Almost all the senior missionaries serving in the area office live in an apartment complex just outside Frankfurt in a town named Bad Homburg. By going through the large underground parking lot, we can reach all the other missionaries’ apartments without ever going outdoors. After serving in Missouri, I really appreciate having a garage to park in. Many of the parking spots are elevated so that two cars can occupy one space.
On Monday evening we boarded a train that took us to Hamburg, on the north coast. Hamburg is Germany’s largest port city. We took an express train, which traveled at speeds over 150 mph.
Our meeting on Tuesday was with Caritas im Norden. Caritas is a global confederation of over 160 Catholic charity organizations working in more than 200 countries; the group we met with is their charity in northern Germany. We were referred to this group by the Caritas people we are doing another project with from Vienna. In the Europe Central Area, our humanitarian efforts are focused on doing larger projects and partnering with other NGOs, rather than doing many smaller projects directly with beneficiaries. The hope is that by doing this, our Church’s humanitarian efforts can reach and benefit more people.
The Caritas representatives we met with were both very professional and delightful. They showed us three projects that they are working on that we could possibly partner on. One focused on volunteers providing services to migrants and impoverished individuals that need help in a variety of ways. The second, focused on giving aid to the refugees from the war in Ukraine. And the third involves creating a center where homeless women will be housed, receive counseling and be taught life skills.
We said goodbye to Elder and Sister Lamb on Wednesday. We appreciate very much the efforts that they have taken to teach us. Now we are on our own. The first thing we did in the office on Friday morning was make up a list of things we knew needed to be done and divided the tasks between us. It seemed to work well, so we will possibly continue the practice until we figure out a better way to apportion the work between us. It feels good to me (Russell) to once again be working closely with Eileen in a common assignment after our last two missions where we had different assignments.
The ICE train (Inner City Express) was extremely smooth. We couldn't even tell we were moving, despite going 246 km per hour as indicated on this sign.
We didn't want to haul our luggage around on visits. We fit our computer, toiletries and clean clothes for the next day in Russell's briefcase. That was a first for Eileen to pack so lightly.
Despite being very cold, there were several flower shops displaying bouquets outside.
We were taken to a project where Ukrainian refugees are allowed to come and choose free clothes. The clothes are all donated, washed and sorted by size. It was extremely well organized.. This project is operated by a number of volunteers, most of which speak Ukrainian.
Who is your Mission President there?
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