February 7th, 2016

At the beginning of December, I received a message from our friend, Anna. She asked how far the Frankfurt Airport was from our home and if we would be up for a visit. She was teaching in Bangladesh at the end of January and had the idea of trying to swing into Germany on her way home to see her exchange student “son” and our family. She didn’t know if it would work at the time but wanted to put feelers out. We have known Anna for years through our church and our boys have a sweet affinity towards her, especially our youngest. Just the idea of a visit from Anna got me excited. A couple of weeks later, the pieces came together and her tickets were booked!

Fast forward almost two months…

We just had the deep pleasure of hosting Anna here in our home this past week. She spent a few days in Berlin before taking the train to see us. We planned for Hubby to meet her at her last train transfer in Mannheim on Tuesday afternoon so they could ride in on the train together. By the grace of God, they found each other in the crowds of people and just barely caught their next train as they boarded with the doors closing. They took the bus for the last leg into our village on Tuesday evening. It was so surreal to have her walk through our front door when they arrived. Anna was actually HERE in Germany! These two were reunited at last.

Anna stayed through Friday afternoon. We wish we could have had her even longer. Her presence was an incredible gift to our entire family! She brought the familiarity of home and community, spent hours playing with the boys, 
 

 

stayed up for late night conversations, helped out with reading homework and insisted on giving us a date night…our first since we arrived back in November! Hubby and I got to catch up over coffee at our favorite coffee shop and then walked to one of the local restaurants in our village.

 

The maître D’ of the restaurant was an older gentlemen. He impressed us with his kindness and offered to help us navigate the menu. His recommendations were wonderful. We enjoyed our dinner immensely! One of the portions was a sample of sausage and mashed potatoes, compliments of the chef. We were told that the name of the sausage would not be translated for us in English as we would probably not eat it then! It was quite tasty and led to a guessing game of what we were dining on…perhaps it was better that we didn’t know.  As we were leaving, the maître D’ introduced himself. His name was Arnold. We gave our compliments to the chef (and owner) and Arnold invited us back to the kitchen to talk to him in person. The evening was a real treat!

Anna stepped right into our everyday lives helping out with dishes and laundry too. She spoiled us BIG TIME! Though we made an effort to be good hosts and show her around a bit (more on that in the next post), we still feel like we got the sweeter end of the deal. When we took her back to the train station on Friday afternoon, I couldn’t help but feel my cup overflowing with gratitude and the many blessings Anna showered upon us.

Thank you, dear Anna, THANK YOU!!!!!