Some thoughts at 6 Months

>>>>some thoughts at 6 months. I never sent this out as a letter to friends. Not sure why.

Well, the end of March has just passed and that means our family has reached a milestone. We've lived in Germany for six months. This is a tremendous feeling. Why this is such a good feeling is what I will try and explain in this entry.

First of all it is quite natural to set goals in life and hope to attain them. The funny thing about this time line goal is that just surviving, just being alive at the end of the six months in this new and foreign land seemed to have been the goal.

How did we know that this would be such an important goal. Why did we have the feeling that if we make it to six months we might just make it. I can't really explain that. The only thing I can explain is what has happened to us during the six months. We've have some of the sweetest experiences and some of the most difficult experiences of our lives. My wife has documented many of these experiences very well in her Living in Germany blog. I will attempt to discuss of few experiences here.

I remember seeing my wife in a whole new light when we visited a sacrament meeting one Sunday in Mönchengladbach, Tamara's last city on her mission. That was cool. The Luchs family remembered Tamara and had invited her over for dinner that Sunday afternoon. When we arrived in church, brother Schuh, the current bishop of the congregation was so excited to see her, he started talking about the times when she was there and what happened to certain families in the time since she was last here. Then when he introduced the speakers for the day, he spoke with such conviction about the great spirit that Tamara had brought into the ward. I was filled with so much love and admiration for my wife on that day, it was great.

I next remember the Sunday morning in early January when Tamara and I drove to church in Düsseldorf when we both realized that it was 16 years earlier that Tamara and I had first met and that this was the spot on which we first met - in the church parking lot in Düsseldorf. That brief meeting in Januarary of 1991 came as Tamara was first arriving in Germany and then going to work in Dortmund with her first companion and I was leaving the mission office in Düsseldorf to work with a new companion in Duisburg. It was an awesome day, to reflect on our first meeting and feel so grateful that the Lord had brought us together.

On that day I truly felt that we were meant for each other. That Tamara was the perfect match for me. I thought back over the years together and about our first meetings here in Germany. Maybe other couples have the opportunity to return to the place of the first date or the first meeting and reflect on those first moments together and how they led to the rest of the enjoyable times together. For us, this opportunity was a bit more out of the way than your normal restaurant, but it was well worth the trip.

Working with the team that I work with has been great. I was asked to be the leader of a five person software testing team. All of the testers are inexperienced testers. One has training in business and a little bit of information technology background and is from Würzburg in southern Germany. The other four worked in a call center previously and are from the new German states (the former East Germany). The person who helped get me placed on the team is another American, Keith. He is the manager of testing and production support and I am his deputy manager of testing and quality assurance, so to say. Keith's wife is German and he enjoys living in Germany. We enjoy talking about life in Germany from an American point of view quite a bit and it was a huge help for my transition. Our team also works with Sweden and this has been enjoyable to work with the teams up there. The client manager is also very nice to work with. It's uncanny how well I fit in there. I hope that it will continue.

The challenging side shows up in the usual obvious struggles associated with moves, all of which were more difficult than expected, even for what we expected for our international move. These things include finding a house, shipping of household goods, establishing the kids in school, financing the trip, finding a car, working so many hours at a new job, and the obvious struggles my wife and children have faced finding their way in the new neighborhood, school, shopping styles, house, etc.. But, the things that made the transition most difficult are now seemingly so small.

I remember driving in the first week being incredibly difficult. I couldn't follow the street signs and instructions from traffic lights at the normal traffic speeds in a VW minivan and was constantly making wrong turns, because I was constantly trying to figure out what that sign two intersections ago, or two off ramps ago was trying to tell me. Well it was trying to tell me to turn left, but I missed that obvious point, and now I was stuck heading towards the Dutch border, not sure I would ever find my way back to my desired destination.

All of the fun of driving was topped off by attempting to fill up the VW rental with diesel in the first week. This relatively simple task required at least 20 minutes before I actually started putting diesel into to the tank.

First problem was the gas tank location. I'm not sure what genius in Volkswagen engineering came up with the idea to hide the gas cap, but whoever it was did a fine job of it. It took me roughly 10 minutes to find the gas cap. This consisted of 9 minutes of reading the manual (with no success) followed by 1 minute of asking a friendly gentleman at the pump. The gentleman just laughed as he recalled his first experiences with such a car, and helped me find the gas cap.

So what happened in the other 10 minutes before I started actually filling the tank with diesel? Well that was caused by the genius of the gas dispensing system in Germany. What I didn't realize is that there are three different types of diesel and hence three different types of pumps and nozzles. This prevents novices like me from putting the wrong type of diesel into one's car. The nice gentleman was still pumping his gas when I realized that the nozzle at the pump would never in a million years fit into the VW's gas tank. The gentleman explained the system and pointed out where the correct diesel pump was. I was at the medium sized truck diesel pump and needed to be at the car diesel pump (the normal one). I had to back up and wait to get into a spot at this car diesel pump. All told another 10 minutes had passed and then I was able to pump gas.

There were hundreds of similar experiences over the course of the first six months. All were similarly frustrating because I felt like I was missing something that everyone else knew already. These include, getting a cell phone, signing up for health, renters insurance, finding phone service for the house, applying for services, gas water, buying oil to heat the house, getting a monthly bus pass, opening a bank account, getting a loan for a car, getting the kids into school and into the correct grade, signing up for pre-school, finding bikes for the kids and Tamara, going to the doctor, finding a parking place for a minivan. All of these experiences have a story similar to the one above with the gas tank.

My wife would tell you the same thing I believe. For me it simply seemed like my judgment was constantly being clouded. I wasn't open to new ideas when I should have been. I relied on my own genius, when I should have asked for help. I asked for help, when I should have trusted my own judgment. And so things were just hard, like wading through water when you wanted so badly to be walking on water. For us the fact that we have made it thus far is very fulfilling.

The Risers are Gone

I will long remember the day that I found out the Risers were leaving. We had been in Germany for a few months and I was at the Riser's house yet again, this time to pick up a bed and dresser. It was a cold day in late November or early December. Spencer was with me. While loading the items in our car with Wade Riser, the dad, he informed me that his family would be returning to the States in early 2007, maybe even as early as January 2007.

As I got in the car and we were driving away I told Spencer the news. I cried for several minutes as did Spencer.

The Risers are an American Family that have lived in Germany for the past three years. The father works for Siemens as an engineer. Eva, the mother has generally about one or two extra kids at her house and is always doing nice things for other people. They have two boys (15 and 17 I think) who have lived in the States since the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year. They have three younger children, Sarah 12, Nathan 9, and Sandra 6 who live in Germany still.

Our kids love the Riser's kids. On our first Sunday when I saw Spencer playing soccer in the gymnasium with Nathan after church I thought Nathan was a German boy, because he spoke generally in German (Spencer did fine because you don't really need to speak any German to play soccer, although I've heard it helps). They have since become fast friends and Spencer loves being with another boy his age.

Hannah and Shantal play on a rotating basis with Sarah and Sandra. Just when one set is getting tired of playing together (say Sarah and Hannah), then the other set is ready for a break and they just naturally switch. Sarah is older, but enjoys being a big sister to our two girls (dress-up, make-up, arts and crafts, etc.).

All the kids play with Emma (our 18 month old daughter) or let her roam around their play areas and so she doesn't feel as left out at the Riser's either.

They have a great spirit about them and were a tremendous help to us when we first arrived. Their were so many people who did so much for us when we arrived and moved into our house, Sister Doris Klein, the Andre, Kraft, Crapo, Harzheim, and Grueneveld families among others helped make Christmas for our kids possible, cleaned our house when we were moving in, and did many amazing things for us. The Risers were among those who helped us, but since our two sets of children fit together so well, we ended up spending lots of time with them.

They spoke in church at the end of February 2007 and then there was a dinner held in their honor. It was such a strange feeling to see them go. They not only symbolically represented all of the help and support we have received since arriving, but were very literally the hands of God that reached down to us and made our transition into life here in Germany possible, especially for our kids.

The questions that kept going through my mind was how can we live without this same level of support that we had at the beginning of our journey? How will our children survive? Naturally had the Risers stayed we would not have seen them as much and our paths would have crossed less frequently and we would have mapped out our own lives here in Germany, but them leaving seemed to draw such a firm line and indicate so strongly that the time had come to move on from the "move to Germany" to everyday life in Germany.

2 Weeks to Departure

Well in 2 weeks, my wife and our five children will be flying to Düsseldorf Germany to live and work. My company, CGI, has contracts with Vodafone - a cell phone company. My company helps write the software that generates the cell phone bills, creates the unique pricing plans, etc. I will be working as a software developer for CGI.

One of the most exciting or nerve wracking aspects of our move is the age of our children - Shantal, age 8; Spencer, age 7; and Hannah, age 5. These are fine ages for travel. Young and exuberant and full of energy for new things. The excitement comes in when you consider Emma, age 16 months; and Ian, age 8 days. These two will make the trip very exciting.

You can view pictures of the little tykes at the link below. By the way if you need a photographer in Salt Lake City, I know a great photographer. My sister-in-law is a professional photographer and did a fine job on Ian's first days in the hospital:
http://www.annapagephotography.com/Ianrobert/