I am supposed to be leavingfor home tomorrow... but there is a couple coming in for meetings, and one of the meeting participants couldn't get here before Monday .... so I'm booked to leave 11:55 am Wednesday ... arriving in Rochester 6:30pm!
Since I last updated the blog a lot has happened --
SPRING being one of the most important... the video is from a "Miss Cow" contest in one of the Swiss Valleys ... NO Kidding!
When I left Trogen April 3rd we still had snow on the ground.
but now there are flowers!!Cologne, Germany is where I visited friends, and we did some sightseeing in the city, the childhood home of Marc Schmidtke. It was fun to experience the city through his stories and history, especially what it experienced in WWII. Everything was totally bombed by the British, except the cathedral as it was the 'landmark' that let the bombers know where they were.
This is a church that was built around the bombed out section of the older church... look close you can see the old section of the building....
FROM Germany, I flew to Dubai, UAE ... this is a city that has more five star hotels than any other place in the world. The city is unbelieveable ... the 'national bird' this the crane... over one fourth of the world's construction cranes are in Dubai.
the next picture is of the world's tallest building... 
it is still under construction. Dubai is the Altar to Materialism... what I learned while there is that Dubai is one of the emmerites of the United Arab Emmerites ... it has no more oil... consequently the Shieks decided to create a place their 'oil buddies' could spend their money... and that is what has happened. It would take me pages to explain the level of outragious ways you could spend your money in Dubai. One of them being at the ski slope built in the desert ... it was 95 degrees but inside the Mall of the Emmerits you can go sking, ice skating or snow boarding!But as always God has his ways -- the city is also used as a place of rest and respite for the international worker of the Gospel to come out of their countries for a break. I met many families who needed a break from Pakastian, Afganistan, Morocco and many other closed countries. One thing Dubai does do, is allow some freedom of worship. It is still a muslim country but because it wants to be international it has to allow some freedom... Consequently, we were able to have sunrise service on the beach Easter Sunday. We right under the 7 star hotel on the beach...
I arrived back in Switzerland, Sunday, 19 April ... Tuesday I was on my way to Frutigen. A village in a valley between the Alp Mts. I was visiting with a family that will be leaving for Papua Indonesia in mid-July. Erwin is a helicopter pilot and they will be going to their first Helimission assignment .... And what a delightful family!!
this is where I saw the "Miss Cow" contest at the beginning of the blog... I'm learning that each of the villages has a Miss Cow contest every year!Tomorrow I travel to Zurich (an hour by train) to stay overnight with friends. Some other friends from Holland are coming in for teaching. I am looking forward to seeing them, as it was 2001 since the last time ...
If I have a chance I'll update before I come home, but if not it has been fun... hope you've enjoyed the Blog too!!!
Lots of Love,
Margaret
