Dear Friends:

Spring is almost here. It still frosts at night, but the last of our snow has melted out of the shadows. It is still white up in the Swabian Alps (the hills nearby), and locals warn it can snow in the valley clear until April, but we have other plans!

Winter semester came to an end in February. The graduate colloquium at the University was the forum for several interesting presentations, both by doctoral students and some visiting professors. We were saddened to have to cancel the last meeting because the presenter’s mother was gravely ill, and he went home to north Germany to be with her. Former Institute director James Thompson, of Abiline Christian University, spent three weeks in Tuebingen as part of a sabbatical, and visited the colloquium. We were glad to see him again, and host him for dinner a time or two, and he took Cherie and me out to a nice restaurant before he left.

We continue to wait for the finalizing of our formal agreement with the University. The EES Board accepted the terms of the contract at their executive meeting last October, and now the contract is making its way through University committees. My status is up in the air until the contract is ratified, but in the mean time Prof. Lichtenberger has invited me to continue co-hosting the graduate colloquium. I am making plans to teach a theological German course for foreign graduate students, a provision of the contract.

The English-language service continued to be well-attended, which for us in an average of around fifteen, not counting special events. We had over twenty at our end of the semester celebration, a sing followed by refreshments. We plan to kick off for summer semester on the first Sunday in May.

Work on the floors in the basement of the Institute building has dragged on all winter. You may recall that we had flash flooding in Tuebingen last August and September, with knee-deep water in the street in front of the Institute and flooding in the basement. After a long process of dehumidification (and an even longer process of working with the insurance company and the contractors), there is new carpet in the pastor’s study, and new vinyl in the fellowship room. It is all done now, with the exception of the baseboards in the fellowship room. A non-standard size coupled with an unusual construction technique has caused us some trouble. The firm that did the vinyl bid quite high on the baseboard, but we think we have the problem solved (with the third contractor we have approached).

Now we are in the long semester break, with classes resuming the last week of April. We are taking advantage of the break to catch up on some projects, and to plan for Summer Semester. I am working on another paper on 2 Peter, which I will present next semester. I am also having study sessions with a Romanian doctoral student whom I met last semester in the lectures on the Gospel of John. He is working on the prologue of John for the New Testament part of his orals, which will take place next semester, and asked me to help him prepare. Today after our session he joined us for lunch (Cherie again fixed chili, which is a big hit among both Germans and our international friends).

One big task after the start of the break was painting my office. This allowed me to finally get the furniture into a permanent arrangement, hang pictures on the wall, and put the rest of my books onto the shelves. The preparatory clean-up included removing the tattered and dirty room rug, which I discovered hid a major problem with the floor. Most of the tiles are loose at the edges and curling up, and several are broken. We had a couple contractors measure for bids, and the news is not good. Because of the need to redo the sub-flooring, it will cost quite a bit to replace the floor. In the meanwhile we are shopping for an inexpensive are rug. . . .

We also took the necessary time to shop for and buy a car. Once we both had resident’s permits (a multi-stage process which took most of the fall), we could make the necessary applications for German driver’s licenses (more “passport” pictures, and paying to have our Kansas licenses officially translated into German). We made multiple trips to the required state and city offices, and paid multiple fees. Thankfully, we did not have to take a driving exam or go to driving school.

We had the money transferred from our American savings account (more hoops to jump), and were shocked to find that between fees on both ends and the miserable exchange rate, we had lost 10% of our money. We had to drop our plans to buy a one- or two-year-old VW from a factory employee, and canceled our trip to Wolfsburg. After some checking around I arranged for insurance, which allowed us to go ahead and look for a car here.

Cherie and I did some car shopping around Tuebingen by bus and on foot. It is hard to buy a car if you don’t own a car--most of the car dealers are out in one of the industrial parks, and hard to get to. A friend took me to Reutlingen, a bigger town about 15 miles away, where we found a late model car with low Kilometerstand (“mileage”). The best part is we paid four thousand Euros less than the going rate for comparable VW Golf, had we been able to find one. With gasoline at 1.12 Euros a liter, a tank full costs nearly $60 US. So we are pretty sparing of our driving habits.

We have been interviewing applicants for the Office Manager position. In December Ingrid Schmidt announced she had accepted another job. It is exactly in keeping with her training, and this company sought her out–she was not looking. Though we will miss her, we wish her well. We need “superwoman” at half time and low pay, so I was dreading the hiring process. Ingrid and I updated the job description together, and she handled the advertising and the preliminary interviews.

I am happy to announce that we have hired Birgit Sumey, a highly qualified woman who has already begun training. Ingrid will continue two days a week through the end of March, when Birgit will take over and be expected to handle everything as expertly as did her predecessors, Ingrid Schmidt and Ursula Schneider! They were excellent! Former director Ron Heine is to be commended in hiring those two. I have already told Birgit that she has a tough act to follow.

We had a farewell dinner for Ingrid Schmidt last weekend. Besides the Caulleys and the Kautts, Ingrid and two of her boys, we were joined by Dr. Beth Langstaff, interim director until my arrival, and by Dr. Monica Herghelegiu, who helped Beth with the library. At Ingrid's urging Birgit also joined us and was introduced to our circle of friends. It looks like we are going to have a smooth transition. Happily, though her job is centered in Basel, Switzerland, Ingrid has decided not to move out of Tuebingen. So we expect to see her on occasion.

In February our cleaner quit, and Cherie took on the job for five hours a week. Besides painting and scrubbing the floor in my office, she has used the occasion to clean out corners from my third floor office to the basement, as well as the storage shed out back. When we had to clear out all the furniture from the minister’s study and the fellowship room to do the floors, Cherie sorted through piles of stuff (junk) accumulated over the years. The timing was right: in the last two weeks were the annual pick-up days for scrap metal, wood waste, and “big garbage.” We hauled lots of stuff to the curb on those three days. This week she painted the secretary’s office, and I replaced the ceiling light fixture. She is hoping it will stop raining for a few days, so she can get the "green material" (garden waste) packed into the prescribed paper bags in time for the semi-annual pick-up day in April.

Later in March we will fly to Italy for three days of planning meetings for the Mid-Winter Rally, the annual meeting of Christian Church missionaries in Europe. We attended the rally after Christmas in Hermeskeil, a resort area about three hours north and west of here. Before we left Hermeskeil, Cherie was on the planning committee, so here we go.

On April 10 we will fly to Rochester, New York, for Justin's senior recital. He requested we attend that rather than graduation, which is a month later (Cherie will return for graduation). Alisha will be on Spring Break, so she and Marty will travel to Rochester and meet us there. We extended our stay in order to attend the annual EES board meeting in Atlanta, and will travel from Rochester by way of Johnson City. Alisha had a good first semester at Emmanuel School of Religion, where she is working on a master's degree.

Justin's plans to study in Paris are on hold while he pursues an invitation to do gradutate work at the Universitaet Mozarteum in Salzburg. A month or so ago he had an audition with a professor visiting from the Mozarteum, who has encouraged him to come over. So now it looks like he will come to Tuebingen in June and travel to Salzburg for further auditions. If all goes well, he plans to start there in October. He can still go to Paris on occasion for lessons if he wishes.

Thanks to you all for your interest in our work here, and your faithful support. May God richly bless you.

love,

Scott and Cherie Caulley