 

Lunch with Barbara and Uli (Uli was the photographer)

Yum!

A garden with a Fairytale behind it. I'll have to tell you it once I remember it myself. 

We dropped off our stuff at the apartment, which is almost completely dedicated to LST teams. Then we got a tour of church, which is right next door, and went grocery shopping. We would have loved to put off the shopping until the next day, but we couldn't. In Germany the shops are closed on Sunday's. In fact, almost everything except restaurants are closed on Sunday. So it had to be Saturday. We got that done and finally came back to the apartment. It was about 3pm at this point. 

We spent the remainder of the day resting. "Resting" may have also included an impromptu 5 hour nap and then around 4-5 hours of wakefulness before finally going back to bed. This consequently led to sleeping in the next morning and getting to church in the nick of time for service. 

It was a German service but we did end up with a translator for the sermon, which I appreciated. I also greatly enjoyed experiencing their prayer service at the beginning, and singing with them was wonderful. I got chills. After church their was Kuchen und Kaffee (cake and coffee) and conversation. I was able to sign up two readers during that time. I will be meeting with both of them later in the week! We went out to lunch after services with two ladies from the church, and then spent the rest of our day trying to adjust to the time change. Jetlag is annoying. 

This brings us to present day. We slept in this morning, which was probably not in our best interest, but it's ok. After we got up and around we came to the church building, had some lunch, and started to prepare for our readers. It's a slow start and currently we only have three people scheduled. Mom is reading with one of them, a lady named Brigit, right now. I will most likely be reading with her sister later in the week. This evening we will call former Readers and find out who is interested in continuing with the program. For now, I'm just reviewing some of the materials that we work with and adding in some questions I have for my readers as we look at the texts. 

We want to just say once more that we are so very thankful to everyone that helped us get here! You're support is the only reason all of this is even possible. Now that we are here, please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Pray for us as we move through this first week, and beyond. Pray that people will be open to continuing and that our schedules fill up a bit more. Pray that the Readers we are already having conversation sessions with are getting what they need out of this service; pray that we are able to connect and build relationships with them in a way that allows this experience to positively impact our lives and theirs. 

Thank you and God bless, 

That's all for now. 

Bye-bye!