The past year happened, right?

This update may be the first you have received by email, or perhaps the first that you have received by email in some time. It may seem to have come out of the blue. Technically, that’s not true. It came from the cloud. Ha-ha. What is true is that Katherine and I have been getting our various lists in better order, and that includes adding or correcting addresses. Please read on!

After a long journey, I often experience a strange sort of amnesia: the period immediately before it seems to recede into a fog. The worst instances of this happen after vacations—after all, who wants to forget a restful holiday? I travel forewarned now.

Katherine, the boys, and I have been back in Germany for close to two months. To make a long story short—in case you want to stop reading early, our arrival and settling in has gone pretty well. We’re thankful!

A45 Autobahn
We arrived to blue skies and a dry land.

It was comforting to all of us to be back, but there was also a discomforting feeling of not having been gone. There was a sense of the past year and all of our experiences in the U.S. fading and seeming not quite real. Thankfully, contact with family and friends put that notion to rest!

Here are some of the things for which we’re most grateful:

  • a decently-sized apartment on the center to live in until we move into the house we’re going to rent
  • that our car was ready and waiting for us, and that it had been well cared-for
  • that our German driver’s licenses were ready and waiting for us at the DMV
  • that we had the chance to visit the house we’re going to rent and assure ourselves that it would suit our needs
  • friends and colleagues who gave us a warm welcome home
  • that the process of obtaining our residence permits went smoothly and quickly
  • that the boys have jumped right back in to their school and their extracurricular activities
Karimu and beyond
The view from our apartment, across the main lodgings of Karimu.

So, how’s work going? For me, there’s not been a dull moment yet. Shortly after returning to work, I began planning a necessary upgrade to the phone system. When the day of the upgrade came, it didn’t go quite as planned. I adjusted. A few weeks later, a hardware component failed. I adjusted. Such is my life and work, I guess. And there are more big projects to come!

Katherine has returned to her work in the library, but that’s not all! She’s also filling in at Wycliffe Germany’s reception desk to cover for a woman on maternity leave. (So, if I mess up the phone system, she knows.) Like the boys, she’s also resumed her exercise groups in the adjacent village.

It’s great to see on a daily basis that what each of us does influences the effectiveness of Wycliffe Germany and its contribution to the work of Bible translation throughout the world. Here are the topics for which you can pray as we work through the next few months:

  • the drafting and submission of the IT budget during challenging times
  • the nationally-mandated upgrade of phone service to VoIP
  • the expected switch to cloud services for email and some file sharing
  • the long-overdue change to the library catalog system

We’re glad to have you all to read about our ministry with Wycliffe, to pray for us personally and professionally, to maintain us in this life through your support, and to encourage us through email and social media. We feel the presence of the Lord our God in all of it!

Until the next time …

Sunset in the Hickengrund
Sometimes we’re treated to beautiful sunsets!
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David Liddle

I grew up in Media, Pennsylvania, close to Philadelphia. I graduated from The Citadel in 1994. In 1995, I joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and have served in Africa, the United States, and Germany. Katherine and I were married in November 1998.

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