We're Heeeeere! (day 3, first day with internet...)

We made it - despite literally sprinting through the Dublin airport to make our connection.....yikes, glad that's over! Monday, day 1, was a total wash - we weren't able to sleep on the flights very well, so Monday was a fatigued blur. It also really hit us how this is not another vacation trip to see friends and family - we have a lot on our plates this week, so prayers would be great.

Tuesday was much better - we woke up refreshed and are so thankful for the room we have in the guest apartment. We went to Stefan's school and met with the various principals and I was introduced to a few collegues - everybody seems nice and it looks like a pleasant place for Stefan to work. He found out that he'll mainly be working with 5th grade students - this is the youngest group he has ever worked with, and a major change from the graduate level Greek group at the seminary! Pray for him in this transition - I'm sure he'll be posting more on this later. (good news is that he's only got 2 classes to teach on Friday, so low stress there!)

He's also encountered some red tape with the doctors visit that's required to get this official job contract (and a first paycheck!) - please send out some mega prayers on this! It's a stress factor at this point and we'd really like this to be taken care of Thursday morning with no problems....

We are excited to be here.....but we have so many logistical details to juggle - please pray hard! We have a rental car this week and return it on Monday - we'd really like to return it earlier to save €'s, so we need to find a car before then. We're hoping for an older 4dr car for around 2,000€s. We've been hunting as much as possible, but it seems that we have to wait for the Friday and Saturday papers to come out with their classifieds.

We also need an apartment ... something else the classifieds are important for! We're in a place where apartments go FAST, so it could be rented out before you even show up for your appointment to view it - with so many appointments it's a little nerve-wracking....

I have my language test tomorrow morning at the University - I'm not too worried about it, but we haven't been able to get the details (where and when exactly is it?!), so that's another thing to pray about.....we're calling first thing in the am and will be ready to run at that point....oh boy.

We're also looking at the myriad of health care plans, phone/DSL plans, etc. ---- LOTSA stuff to go through, and all in German, so you know who's sifting through it all....pray for Stefan!! Some of you may already know we signed up for Vonage before we left the States - we need an apt. that is capable of DSL to hook it up (yep, you can pray for that too! some of these houses were built in the 1700's - and we thought the Parish House was old....) - If the Vonage connection works out, you can call an Indiana area code phone number and get the phone to ring at our house in Germany - and no international calling rate for you!

That's the scoop folks - hopefully we can post updates sooner next time, but it all depends on getting internet access. Now we know of a cheap internet cafe (albeit super hot in here!), so updates should be more frequent!