When Juanita returned home she sent an email out to some close friends… amazing connections showed…

Hi everone,
We’ve recently returned from Dresden, Germany where our European Cafe kindreds hosted an amazing gathering that attracted folks from more than 15 countries!  We were astounded (and you’ll be happy to know that David and I did no organizing on this one–just blessing it!) at what ocurred there. Most exciting was the simultaneous hosting of eight local World Cafés throughout the greater Dresden area (on sustainable business, the arts, media, youth and education, etc.), which led key leaders in Dresden to begin envisioning Dresden as a "learning city" using conversational modalities like the World Café and others to engage citizens at all levels in conversations about the questions
that matter most to them— the "world as café" came alive in Germany!

This is so consistent, Toke and Phil, with the wonderful work you all
are doing in Columbus. Maybe at some point down the line Colombus and
Dresden might become "sister learning cities"–depending on how it all
unfolds in terms of the follow up and next steps with the folks in
Dresden.

The most touching of all was the Cafe on Forgiveness
and Peace hosted in the main cathedral of the city–the one which was
destroyed during the carpet bombing of Dresden during WWII and
just recently re-constructed as a global symbol of healing and
reconciliation. 

We were deeply honored that the foundation that runs the cathedral
allowed World Cafe to host a combined local Dresden and international
Cafe there, in both German and English.  It was a
very special moment of personal healing for Anne Dosher, who had been
in the Royal Air Force when Dresden was bombed. 

A deep bow of
gratitude to Pat Munro and Jeff Beeson who were instrumental in helping
that to happen.

Blessings to this wonderful circle of friends,

Juanita

Then an email came back from Phil, from Columbus:

Juanita,
What
is so wonderfully strange about this is that Dresden is Columbus’
European "sister city".  We have certain municipal and cultural exchange
relationships with Dresden and have adopted each other as sister
cities.  I’m going to be in contact with our former Mayor who sits on
our Foundation Board and has strongly supported our "hosting work" to
learn more about this, because he was Mayor when this "adoption" took
place.

Phil