We are in our fifth year in Germany and Switzerland. According to European Union law, when a foreign resident is in the country for five years, he or she must become proficient in the local language (German) in order to get the work visa renewed for subsequent years.
We are not proficient according to the government standards and although we tried to get an exception, we are being required to take an intensive, seven-month German course at an approved language school before we will be eligible to have our visas renewed so we can stay here next year.
Thankfully, through your giving to our ministry fund while we were touring the States last year, we now have the finances needed to pay for the class, which is rather expensive (several thousand dollars). We could not afford to take the classes prior to now. We are really grateful to you all for helping to make this happen so we can stay.
The class started on Monday. It meets five days a week, from 8:30 a.m. until 12:40 p.m., and with the exception of August, it will run from now until Dec. 23.
It's a bit overwhelming to do this 4 hours a day, every day. It makes us tired mentally and physically. However, it's also a lot of fun. We have really wanted to get a lot better in German and weren't able to afford it during the first four years. We are really excited to be able to have deeper conversations with our friends and acquaintances in the very near future.
It's also fun to be in a class with 16 other people from a variety of nations. We haven't had much chance at conversation yet, but know there will be many opportunities. Our class consists of six people from Turkey, three people from Syria, and the others hail from: Nigeria, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand. We are among the oldest people in the class; most are in their 20s.
We could use your prayers on a variety of angles concerning our class:
We are not proficient according to the government standards and although we tried to get an exception, we are being required to take an intensive, seven-month German course at an approved language school before we will be eligible to have our visas renewed so we can stay here next year.
Thankfully, through your giving to our ministry fund while we were touring the States last year, we now have the finances needed to pay for the class, which is rather expensive (several thousand dollars). We could not afford to take the classes prior to now. We are really grateful to you all for helping to make this happen so we can stay.
The class started on Monday. It meets five days a week, from 8:30 a.m. until 12:40 p.m., and with the exception of August, it will run from now until Dec. 23.
It's a bit overwhelming to do this 4 hours a day, every day. It makes us tired mentally and physically. However, it's also a lot of fun. We have really wanted to get a lot better in German and weren't able to afford it during the first four years. We are really excited to be able to have deeper conversations with our friends and acquaintances in the very near future.
It's also fun to be in a class with 16 other people from a variety of nations. We haven't had much chance at conversation yet, but know there will be many opportunities. Our class consists of six people from Turkey, three people from Syria, and the others hail from: Nigeria, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand. We are among the oldest people in the class; most are in their 20s.
We could use your prayers on a variety of angles concerning our class:
- That we will be adept at absorbing this new information and retaining it.
- That we will be able to manage our time so that we can get all our other work done with only four hours in the afternoon each day to do it and meet our deadlines.
- That God will show us opportunities to share His love with our new classmates.
- That we will have the physical and mental strength and energy to keep up. It's only been four days but we have gotten increasingly weary with each day.
