A long time ago in a far away galaxy, when I was just past the midpoint of my German-speaking Swiss mission, a professor who had been an influential mentor of mine wrote to say that he was coming to Switzerland for research. Would my companion and I like to do dinner with him? My companion, it so happened, had also enjoyed a class from this charismatic professor, so we replied that we would love to meet him for dinner. But unfortunately, although he'd indicated the date of his arrival and promised to send his flight time and number, his second letter never arrived. So we had no idea where he was coming from, what airline he was coming on, nor what time — morning, noon or night — he would be arriving.
