Watching for the next turn
March 2, 2026
March 1: Spring flowers are in bloom…back in Freiburg. Here in Minnesota, it’s still snowball fetch season. Hmmm…
Playing in a 55+ pickleball group has replaced our near-daily village and vineyard walks. Mexican fajitas have replaced Turkish doner kebabs as our go-to menu item to share. Our beloved Northridge small group of empty nester couples has replaced our Freiburg small group of international students and graduates. Breakfast with grandkids has replaced tea with elderly German neighbors. Five-minute German lessons on my phone have replaced daily real-life conversations (and are a poor substitute).
We are doing our best to keep a missional focus, both local and distant. We continue to have prayer meetings over Signal with the future Bible school team and online meetings with couples in Germany and Switzerland. It’s encouraging to see these relationships continue and even grow in spite of over 4000 miles of space between us.
We have hosted dinners and shared stories from the trip with many friends and family members. This helps keep both the memories and the mission alive on our radar.
The most frequent question we get is “Are you going back?” The answer, we think, is “Yes!” It’s the details that are still rather fuzzy. We keep trying to zoom out and understand the big picture (see the GPS analogy in the previous update) but God is trying to keep us focused on just the next turn. We have at least three possibilities if/when we return to Germany:
1. Present more marriage, parenting and communication workshops hosted by local churches.
Now that we have established in-person relationships, we have a fledgling network of church contacts and references that could open doors to more invitations. We are intrigued by the idea of “marriage workshops as mission” because we discovered that our little workshops attracted not just church members but others in the community who might otherwise ignore or even avoid stepping into a church. Our workshops are unapologetically based on Biblical principles while not being “preachy,” a balance that seemed to land well even with non-believers.
2. Teach and support the new Bible college trying to launch near Freiburg.
This was our Plan A last year, but the Bible college didn’t launch. At this point in time, there is a rift between key players regarding governance that if unresolved could result in them starting separate schools, which nobody (including them) thinks is a great idea. Cal has very prayfully offered to assist with facilitating hard conversations to help move past this roadblock, and God has brought other skilled and experienced leaders into our network that may have a role to play. Much prayer is needed to bring unity to this effort!
3. Something completely different that we cannot even see yet.
4. All of the above.
Many of you reading this are people who pray—we highly value your prayers in this season of not knowing what’s next. We were privileged to glimpse lives impacted by our first trip, so we strongly desire guidance before making concrete plans for a next trip.
And finally, just to keep it interesting, we are writing. Back in Neuenburg at 5:00 AM when Cal couldn’t get back to sleep, he started writing the book that’s been in his head for 20 years. Now that we’re home with more time to spare, I’ve joined him in this endeavor. He dictates and uses tools to smooth out a draft of a chapter. Then I pick it up, add any thoughts and stories I have, and edit the whole thing into a working version. We’d like to have a manuscript done by the beginning of summer, but time will tell. It’s a combination of our marriage workshops, his counseling experiences, and our life journey together. It’s a little overwhelming to try and combine our very different styles of working and writing, and the content is so much larger than a blog post. So prayers for this would be great too!
The bottom line is we are keeping busy and trying not to make major life decisions without more clarity about the extent of future travels. We will keep you all posted as we know more!
February 26th – spring flowers blooming in Freiburg
Meanwhile back in Minnesota—Cal is playing snowball fetch with Murray
After breakfast with my granddaughter we watched a sled dog demonstration on Buffalo Lake
My attempt at making German beef roulade for dinner