Heidelberg and Worms, not worms in Heidelberg

Greetings from Heidelberg!

Today we sang our way from Strasborg to Heidelberg.

We began our devotions on the bus this morning with the re-reading of Lord's Day One, and Titus2 and 1 Peter where he talks about the precious blood of Christ. We then sang a song from a protestant minister called Johan Heereman, whom I've never heard of! He was a minister in West Villevue and was caught up in teh 30 years war, during which, allegedly half the population of Germany died. Suffering from this persecution, starvation, disease and plague he wrote "O Holy Jesus" as a kind of reflection of his personal confession of faith.

Then we wiggled (or wound) our way to Worms, where we found tAhe church where he preached and the magnificent memorial to Luther and the hymn, "A Mighty Fortress". Acccordingly, we (all 50 of us) sang with gusto, all verses, and in harmony. Amazing. Some youths sat yards from us with a case of beer between them and a stereo, simply in the park for a party, but we sang through them and ignored the guy who tapped another lady and i on the shoulder telling us how he threw flowers over these memorial statues in teh 70s during the flower power reign.

We had a quick pretzel for lunch and then drove a quick while to Heidelberg. IF you were going to compose a universal and carefully explicated credal confession this would be the place to do it!  The palace of Frederick III is imperious, magnificent and hangs to the mountain like something out of 'Where Eagles Dare'. We went up there on a gondola and upthere some of the children recited, again, Lord's day One and then we sang, 'Praise God from whom all blesssings flow'. One of the littlest girls, Grace (whom everyone jokes we cannot do without! :)), stood on a pillar and recited, "here i stand, i can do no other etc.'.

The view, especially, from the castle was breathtaking.

We had a lovely meal tonight, one every good Dutch person would approve of - meat, potatoes, gravy and vegetables. Just missing the appelmoes!

Good night from the Heidelberger .... the visitor.