For the baptism of his son, Josef Klees first had to get shoes, the old ones were gone after the flood.

“My dress shoes were stored on the first floor, they are no longer there.” He wore light blue sneakers.

“They don't go with the suit at all - but what should I do?” His wife found the shoes in a distribution center in Gelsdorf.

The Klees family goes there every now and then to stock up on things that are still missing more than ten weeks after the flood.

On his big day, the person to be baptized wore a blue vest with a bow tie over his body.

Tobias Schrörs

Political Editor.

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It was already the third “christening outfit”. It grew out of the first because the original baptism date had to be postponed due to the pandemic. The second was in the basement to be washed on the night of the flood and is covered with mud. Like the Laurentiuskirche in Ahrweiler, where the baptism should have taken place. There is a fresco there that is strange to look at. It shows the baptism of Jesus, not in the Jordan, but in the Ahr. In the river, of all places, that has now brought so much disaster. Because church services cannot yet be celebrated, Josef Klee's son was baptized in an old monastery in the city.

On the way there, a thousand thoughts went through Klee's mind.

What could have been better organized?

“It's all - as they say so beautifully here - in circumstances.

It's not like in your own home. ”In the transitional apartment in Karweiler, five kilometers away, nothing is in his place.

In addition, there is less space now that the young family with two children shares an apartment with their in-laws and therefore also a bathroom, in which everyone has to prepare themselves before such a baptism.

"A piece of normality"

Nevertheless: the baptism was wonderful for the parents.

Pastor Jörg Meyrer received them on the steps to the monastery, and a child of the former neighbors from Ahrweiler was also baptized.

"That used to be a bit of normality," says Klees' wife.

They celebrated the party in the garden of the family, who generously rented them an apartment for the transition.

In other times they would have gone to a restaurant in Ahrweiler, but that too is affected by the flood.

"So we celebrated very small and relaxed with our families and with our flood family."

The "flood family" are the people who offered the Klees and others an apartment.

A total of a dozen people lived at times in the former courtyard, and now eight of them are still there.

Everyone came together again for the baptism ceremony.

And the host became a godfather.

Actually, the one-year-old son should start getting used to the day-care center soon. But nothing will come of it. This is also a consequence of the flood. Klees' wife will therefore not go back to work in October. She is a biologist and works for a biotechnology company. He is a flight controller at an airfield. Both are still on parental leave. The youth welfare office has offered to reimburse the mother's loss of earnings because settling into a daycare center is out of the question in the current situation. But that's not all done yet.

The big sister goes to an emergency kindergarten in Karweiler, this emergency solution was initially scheduled until the end of September.

Your old daycare center has now temporarily moved to the premises of the monastery complex where the baptism took place.

The family has not yet found out when the daughter can go there, but there is a place for her.

The Klees family from Ahrweiler reports here at regular intervals about how they coped with the flood disaster.

You can read about the challenges you are facing when renovating your home here.