The maintenance team did a great job renovating our house, putting a new IKEA kitchen in, painting the walls and redoing the floor in the living room. We especially like the fireplace for the cold winter days to come.

We share our house with Brad and Cece and their little daughter Kayley. They live upstairs. We know them from our time as students here. Brad is the kitchen manager and prepares the meals for the many students, staff and guests that come through Holsby. He loves gardening and we’ve already enjoyed some of his homegrown tomatoes.

The last few weeks Danny has been preparing for the students to arrive. Which will be in another 2 weeks. As basketball coach he organized gym times for practices and is scheduling games with the local Swedish teams. In between he got a little refresher course in the ropes course so that he can also take groups and students up into the trees.

Miri, Manuela’s neighbor from back home, came to visit us. She loved her time here at Holsby and made many new friends. We had a great 10 days together and it was sad to say good-bye to her.

The school’s new website is online - complete with pictures of us! Check it out at www.holsby.org

We filled our new kitchen with Yoggi (swedish joghurt), sour cream and onion chips and Marabou chocolate. We visited IKEA and Manuela was excited to see that they have even more things than in Germany!

On our little canoe trip down on the Eman river we experienced the unpredictable Swedish weather and got pretty soaked.

Our guests have gone home now and it is time for us to settle down into life and work here at the school. We are looking foward to serving here over the next years and hope to get started on our Swedish soon.

Yesterday we had our big move! We managed to fill our rented truck (7,5 tons) all the way to the edge. It was unbelievable!

Together with the help of 3 friends we managed to load everything in 2 hours and hand over the keys to the person who will move in after us.

Manuela’s workmate together with two of his kids volunteered to drive the truck to Sweden and back. That was a big help for us! By now the furniture has arrived safely in Sweden and lots of volunteers are helping to unload everything at the school.

It is great to see how God provides the right people at the right time. We are so thankful for eveyone who helped to make this big move go as smooth as possible.

Lots of people came and enjoyed a good evening of  fellowship together. Friends from work, our bible study group, friends from church and bible school and Danny’s basketball guys. It was great to see all of them one last time before we head off to Sweden.

It got really hot in our living room with 27 people. Good thing Danny had a creative idea with the drinks. He found a large container in the forest and filled it with ice. The cold drinks were refreshing for our guests.

We will miss all of the friends we made here and are thankful for all of the good times that we could share.

It was a great evening with a little discgolf, Duck-Duck-Goose und board games.

We will definately miss those young fellows.

We had a great time with Eva and Arne. We had lots of time to catch up and Manuela could join them for their church service. This was very encouraging.

On Friday we all gathered in a great open air restaurant for the big soccer game Germany against Serbia. Lots of cheering and shouting … we loved it! Danny’s parents blessed us with the right outfits to cheer for Germany.

This weekend Danny held the “Hoops” basketball camp in Andernach (close to Koblenz) about half an hour from our house. Young basketball players came together to improve their skills and to hear more about God. Spontanious as Danny is, he invited Manuela along to cook for the boys and girls which she enjoyed doing …

… starting out with a practice on Friday, bible study in the evening and the big game on Saturday against the SG Basket team.

This year we had we had two guests from “Ambassadors in Sports” at the camp. Two young men, Phil from Mexico and Glen from Northern Ireland. They are travelling for 75 days through 11 European countries to motivate and encourage different Christian Sports Missions. They joined us for the weekend to help with the SRS Hoops Camp, gave testamonies and shared about their lives with Jesus. The teens enjoyed having them very much.

We stayed at the “City Church” in Andernach, a former russian pub located just above the casino. On Sunday we joined the church for Sunday service and enjoyed worshipping together with “Sonsaid”, the band who played at our wedding as well.

The inputs and sermon throughout the weekend really touched, challenged  and encouraged us. For Manuela it was also great to get to know the players a little better and to be part of the camp.

Danny enjoyed playing pool with Glenn, the next Ronny O’ Sullivan of Northern Ireland.

… to have teenagers not only from Israel but also from Palistine at the LTC camp.

The testamony of a young man from Bethlehem (Palistine area) touched me deeply. He grew up with hatred towards the Israelis, and still today it is difficult for him to see the Israeli flag, which still symbolizes hostility to him. But he also had bad experiences and carries deep wounds caused by his people, the muslems. His aunt died on a bus in Israel when the Hamas once again attacked Israel.

For me it was encouraging to see how on the one hand German Christians together with Messianic Jews become one in Jesus and on the other hand how God gives forgiveness between the Israelis and the Palistines. There is still a long way to go, but I’m excited to see what God still has planned for his people.

Once again Danny was part of the drama team. For his role this time he had to put quite a bit of weight on to represent the character well. As grumpy old American boxing coach he made everybody laugh.

The highlight for the teens was probably the ralley through the forest. The teens were sponsored per lap to collect money to pay for the flights for the teenagers from Israel and Palistine.  They had so much fun and “coach” was encouraging them as well as he could.

They are a fine group of young people, who set one year apart to serve God with their gifts. They travel Germany in a bus and invite people in for a cup of tea or coffee and talk about God and their personal relationship with Jesus. It is a great opportunity to reach young people where they are at concerts, in shopping streets, etc …

Carsten, Simeon, Christian, me and Michal celebrating the bright and sunny day here in Stahlhofen. Spring is coming!

Manuela has been working from home for two days now, because she can’t get to work without the bus. She enjoys the extra sleep she gets that way.

This morning the neighbors had to help push our little Peugot car out of the parking spot where it got stuck, so that Danny could drive to work. It’s good to get to know the neighbors better that way.

We truely enjoy the snow! It has not snowed that much here in almost 30 years! It is just amazing!