For one week, young people had worked to raise money for a family that had lost a lot in the floods and now faced great challenges. For five days, the young people had baked and sold waffles from morning to night. Now it was clear: We are going to visit the family! A son of the family, who lived in a home for people with special needs, had lost many of his friends in the flood. They had drowned. We set out on our way. We took everything we needed to drink coffee together. When we arrived, the full extent of the destruction became clear. The basement and the entire ground floor of the house were completely destroyed. The family had endured mortal fears. Life had been given to them a second time, they told us. Outside, in all the streets, there were mountains of rubble up to 9 metres high. We listened for more than two hours, taking the whole experience of each of them deep into our hearts. Then we walked through their town, once a jewel in the Ahr valley, now a ghost town. When we said goodbye, we had the impression that we had known each other for a long time. The son of the family took me tightly in his arms, hugged me and said with tears in his eyes: "Today was a good day!"
