Lotvola Update June 2020 It's hard to believe we are into June already. On one side it's great to know the first half of 2020 is behind us and on the other we're sure to face continual challenges in the coming months. Who would have thought this year would have developed in this way at Christmas time last year? Here's what we've been up to recently. Family In February we were able to get cheap flights to Fargo so we jumped at the chance to visit Minnesota in winter time.The girls had time off of school and we wanted to surprise a few folks. It worked. It was also incredible timing because we were still able to fly before this virus threw us into chaos. So we really enjoyed seeing our families, friends, and home church in Strawberry Lake. It was a refreshing time even if it was in the middle of a crisp Minnesota winter. The girls had never really seen that much snow and ice before and we enjoyed all the standard recreational activities with them. We went snowmobiling, skiing, skating, and dug lots of holes in snowbanks around grandma and grandpa Muff's yard. Thanks to everyone who loaned us clothes and organized stuff for us to do while we were there. It was cold, but it was awesome. Top: Naomi on grandpa Jory's snowmobile. Above: Anika with her brand new cousin, Samantha. Roberta has also been working on an online permaculture course. Some eyebrows get raised when we bring up that term so let me explain. Permaculture is a melded form of "permanent" and "agriculture". She says it's basically designing gardens and orchards to mimic nature without chemical fertilizers.Think of compost fertilizers, companion planting, and water management. We've been trying to initiate these ideas around our yard here in inner city Kaiserslautern. Bird has amazing herbs, fruits and vegetable all around our building that make our center look like an oasis in a concrete jungle. A couple views of our urban gardens in early June this year. The girls have been home-schooling like most kids in the world since mid-March. They have missed their friends but things are getting more relaxed here in Germany and we're now able to have small get-togethers and even have church services outdoors. For a while we were a bit lonely in this big building without discipleship participants or visitors. Today, June 15th, all three of our girls went to school for the first time since June. (Yes, we still have school). Just a couple more weeks and the ladies will have their summer break. They look forward to not having homework. For the most part our girls have done an amazing job at keeping up with school although they haven't been able to be bodily present in their lessons. Homeschooling I, Mike, had a bit of time to build a chair in the garage, read some, catch up on projects and continue my workout regimen. My health is getting better and better. I was at a cardiologist a while back and he told me to keep up the good work. My family practice doctor took me off some medications and told me to keep doing whatever I've been doing. In March, we also decided as a family to try out a vegetarian diet. Bird and the girls don't eat much meat anyhow, so it wasn't a big adjustment. Since then, I have begun to feel a lot better and have dropped a bit more weight. After three months I honestly don't really miss meat and think we're going to stick with it. My doctor said it's much healthier if we can continue with it. Corona We have not had direct contact with COVID patients, but we've heard of friends and family of friends getting sick. Thank the Lord that the bug has kept it's distance from our family and participants. We've had acquaintences tested for it, but everything came back fine. When this broke out all of our discipleship school kids had to stop working and stay home. We kept them busy for a while with projects. But it didn't take long and they asked it they could go home to their parents if there wasn't going to be anything to do. So to avoid an outright mutiny, we let them all go home. They were all home for between 3-4 weeks and then most of them came back to Kaiserslautern. Some of their employers dropped us and we were suddenly faced with a financial problem. The bills kept rolling in and there was less money to cover them. So an idea was floated to have the team work at a local farm picking strawberries for 5-6 hours a day. It was definitely tough on knees and backs.There was some complaining, but they pulled through and brought in a few extras Euros to make ends meet. After they finished picking we had two weeks of regular seminars and concentrated on the Kingdom of God themes in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. We also looked at The Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill. Fortunately we have been able to send the team back to work in some form or another. We've had to rethink a lot of our concept to continue our discipleship work, but it has still been fruitful. Unfortunately, the team has thinned out a bit and three of our young people decided to go home early. Nothing has been ideal and we've second-guessed ourselves at every turn. We're not perfect by any means, but in our weaknesses we are still being used for the Kingdom. Three of our lovely participants ready for their dates Future For some time Bird and I have had to make a decision whether or not to renew our term with our mission board (Eastern Mennonnite Missions) and the local church here. It has been the toughest decision of our lives. We have so many people we work with and love here. Not only that, there is the cultural aspect. Our daughters are more German than American. We thought and prayed about this for a long time and this spring we told the discipleship school board that they will need to find new leaders to take over next summer 2021. There are so many factors to consider when deciding. The biggest was to come back to be closer to family. It's also time for us to leave the project here and let someone else take over. Our plan right now is to head back to the Strawberry Lake area in Minnesota, get our feet under us, and work in the area of small business and discipling young people. There is more news to come as things develop on that front. Right now we're focusing on ending strong here, making the transition as smoothly as possible for our girls and wrapping up loose ends in the coming months. We are excited about this move and have peace about the decision. Please strongly consider helping us in this next phase by either renewing your support commitment to us, starting one, and/or praying us through this. Our term would officially end this July, but since we've extended that term by a whole year we need to make sure finances are available to end next summer. After that we have some home leave to get our feet on the ground. In other news, we have decided not to fly to the US as planned this summer but instead will re-book those tickets for next August. We thought it would be unfruitful to fly to the US and sit in a quarantine for a couple weeks, then fly back to Europe and repeat it. So, thank you so much for your support. Peace and love, Mike