Silvester!

Germans call the New Year holiday Silvester. It is so named after Pope Silvester I who died on December 31, 335. Germans celebrate the New Year very loudly...don't we all? As missionaries in Berlin, Karl and I had to go home before dark and go to bed at the usual time and stay off the streets. Of course, it was hard to sleep because all I and my mission companion could hear were very loud fireworks. They never used the colorful kind of fireworks that we could have watched from our windows, just the very loud kind that prevented us from sleeping. And the next morning the streets were dead to the world and it was impossible not to avoid stepping on any kind of fireworks remains.

This Silvester, Karl and I had a quiet evening at home grilling pizzas on the balcony, watching movies, and playing games until just before midnight when we watched the countdown from Berlin on TV. And then the fireworks began...it was both beautiful and terrifying! They were all very loud and very colorful and very close! We watched at first from our third-floor balcony that over looked the street below and farm fields beyond. Someone was setting off fireworks in the street just below us and the fireworks would scream up into the air and explode just about at the level of our balcony! I kept expecting one to blow our faces off! So we went to the window at the other end of the apartment that looked out over the city of Bühl and the Black Forest mountains...the sight was breathtaking! Colored lights were exploding everywhere!! The entire valley and city of Bühl was covered with a blanket of exploding colored lights...near, far, and everyone in between! More fireworks were exploding higher up in the mountains. Karl took the photos below, but really they don't do the spectacle justice!









To us, it actually looked more like this (a photo of some Silvester fireworks in the German city of Zwickau).

Our landlords gave us this large bread loaf in the shape of a pretzel...apparently they are for good luck in the New Year!



We feel hardley deserving of yet more good luck...we've had so much of it this past year! We are amazed at how much we have been blessed. It has been a year of transitions...the past 6 months since Karl's graduation has been especially hectic, we've hardly had a chance to take it all in. We've moved not once, but twice, have said goodbye to dear friends in Michigan and have found new ones in our new home. A year ago we were looking forward to Karl's graduation and wondering where we would be celebrating the New Year in another year...we are still surprised to wake up most days to find that our dream of living in Germany again has come true! We hope 2007 will bring all of you great joy and that you are looking forward to the new year as much as we are!