Schwelm Delegation visited WCUCCC in October 2009

Our church has built a partnership with the congregation in Schwelm, Germany.  (To learn more about Schwelm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwelm, or the churches in Schwelm: http://www.kirche-schwelm.de/index.html, English translation ).  

A delegation from Schwelm (youth and adults) visited us in October 2009 (Oct 9-21).  Eleven people traveled to Westerville, Ohio, to get to know us better.

There are several reasons why this partnership between the Westerville and Schwelm is beneficial:

• heritage (the UCC derives from German background)
• societies and the situation of churches are similar, but still different enough to build partnership without economic discrepancy
• some families in Ohio and Westerville have German backgrounds
• build on existing relationship between churches (Ohio--Westphalia)
• maybe this partnership could be as a "reason" to plan a Germany trip?