Newsletter Maier 2024
Dear friends and family,We look back on the past year with gratitude. Many encounters while travelling, but also at home, have greatly enriched our year.
Like last year, you can, depending on your interest, either read the newsletter relatively briefly or open up the individual sections and enjoy the details with us.
Even if we were often not so aware of the annual motto for 2024: ‘Let all that you do be done in love’ during the year, we can gladly say that love ran through our year like a thick golden thread. It is very common between us to tell and show each other how much we love each other.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our marriage counsellor, who advises us faithfully every month and with whom we did this family constellation, among other things.
Christoph & Claudia …
… are still living in Bremen in a shared flat. The two young Moroccans are currently still in training, now nearing the end.
Unfortunately, the Joblinge programme here in Bremen was discontinued in the second half of the year because the job centre ran out of money. We hope that it will be resumed later in 2025.
As part of the Zellgemeinde Bremen, a home group continues to meet weekly at our place for dinner, communion and sharing.
Christoph was once again involved in the European elections as a poll worker - this time together with Claudia, something he was very pleased about.
We started sqare dancing in the autumn. It's great fun.
Christoph …
… celebrated his 25th service anniversary at Airbus this year. He is happy that a successor has been found for him to train, as he will retire at the end of 2025.
He was also able to attend the golden confirmation ceremony in his old home town of Neuengamme.
Claudia …
… has no longer been working as a volunteer at the primary school since the new school year. This gives her the freedom to regularly attend Catholic mass, which she really enjoys.
For her birthday, Christoph treated her to a boat trip to Bremerhaven. Fantastic! And that day there was also a big kite meeting at the destination.
Karoline & Colin …
… have been living in Rome since August. Karoline is attending courses at various pontifical universities there as part of her theology studies, organised by the Waldensians. She passed her intermediate exams in the spring and wrote an exciting term paper on the ‘Gospel of Mary’ in the summer - even learning Coptic for it.
Colin continues to work at Univelop from his flat. He is very much involved as deputy team leader with a lot of responsibility for large parts of the app.
He was also elected to the regional synod of the protestant Northern German Church and is now active at this level as well as on the church district council.
The two of them are enjoying life in Rome and will return to Germany this summer - presumably to Heidelberg.
Chaim Lukas …
... continues to work full-time at FDTech as a software developer for autonomous driving. This involves some business trips to Renault in Douai in northern France, where his knowledge of the language, country and people is of great benefit to him.
Like last year, he was also active in the International Christian Fellowship (ICF) in Munich, both in the field of theology and as a dancer and extra in this year's Christmas musical.
He also continues to volunteer in the youth and young adult work at Bodenseehof.
Cyrill ...
As part of his studies, Cyrill completed his internship this year as planned from April to September in Wiesbaden at Move Church and GoødWorks.
Now he just has to write his Bachelor's thesis and then he will be finished with his university degree.
At Move Church, he has become co-head of event technology due to the departure of the previous technical manager. In this position, he is responsible for the technical equipment at all three locations of the church. He has been working 30 hours a week in this position since October and plans to increase this to full-time once he has completed his studies
He was also involved as a lighting technician on an Adonia tour in both spring and autumn. In spring in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate and in autumn in the western Black Forest and in the region around Offenburg.
All that remains is to report on our trips, which, like last year, were once again very numerous. Here are just the most important ones from each month:
January
We celebrated the 60th birthday of Claudia's youngest brother Wilhelm in Würzburg on the first weekend in January. This gave us the wonderful opportunity to hear his wife Doris in a choir concert and - as is so often the case with us - to get to know a new sauna spa.
February
A big event for couples took place at the Showpalast in Munich: Amore. We had a lot of fun with its varied components and it was good for our relationship.
One great part was the performance of a dance in which Chaim Lukas took part.
March
Cyrill's move from Fernwald (near Giessen) to Wiesbaden was on the cards - so of course we pitched in. We are delighted with his beautiful and conveniently located flat. We were also lucky enough to find a large table and comfortable chairs with him at a favourable price, so that he can now invite lots of guests.
April
Organised by the Zellgemeinde, we spent a weekend at the Sachsenhain youth retreat in Verden with a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, good food and great fellowship.
May
In spring, we were drawn back to Norderney for a relaxing holiday of just under a week.
June
For the second time that year, we travelled to Munich for a large conference; this time it was called Unum held in the Olympic Hall, where speakers and musicians from many different denominations and nations came together to demonstrate the common ground of the Christian faith.
We then travelled on to Beuren on the Swabian Alps, where we experienced a great self-written musical about Joseph and met Claudia's cousins at the yearly get-together.
July
At the beginning of the month, we were at Bodenseehof in Friedrichshafen together with Chaim Lukas for a ‘Reunion Week’ of former Bible school students.
Then at the end of the month we took the Eurostar again for a ten-day trip to Orpington, south-east of London, for the PitS music festival and the CNF annual meeting with Wynne Goss as guest speaker, where we both again supported the musicians with our voices.
Between the two weekends we went on an extended Thames boat trip in London from Battersea Power Station to North Greenwich
including a cable car ride.
We also visited Lacock / Chippenham in Wiltshire with Claudia's friend Sharon Baffour, an almost medieval village with an abbey where some of the ‘Harry Potter’ scenes were filmed.
August
Christoph's sister Birgit and her husband Erhard invited everyone to their golden wedding anniversary. It was really nice to celebrate together with all three boys, as well as Christoph's father and uncle.
For the first time, we attended the annual Asterix fan meeting. This time it was held in Neuss, as a sixteen-page comic book ‘Asterix in Novaesium’ had been published there exactly 40 years ago to celebrate the city's 2000th anniversary. In addition to good food
in the medieval setting with a huge marksmen's festival parade,
there was a guided tour of the old Roman fortifications with a visit to a scale replica. It was really nice to see how well Christoph, as an old Asterix fan, knew the subject matter..
October
Once again this year, we were able to see our former hometown in the south of France. This time we were travelling alone as a married couple.
One highlight was a lovely meal with two good friends in Colomiers.
Then, on a trip to Toulouse, we watched a group sailing on the Garonne in a 12 metre Viking ship replica. The team hopes to be able to cross the North Atlantic in the future with a 28 metre long Drakkar, which is currently under construction.
We were also able to spend some quality time with our loyal friend Peter at his place and in a chalet at our favourite campsite, Le Couderc. We flew back directly from Bergerac to Rotterdam for the first time, followed by a train journey to Bremen the next day.
November
Christoph's former Airbus colleague Steve Impey (he and his wife Marit have been friends of ours for decades) has been working for many years for the Wycliffe organisation, which is committed to researching and transcribing thousands of minority languages. This is followed by a translation of the New Testament or the whole Bible. He has now been asked to take over the direction of the German branch. So we were delighted to be able to visit him and his whole family in Holzhausen and take part in the handover ceremony.
December
During Advent, we then embarked on a short family round trip with a first stop in Munich to visit the ICF Christmas Experience, followed by a detour to Wiesbaden to watch the Move Church’s Christmas musical live.
Finally, we spent a few lovely days in Chemnitz, where we met Claudia's niece Elisa and visited the Christmas market. As the region of the Ore Mountains there is famous for their wood carvings, we were delighted to be able to buy some additional animals and a decorative setting for our nativity scene.
To round off the year, we finally flew to Rome with our two younger sons, where our family was complete again with Colin and Karo. Even without us, the city would have been very crowded, but our two ‘new Romans’ proved themselves as good tour guides, with whom we visited St Peter's Basilica early on before the crowds arrived. Later, they showed us the Priscilla Catacomb and the Caracalla Thermal Baths, among other things.
But there was also enough time for good food, some parlour games and watching the New Year's Eve fireworks.
Rome: St. Peter's Square at dawn
Rome: View from the dome of St. Peter's Basilica
Rome: Christ and the apostles from behind on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica
Rome: Waldensian Church
Rome: The family without Christoph in front of the Caracalla thermal baths
