... to let you know that I got married last month  If you like to see pictures please go to our Wedding Site!

... I have been shamefully lazy in updating this journal, but I have a good excuse: I'm now in the final stages of my wedding preparations, so I have got other things on my mind

Today is the memorial day for the approximately 1.5 million Armenians who got killed in a genocide in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. With them died a large number of Greeks and Assyrians. Until this day Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, deny the events, and mentioning them is prohibited by law.

See here what happend during the time of 1915 to 1922:

 

View from my living room window this morning:

Some of you will probably remember Diana, the child in Armenia  who I support since October of last year- I wrote about her here in my journal. Anyway, from next month I will support a second child. Her name is Warduhi (Varduhi) - "ward" (vard) means "rose"  in her language -, she is eleven years old and also from Armenia. She lives with her mother at her uncle's, since they had to sell their own apartment to pay doctor's fees. Her father was a veteran of the war against Azerbaijan  He returned home sick and died when Warduhi was only two years old  Her mother has health problems, too.

My original plan was to wait with the support of another child until after our wedding  However, I had seen Warduhi on the Diaconia website already in 2007 and she remained there while most other kids got supporters much sooner, so I decided to take her now and not wait any longer. Actually, from the beginning I had thought I would have liked to support her, as she looked so friendly and happy - maybe too happy in the eyes of potential supporters...   - , but at that time Hermann and I had only just started supporting Diana and her brother Gharib, and I also was sure that she would find a supporter very soon - which was not the case, unfortunately  Anyway, I guess God wanted me / us and nobody else to support her