pictures

I've added some new pictures from the Holiday season! We have been keeping very busy. I included pictures from our RA Thanksgiving (we celebrated as RA's on the day of American thanksgiving), Christmas banquet, and a flag football game our girls played against another girls' dorm. This is the last weekend with the students and they all start leaving on Thursday and Friday for their Christmas break. I will write more and add more Christmas time pictures after they leave and things will be calmer then.

fun weekend

This last weekend was a fun one! On Friday night, the high school had their annual Fall Party. Each year they have a theme and this year it was 'opposites'. Many of the dorms do some form of skit or performance to represent the theme and ours decided to do a dance off performance of nerds vs. girly girls. We had a lot of fun and apparently the judges liked it too because our dorm won! We were very shocked, but also excited.
On Saturday we left some open time during the day because we knew there was a lot going on the rest of the weekend. One of our girl's parents came to visit who live outside of Paris and they made Mexican food for our Saturday night dinner! It was truly amazing! We do not get much of any Mexican food here, so it was a blissful occasion for those of us (particularly me) who have a deep love for Mexican food. During the day, Cara (my co-RA) and I moved couches and comfy chairs outside to set up for an outdoor movie! After our Mexican fiesta, one of the other girls' dorms (Storch) came over to watch Sister Act II on a screen we put up on the side of our shed outside! We served popcorn, hot cocoa, and cookies. It was a seriously awesome time.
On Sunday we went to church and then afterwards stayed in town for a town festival (that's the only word I can think of to describe it). It is called Budenfest and they set it up in the Blumenplatz (kind of like the town center area). Budenfest is pretty much just a bunch of booths selling different types of food. All of the dorms stay in town after church and all of the kids and staff get 5 euros each to buy our own food. It was definitely a fun German experience.
All in all, it was a great weekend! It was also very tiring with all of the activity, but it was well worth it. I have updated my pictures with some of the things I talked about such as the Fall Party and the outdoor movie.

new photos!

I have figured out a way to show my photos on the slideshow on this page! The slideshow you see on the top right titled "Wittlingen" are my pictures from the dorm. This is where I will be updating my photos. If you click on a photo during the slideshow you can look through all the photos yourself.

photos!

Go to this link to see my first photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007791&id=124400046&l=c6adf7dda7

the first 4 days

I am safe and sound in Germany! I arrived last Monday night and was welcomed by the rest of the resident life staff! It wasn't too long of a trip with the flight from Seattle to London being between 8-9 hours and then from London to Basel being less than 2 hours. God blessed me greatly by not feeling much of any jet lag! I've been able to sleep each night and make it through each day just fine.

It is VERY beautiful here. Kandern is the town where the actual BFA school is and all of us res. life staff have been staying in one dorm in a village called Holzen. We all needed to stay together because Janz Team has English camps for local kids and they have been using the other dorms.

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As I said, I arrived on Monday night and then jumped right into the schedule on Tuesday. The basic schedule for each day this last week was me and the other new staff went to a German class in the morning, came back to the dorm for lunch @ noon, had devotion time with everyone @ 1, driving practice in the afternoon, then dinner altogether back at the dorm. We then had some down time at night. There are 3 other new RA's, but only 2 of which are here yet. The 3'rd is hopefully coming this weekend. We did not know which dorm we were going to be in until Thursday. The Howe's (a couple who are the head of res. life) sat down and got input from the dorm parents on Wednesday night and then they made the official decision on their own. We were told are dorms then at devotion time on Thursday.

My dorm is.....Wittlingen! The dorm name is the same as the village it is in. It is a very nice and small village and a very easy drive from the school. This is a picture of it >
There is one other RA I will be with who is a returner. She isn't here yet, but I have talked to her before. She will be here on Monday. My dorm parents are a great couple from Texas. There names are Brant and Laura. Brant took me on a tour of the dorm on Thursday afternoon while the kids from the camp were gone. We will be moving into our dorms on Tuesday.

It's been a crazy, but awesome week with lots of new experiences. The German language hasn't been too hard to pick up on because the class we took this last week was very helpful. Please continue to pray as I keep practice driving as I had not been an experienced driver of a manual car before here. I am starting to pick it up and find my way around, but it will still take a little more time for me to get it down. Please also pray that my co-RA, Cara, will arrive safely and that we will bond quickly. I already know she is going to be a wonderful coworker and friend because she had gifts waiting for me before she even knew who would be her new co-RA! (She's pretty great!).

Today we have some down time, so the returner RA's are going to take us to a town nearby to spend the day and hang out there. We were going to go on a field trip, but it is rainy today, so the plans have changed. Last Wednesday night we were able to go into Basel, Switzerland to walk around while the dorm parents met here. It is a very cool town and it was neat to walk around it. I haven't taken pictures yet since it's been so busy, but I'm going to start today! So, I will post a link to them once I get them up and running. That's all for now!

leaving Sunday from Seattle!

I have WONDERFUL news! As of this morning, I am officially leaving for Germany! in 5 days!! The Lord provided 80% of my support to be filled and I was able to get a plane ticket out of Seattle for Sunday evening! I leave Seattle @ 6:50 pm and fly straight to London to arrive there Monday morning. I then have a short layover and fly from London right into Basel, Switzerland/Mulhouse, France. It is very nice that I don't have to connect many places and also that I get to fly straight into Basel where I will be picked up rather than having to take a train into there. I was also blessed to be able to fly with British Airways who have wonderful missionary fares and gave a good deal on the flight and best of all...allow a free 3'rd bag!! This makes packing a lot less worrisome.
I am also grateful that I get to be home 1 more weekend and get to say goodbye to my church family on Sunday. Since I don't fly out until the evening, I am going to church Sunday morning and then my parents will drive me up to Seattle right afterwards. It all worked out wonderfully! Of course it did, God DOES know what He's doing ; )
It's been amazing to see God work through this whole process. I was tested with faith to stay strong and believe He was going to get me there on time and it feels wonderful to have that faith pay off and come true.
Please be praying for my travel, packing, and adjusting to life "across the pond". Also, please pray for the relationships and new friendships that I will be making over there. Thank you to all of you for your prayers and support!

2 weeks until training!

Hi everyone! I am now 2 weeks away from leaving for Minneapolis for candidate training with other new Janz Team members. I will be leaving on June 13 and coming back on June 20. I was actually able to get plane tickets out of Pasco for just as much as flying out of Spokane. I was particularly happy for that since I will need to drive myself to the airport and since it is an early morning flight. My flight back also worked well because it will be a nonstop and it doesn't leave until later in the day. Janz Team told us ahead of time that if we want to visit the Mall of America, we could try to get a later flight on June 20 so that we can go to the mall first. So, now I get to go to that too! I am very excited to go to training and meet the other new members with some of those also going to be going to BFA. I have a few things I need to do and prepare before I go, but it's not too much.
I have been working throughout the month of May at a job I did last summer when I was home too. It has been going very well and I have been able to get many more hours than I expected to which is such a blessing (especially when it comes to paycheck time). I have also been able to spend some time with family including going to my favorite camping spot over Memorial day weekend at a place at the foot of Mt. Adams.
I am also excited to be able to go to a roommate's (from college) wedding in mid-July. The only thing that messes with the excitement for that, is that it also means I will be leaving for Germany very soon after that. Which is of course a very exciting thing, but also a little sad with leaving family and friends. It certainly helps knowing I have a friend from college who has already been an RA at BFA for a year and will be there when I am there.
As for a support update, all of my start-up costs have been covered through one-time donations! What that means for any new one-time donations that come in is that they will be divided among the 23 months I will be serving to go towards the amount I need for monthly support. I am also now up to $760 pledged per month! Which puts me at about 42%. I will need 80% to actually leave for Germany, so please pray with me and have faith with me that the rest will come in soon. It has been amazing, especially the last couple of weeks, to see that amount come in. God has been pushing me to just have faith (not just say it, but have it) that He will bring in the needed amount. I have also been encouraged through readings in my devotional. One, in particular, was talking about having such faith that God will come through, to thank Him now for what He will bring later. That has been a big change in my thinking. Another thing that has been an encouragement is when someone reminded me that God has known for a long time that He had this in His plan for my life, long before I ever knew. Remembering that helps me to know that He knew He would have me serve at BFA which means He also knew that He would bring in the funds needed so that I could go where He calls me.

The Beginning

Welcome to my new blog! I wanted to make this blog so those of you who are praying for and thinking of me as I prepare to go and once I am in Germany can keep updated one how things are going. I was able to briefly talk in church yesterday morning and it seemed to go very well. I also had a table set out in the back with prayer cards and BFA brochures and things. I was able to talk to people before and afterwards about what I will be doing and got a very encouraging response. I had 24 people sign-up to be prayer partners for me already! That was very exciting. Please pray that God will move in people's hearts to give to Him through this opportunity and that I will be able to continue to talk to more people about where God has planned for me to serve. I will continue to update you on how my support raising is going and how my preparations are coming along. Thank you for your prayers and support!