Letter from Elsa - May 11, 2008
posted in Missions, Europe |
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your prayers. God is truly good!
My trip to California was wonderful, and turned out to be a little different than I had expected.
As you see in the photo, they didn’t just invite me to teach a class about my 35 years on the mission field. They also honored me with a Distinguished Christian Service Award. Originally, the award was supposed to be for both Jim and me, but when he died they decided to go ahead with it for me. Although I am not either used to nor very comfortable with so much honor, it was certainly nice to be recognized and appreciated. It was truly an uplifting week. Just being on that beautiful campus was like a vacation and the weather certainly increased that feeling. Although I graduated from Pepperdine, it was my first time to be back since they moved from the Los Angeles campus to Malibu.
I was only gone 10 days, but on the way to California, I got to have a few days with my sponsoring church, Lake Orion in Michigan, meeting the new elders and their wives and being thoroughly pampered by all. They even let me do a “dress rehearsal” of my class, which gave me a better feeling about it. And, on my way home to Bremen, I made a 24-hour stop in Memphis as well, so that I could attend worship instead of traveling on Sunday. It was a short visit, but thanks to my hosts, ART and AMY, who arranged a gathering for lunch, it was enough time to get to see a lot of dear friends. Thank you again to all of you who made my trip so pleasant.
LADIES’ RETREAT
Monday starts this year’s national women’s 5-day retreat near the city of Heidelberg, and this year, the women of the Bremen church are in charge of the program. It has not been easy to get it together, but now we are all looking forward to it. Please keep us in your prayers. We have been able to delegate a lot of tasks, but STEFANIE will be teaching a class, INGRID will be leading a workshop, and MICHAELA is sort of coordinating things. I will be teaching twice, but both are presentations I have done before here in Bremen. Even though they had to be adjusted somewhat, the second time around is lots easier. There is quite a group of us going – 12, including two visitors.
HARDING CAMPAIGN
The Monday after that (May 19), we are looking forward to welcoming ANDREW, ASHLEY, LAURA and ROSIE, students from Harding University, who will be coming to Bremen for four weeks with CHUCK and MELINDA Hicks offering free English conversation based on Bible texts. Before Jim got sick, we were planning for this year to have a student campaign group without an accompanying faculty member, but when Jim died, Chuck offered not only to prepare the students but also to accompany them. Their stay will be shorter than has been the case with campaigns in the past, but with the very weak dollar, this was a necessary adjustment. Please pray that there is time for us to get to know the people the meet. On this end, the preparations have been a group effort. ALICIA has taken the calls of people answering our newspaper and internet ads and posters, RUEDI, MICHAELA, SERGEJ and MICHAEL have gotten the second floor of the church building set up to house visitors, and I have been encouraging and advising from the wings.
UPDATES
HEATHER: The studies with Heather continue to go well. This week her older son got married, so we didn’t meet, but before I left for California, she asked me for a book to read while I was away. She has been reading diligently, and we will talk about it when I get back from the retreat.
DAVID (who has colon cancer and shared a room with Jim in the hospital): I talk on the phone with David often but don’t seem to be able to get past the outer shell. He has more pain now, which doesn’t help him to think about other things.
TAXES: Thank you for all the offers of help. I was able to talk to a CPA while at Pepperdine who is willing to help me get through it. That comes after the retreat, etc.
I am looking forward to things slowing down considerably in the near future. It has probably been good for me to be busy, but I am ready now to deal with missing Jim in the quiet times, too, and feel the need to take stock of what has been, what is and what should come. Over the years, I have usually stayed pretty busy, but I could rely on Jim’s vision to make sure we were on course. For me to do that myself will take some time and effort – and quiet. Thank you for accompanying me through these changes. Between you and the Lord, I feel very blessed.
Your fellow servant,
Elsa Springer