Christmas at Camp ImpactPatti - January 07, 2018
This year, my sister and her husband flew to Germany and we drove/rode the train up from Switzerland to celebrate Christmas with my parents at Camp Impact.
This is their house. Ok, so they actually live in an apartment on one end of the second floor. If it looks to you like a gloomy communistic shared living community, you wouldn't be far off. The camp site has formerly been used as both an East German military training center and a refugee camp. The work my parents are doing to help restore it and turn it into a place where the gospel can reach the teens of Germany has already taken a number of years, and there is much more work to be done.
But my parents have a comfortable apartment and we enjoyed spending Christmas there. My sister and I had the surreal feeling of coming home, since my parents had moved all of their dishes and decorations over from the States. We experienced nostalgia while using the special winter snowman mugs, even though our surroundings were completely new.
On Friday, we visited a Weihnachtsmarkt - you can read all about that in this post: Christmas Markets: Weihnachtsmarkt
The next day we were able to attend Händel's Messiah, performed by the Meininger Hofkapelle and the Chor des Meininger Staatstheaters (the orchestra and choir of the state theater in Meiningen). Though it was performed in German, the music and message were as powerful as ever, and it was a special start to our Christmas celebration.
On Christmas Eve, we celebrated mom's birthday and attended a Christmas Eve service at my parent's church. You can see the cake I made for my mom here: Mom's Cozy Cabin Birthday Cake
We always start Christmas day by opening stockings. This year I found one of Miri's toys and a pacifier that I had thought we lost in the bottom of mine! Apparently Miri had fun playing with the stockings before we packed them! After breakfast, we open all the gifts under the tree. Here my husband is presenting Stephen with his first Swiss Army knife.
For Christmas dinner, we crammed ten adults and nine kids into my parents' living room. We had so much fun talking with other families from the U.S. and watching the kids play together.
On Tuesday, Julie and Stephen went with my parents to see the Wartburg (the castle where Luther translated the New Testament) while Elias and I had a quiet day at home.
Our final day together, we simply walked around Gotha, the city nearest my parents, so that Julie could picture my Mom's daily life a little bit better. We ended with Döner Kebabs and said goodbye to Julie and Stephen. We will miss them so much, but we are so grateful we could be together this year! A special thanks to them for all the pictures for this post.
