I couldn't help but think of the classic Peaches & Herb song "reunited" as Jonathan and I waited at the Munich airport for the Mann family. When they stepped out of customs we all made our own various excited noises and gave lots of hearty hugs. Not to be cheesy, but it felt like a missing piece of our life puzzle was slipped back into place. Now the Manns are recovering from jet lag and we're going to get back into the swing of community living and being a team. Jonathan and I are quite excited!
Recently we've been experiencing a bunch of new things. Jonathan and I got to watch a soccer match in Linz. An awesome friend from Mauthausen bought tickets for us all. It was a heated game with the local Linz team playing against the team from Salzburg. We were in the standing section surrounded by hard core fans. There was a man on a small platform with a megaphone who bellowed out cheers for us to follow. It was a blast standing with Jonathan and our friend screaming, chanting, and rooting for our Lask Linz boys. I wasn't surprised to find my voice was gone by the end of the night. Now I can confidently say I've experienced a European soccer game.
Jonathan has been newly exposed to the motorcycle community. He's been learning a lot about his new bike and the coolest part is how it produces relationships! We recently met a sweet guy who also owns a motorcycle and he and Jonathan got to go on an amazing ride through the Austrian countryside. It is also great how we keep meeting people who know how to work on and repair bikes. Jonathan now has several people he can ask for help and he is planning on having some tinker/garage workdays with some other motorcycle fellows.
Another new endeavor has been backyard harvests! We have an apple tree out front that has proved to be quite the producer. Even with just one tree there is a good bit of work involved. It is important to trim it, clean up all the windfall fruit, and then of course picking the ripe apples. Jonathan and I recently whipped out the ladders and had a harvest frenzy, picking all the apples we could find that the wasps hadn't gotten to. With upwards of 50 apples I had to find some mass way to use them. Juicing was the solution. So we enjoyed the delicious sweet juice of our labors and gave a couple bottles away to neighbors.
This past Sunday we got to spend sometime with a cool group of young people from Mauthausen. It was kind of a cross cultural event because the local young people or Land Jugend group was meeting up with the group of young folks from the Muslim Turkish group of Mauthasuen. We took a tour of both the Catholic church and the Mosque and both groups had some Q & A time to answer questions about their faith. The leader of the Land Jugend expressed that this is a challenging topic and has caused tensions between the young people in Mauthausen before. He was glad to see so may people from both groups show up. Afterwards there was pizza to eat and the guys played a game of soccer while the ladies played some volleyball and card games. It was so great to see such respect between everyone. There was really an atmosphere of interest in getting to know one anther as people not just stereotypes.
Thanks friends and family for reading :) We love you all so so much!!!
-Rach
Recently we've been experiencing a bunch of new things. Jonathan and I got to watch a soccer match in Linz. An awesome friend from Mauthausen bought tickets for us all. It was a heated game with the local Linz team playing against the team from Salzburg. We were in the standing section surrounded by hard core fans. There was a man on a small platform with a megaphone who bellowed out cheers for us to follow. It was a blast standing with Jonathan and our friend screaming, chanting, and rooting for our Lask Linz boys. I wasn't surprised to find my voice was gone by the end of the night. Now I can confidently say I've experienced a European soccer game.
Jonathan has been newly exposed to the motorcycle community. He's been learning a lot about his new bike and the coolest part is how it produces relationships! We recently met a sweet guy who also owns a motorcycle and he and Jonathan got to go on an amazing ride through the Austrian countryside. It is also great how we keep meeting people who know how to work on and repair bikes. Jonathan now has several people he can ask for help and he is planning on having some tinker/garage workdays with some other motorcycle fellows.
Another new endeavor has been backyard harvests! We have an apple tree out front that has proved to be quite the producer. Even with just one tree there is a good bit of work involved. It is important to trim it, clean up all the windfall fruit, and then of course picking the ripe apples. Jonathan and I recently whipped out the ladders and had a harvest frenzy, picking all the apples we could find that the wasps hadn't gotten to. With upwards of 50 apples I had to find some mass way to use them. Juicing was the solution. So we enjoyed the delicious sweet juice of our labors and gave a couple bottles away to neighbors.
This past Sunday we got to spend sometime with a cool group of young people from Mauthausen. It was kind of a cross cultural event because the local young people or Land Jugend group was meeting up with the group of young folks from the Muslim Turkish group of Mauthasuen. We took a tour of both the Catholic church and the Mosque and both groups had some Q & A time to answer questions about their faith. The leader of the Land Jugend expressed that this is a challenging topic and has caused tensions between the young people in Mauthausen before. He was glad to see so may people from both groups show up. Afterwards there was pizza to eat and the guys played a game of soccer while the ladies played some volleyball and card games. It was so great to see such respect between everyone. There was really an atmosphere of interest in getting to know one anther as people not just stereotypes.
Thanks friends and family for reading :) We love you all so so much!!!
-Rach