Today is the ten year anniversary of the grand mal seizure leading to my brain tumor diagnosis. I’m especially grateful to be writing this tonight and not spending the evening in the hospital with an uncertain future. I began this year with a New Year’s resolution to write about something more meaningful than politics:
No Maverick Molecules – Brain Tumor and Depression
At our church’s Thanksgiving Eve service, I shared about God’s sovereignty in suffering. It was good to encourage others with our family’s testimony of God’s faithfulness. Many in our congregation did not know about the difficult five years after my brain tumor.
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Frankenmuth visit November, 2013
Earlier that week we visited Frankenmuth, shopped in the downtown area including the Frankenmuth Clock Company, and had dinner at the Bavarian Inn on the way home. When we stopped at Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland, we visited the Silent Night replica chapel and dropped off a copy of the word-by-word translation of Stille Nacht I had written last year.
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A few weeks later we got a nice thank you letter from Wayne Bronner saying that they added my translation to their file on this beloved Christmas carol. Wallace and Irene Bronner had the Silent Night Memorial Chapel built on the grounds of Bronner’s, and have translations of Silent Night in many languages on signs near the chapel. In 1999 Wallace Bronner presented translations of Silent Night to the Joseph Mohr Symposium in over 300 languages.
Frankenmuth History
Frankenmuth was settled by German Lutherans in 1845 from the Rosstal area of Franconia (now part of Bavaria), Germany. Located off I-75 exits 136 and 144, Frankenmuth (population about 5000) is a destination spot.
Zehnder’s and Bavarian Inn hotels are also famous for their chicken dinners and homestyle German food. There are other nice hotels in town like the Drury Inn.
The large Christmas store Bronner’s is nearly as well known as Wall Drug in South Dakota, with billboards advertising it all over Michigan and neighboring states.
For more, visit the USA Melting Pot website:
http://usameltingpot.org/frankenmuth-michigan-giving-thanks/
For the Silent Night blog post, see:
http://troy.patch.com/groups/dale-murrishs-blog/p/bp--silent-night-shepherds-first-made-it-known
Merry Christmas to all!
