One more day until the church wedding – but yesterday we already went to the registry office and had the civil wedding there (don’t ask – in Germany it’s the civil wedding that counts and you can’t have it together with the church wedding). Heidi Kraft is no more… she’s now Heidi Rabbach.

It’s a bit strange to think that for many people, the little ceremony at the registry office is all they have for a wedding. 20 minutes and it’s all over; nothing but a few nice words. For us, the (legally unimportant) ceremony in our church on Saturday is what’s really important and the “real” wedding because we want to start our marriage under God’s blessing. If the civil ceremony had been all we have, something would really be missing.

In a bit, we’ll start setting up the church and church hall for our wedding service and evening reception. Hopefully it will all go a bit better than yesterday’s work on the wedding cake, which took twice as long as expected. Well, it will all work out in the end. And as much as we’re looking forward to the special day tomorrow, we’re even more looking forward to “normal life”, which starts on Sunday.

…is a lot less exciting than being a bride – maybe it’s because you don’t get to wear a white dress (at least I’ve been told that it would be a major violation of common dress code). But you still get to assemble furniture (20 drawers, 120 nails, countless screws) – the IKEA relationship test, which consists of assembling various pieces of furniture together, went without a hitch. And so the bedroom is now completely furnished and waiting for its inhabitants.

And it’s about time – only 10 days to go. That’s the actual reason for this article – we have created a new page with a rough schedule of the day. For those of you who (like us) like to know at least roughly what to expect on June 6th, here’s what we can tell you so far.

Recently I’ve been thinking how being a bride is so very different from what I had in mind as a little girl. Back then, my thoughts did not go any further than a white dress, a veil, a big celebration and a husband (in rather random order ).

In the meantime I learnt that being a bride does not start on your wedding day but encompasses the whole time between engagement and the big day. And so it’s not surprising that for a little girl’s imagination it just seems like something is wrong, when being a bride also includes painting walls, packing boxes and moving furniture around. Good thing the white dress doesn’t have to put up with all of this…

A perfect example of the many facettes of being a bride was how we spent last Saturday: We started off by moving things around a little more in order to make room for my stuff to arrive soon. That was followed by an extended sorting of a drawer full of international coins, which Holger had collected over the years and while doing that, I just couldn’t quite get rid of the image of Cinderella . But it was worth the effort and helped us to a little unexpected cash. Part of the day was also for me to do small sowing preparations for slight adjustments on my wedding dress; but that was not yet the end of our productivity. The groom launched into a major baking effort because I wanted a special expesive kind of wedding cake which we cannot afford. So he got what he needed and did a test run for my dream cake. By now I know that this is no unusual way for a man to show his love, so I gladly joined him by doing the dishes and thereby keeping the chaos in the kitchen under control.

This is by no means the kind of Saturday I enjoy the most. After all, the weather was quite nice for a long spring walk, at least for someone trying to escape such work… But I was very much aware of the fact that each little thing brought me one step closer to the day when I will actually get to wear the pretty wedding dress with veil and reception and everything; but most of all a wonderful husband. So I have to say, I do enjoy being a bride

Yes indeed, it’s only one more month until our wedding (only 29 days until the civil wedding). Time to look back on the last few weeks – since the dress arrived, we haven’t written any updates here. What we did do, though, is to write an article about our story together. It was published as a separate page, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you may want to go there.

In the meantime we have finished redecorating the house – living room and office (finally in separate rooms) are on the first floor now, as is the new kitchen, which we took over from our friends who used to live there before. The cupboards in the living room are assembled (hint: to assemble a 2m high IKEA Besta cupboard, you need a room that is 4m long!) and even have all their doors and drawers. On the second floor we have our newly redecorated bedroom and the main bath, as well as a guest room and the old kitchen we no longer use, but plan to turn into a room for one of the children we plan on having in the not too distant future. Even our bedroom furniture has finally arrived and now lead a lonely life in the bedroom, since Holger is currently using the guest room to sleep in, so he doesn’t get used to having the new bedroom all to himself . We’re very happy with all the choices we made and are very much looking forward to finally making it our bedroom.

We’re quite surprised how many points on our checklists we were already able to check. The number of open items has gone down considerably. If for some reason the beginning of June would come sooner than expected (say next week), we wouldn’t have to panic and would still be able to have a slightly improvised, but nice wedding. But there’s still lots to do. Not only does Heidi still have to move out of her flat and a lot of stuff in this house is still waiting to be stored and sorted – no, we also have four days of evangelistic youth events coming up in our church next week, which we are involved in. And of course there are quite a lot of things that still need to be planned (or at least the plans need some polishing) – mainly because we wouldn’t mind if everything worked great on June 6th.

Today we’ll also pay another visit to our jeweller – it’s our 7th trip. And that’s not because we’re buying so much… here’s what happened: 1) checked out the selection of rings, 2) ordered the rings we wanted, 3) went to pick up the rings… Heidi’s ring had a stone in it, which we didn’t want, 4) picked up the rings we actually ordered, 5) took the rings back after we discovered manufacturing defects, 6) checked that the rings were in the condition we expected before getting them engraved (again) and finally 7) pick up the rings. Good thing we started early…

A little over a month ago OM’s new ship called Logos Hope was finally ready to go into ministry, after five years of conversion work and quite a bit of strain on the OM world’s patience. As model OMers we had to go and visit the ship in all its glory so we took the opportunity while it’s as close as it can ever get. Holger and I went to Scheveningen, close to The Hague in the Netherlands, which for us happens to be the shortest way to any ocean.

After a ride of three hours and quite a bit of traffic jam we arrived on board and were welcomed by my friend Svenja. She gave us a tour and to see the changes that happened since my last visit in February 2008 was really amazing: It’s incredible what carpet and a lack of construction noise can do! This everlasting construction place, the inhabitants of which were to be pitied greatly, has been transformed into a beautiful, warm, and welcoming bookship. I was not at all tempted to move onboard a ship yet again , however, there were certainly aspects that we only dreamed about when serving on the “old lady” of almost 95 years, the Doulos. In the late afternoon we had finished shopping books and admiring the ship and said goodbye so we could quickly visit the beach that started just next to the ship.

The weather forecast had not been very promising but as an answer to my half-hearted prayer the night before, we were able to enjoy the beautiful sandy beach with clear sky and sun. Although the low temperature of 6° centigrade and the strong wind were not really encouraging to take a bath in the ocean, we thoroughly enjoyed watching the waves.

As we were walking down this beautiful beach I suddenly realised that a dream had come true. Being a hopeless romantic, ever since I was a little girl I hoped that one day I would be walking along the sea shore with the love of my life. With Holger by my side the moment had arrived and I felt that I just received a hundredfold of what I had to give up when I joined OM five years ago. Without this step into the unknown, Holger and I would not have met and even more so, we would not be such a good match if it hadn’t been for my OM experiences.

Even if it first seems to lead away from hopes and plans, following where God leads really is absolutely worth it.

Last Saturday Holger and I excitedly went to our trusted jewellery shop to pick up our wedding rings with a week’s delay. Unfortunately the good man had forgotten that I did not want one of those shiny little precious stones on my ring. So, it will take another week before we can pick them up but that won’t matter so much since I will have to wait another 87 days before I can wear it anyway.

We spent the rest of the day with a wonderful outing to Düsseldorf airport. Now, if that does not sound great to you I have to tell you that you missed something. With nice spring weather to enjoy we spent about 2 Euro per Person to buy tickets to the visitor platform of the airport. We had no idea what a bargain that actually was! Not only were we allowed to leisurely stroll on the rooftop of a terminal, watching all the things that happen in order for an aircraft to get ready. Something which is especially interesting if normally you are sitting inside, wondering what could possibly still take so long once the door has been locked and everyone carefully fastened their seatbelts.

What we did not know is that our ticket included free rides with the SkyTrain which takes you to the second visitors platform. That platform is situated quite nicely at the very end of the runway and offers a wonderful view on the airport’s “planepark” as well as the surrounding woods. So we were able to watch a good number of planes land and take off, sometimes with just minutes in between. It was very relaxing, especially when the airport fire brigade raced down the runway several times, seemingly chasing the plane that just took off.

Between visiting platforms we enjoyed a large mug of very yummy Chai Latte (highly recommendable!!!) at the Starbucks coffee house in the airport’s very nice and calming check-in area. That, however, was not included in our tickets .