Wilhelm’s Parents 50th Wedding Anniversary

This is coming a bit late as we’ve had yet again trouble with our one computer that does email. Wilhelm and I went to Germany in early May to help celebrate Wilhelm’s parents 50th wedding anniversary. It was very different from what I expected or know from an American celebration. Their anniversary was on a Wednesday. On Monday some of the neighbors came to put up the “Hochzeitsbogen”.

The men arrived first to put up the frame. Then the women came to decorate.

Of course this was well supervised. Now Wilhelm’s parents were not supposed to look until it was all finished. But nothing says you can’t watch from inside where it is nice and warm.

When the work was all done and it could be admired, the neighbors had a song to sing.

With all that work it really built up an appetite and it was time to eat and chat. Wilhelm’s 3 bean salad went over really well. Not a bean left. Since I still haven’t really figured out who all the neighbors are I decided to make a little map of Spols with the names of all the people. Since it isn’t that big of a place it wasn’t too hard. Memorizing the names and faces is another matter! I even listed the children who have moved away from home.

One fun thing about a birthday or anniversary are the Cards and gifts. The pile of cards grew daily. I think there were over a hundred at the final count. What do you give a couple in their 80’s? Olga got lots of plants and wondered where she would put them all. There were several baskets of food stuffs and a couple of lovely table cloths and of course cold hard cash. A cousin who is a baker sent a very practical gift.

The day of the anniversary there was a visit from the county official, the mayor of Uplengen and a Spols representative. The three men brought a big gift basket of food common to the area. This would of course include tea which the Frisians are known for. They drink gallons of it.

Around noon we charged off to the restaurant. Come on in! This restaurant used to be a barn. Nice change huh?! We ended up with before and after pictures of the eating phase. It was just too good to stop for a Kodak moment. Three kinds of meat and three different ways of cooked potatoes. We won’t go into desert!

Of Course there were speeches, Here by pastor Frank Timmerman and the neighbors sang again. They are really pretty good, need to think about the Spols Choir.

The “kids” also had a presentation which included a well known song “Im Maerzen der Bauer “ with new words written for the occasion by Elfriede, Wilhelm’s sister and her housemate. These two also came up with a PowerPoint presentation with scanned family pictures and some pictures “stolen” from our website! I can’t believe the one she chose of us. The presentation was really neat though and they put a lot of work into it. Since we were all singing we didn’t get any pictures of it.

We did get a picture of the whole family or most of it (two people were missing) in front of the restaurant.

And just for fun here is the original “young couple”, and their wedding day.

And a couple of years later… what a cutie! Hardly know Wilhelm without the beard huh? As we were in Germany for Wilhelm’s birthday we wondered what we could do that would be fun. Since there had already been a bigger dinner at a restaurant we decided to do something else. This turned out to be a barbecue. Great idea! The weather didn’t cooperate and the sunny days turned rainy. After the heat of Africa it was great, except for the outside grilling…

Several interesting things about this picture: first of all, even if you can’t tell it is pouring down rain. The umbrella was brother Gerold’s idea, it’s supposed to be a sun umbrella for the table, but it works, kind of. Then there is the poncho, there are no arm holes. I thought it a bit backward not thinking of that much less buying it in that condition. Then I was informed that it is for bicycle riding and it covers the body to the seat and there are straps inside for the hands. So for bicycle riding it is perfect for barbecuing… Well, his other coat was soaked through.

• Feb. 2003, New Office Building
• Nov 2002, Reading Contest
• July 2002, Toussian Translators
• March 2002 Literacy classes
• Jan 2002 Bissa New Testament dedication
• January 15, 2002
• Nov 2002  Language learning, Translation, Revision, Ladies day at church
• Oct 2001  Sunday school outing, Fonio harvest
• Aug 2001  Cobly Reunion
• May 31, 2001  Return to Burkina Faso
• May 5, 2001  Germany, Az, Oregon office work
• Jan 2001  Our time in Germany

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