The Search for Community

This coming week will have the theme of searching for a community for me.

To review what I have done thus far: I have written to Rabbis in Amsterdam and Maastricht and heard nothing back, written to the USAFE Rabbi (United States Armed Forces Europe), who promptly retired and moved to Colorado Springs; I have used the ravelry.com resource to write to knitters located in the state of North Brabant -- with a 50% response rate and those mostly useless; I have joined an online Jewish study group; I have started going to the Support Our Squadron and the Mom and Baby groups within Eric's squadron; I have invited the neighbors in for coffee; I have invited many of the officers and the leadership of the squadron for dinner - and plan to continue those invitations -- please don't be offended!

I have a cadre of folk that I enjoy time with at the Squadron, but I am used to having work friends, Jewish friends, knitting friends, etc. I am feeling like I have not got that whole community together yet. I think part of that is because I am not yet fluent in Dutch. So, I spend a good amount of time feeling really lost. I think that I truly understand what it must be like to be illiterate -- because despite being able to read, I am a functional illiterate here.

Tomorrow, I head with Eric to his boss' change of command ceremony. Eric's counterparts are bringing their wives, so I will meet some other women who are in similar situations. That might be a comfort. On Wednesday, I will be driving to a NATO base to have coffee with an international wives club. Perhaps that will help me find a community.