German Coffee....Literally

We have three older ladies in the church, we call them the Omi's which means grandmas in english. I have been to have coffee with one of them many times and two of the three are really good friends, so she is usually there. Well, usually I go with Karen or Pam.

I have been looking for more things to do, since readers and class don't fill my daily schedule (talk about a wake up call, going from working full time and being a full time student to not working full time and not being a full time student is a huge adjustment!) as much as I would like. Anyways, we asked the older ladies if there was anything I could do to help, do some shopping or help clean or anything. Well, one of them said for me just to stop by for coffee so I said okay I would, and we set up a date for Friday. I had to cancel because I had a meeting with a new LST contact on Friday at the same time, but we rescheduled for today.

I speak very little German. Enough to get by. They, the two that are good friends, speak no english. I went alone. Flowers in hand (it is customary to bring a gift when going to someone's house), I ashamedly arrived 15 minutes late because I got off at the wrong stop. Being late isn't common here either... people are pretty punctual, which usually as am I, however I get lost a lot.... Anyways, I made it! While I was walking up the way, I see two lovely old ladies peak over the balcony 7 stories up in a DDR apartment building and wave like crazy at me, i laugh and wave back!

The coffee went very well! It wasn't to hard to understand, and they both worked really hard to use simple words, which are the ones I know. There was a little pantomiming, and I had to pull out my dictionary a couple times, but over all it was a good time. I'm hoping in a few weeks to have them over for lunch.

Side note: I saw lots of pictures, one of which was a large photo of a trip they took to Jerusalem in 96. Keep in mind these ladies were around 70 then. They pointed out where they were in this group of around 100-150 people. The very back, everyone one was smiling and looking up at the camera. They were in the back striking poses such as the one above!
haha perfect! I hope im that cool when I'm their age!

Be good and do good!

Sarah B

Quote: The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing! The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles! Ralph Waldo Emmerson