Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Here's a picture of the team by the Brandenburg Gate.

We had our Christmas cookie party outreach on Thurs. It was a lot of fun and we made a TON of cookies. Apparently decorating cookies is a very relaxing and therapeutic activity - who knew.

Classes are now over for Christmas break and as a team we're getting ready to enjoy a few days off, have a lovely Christmas together and then head off Limbach for our student conference (similar to a Crusade Christmas/winter conference in the states). It's called Silverster Conference and it's for all students in north and east Germany. We have one student from our ministry here in Berlin coming (which is super exciting!) and she's bringing three friends! I think these next couple of weeks will be a good time to rest, reflect on what God has done and get energized about heading back to campus come January.

Thank you so much for your prayers. Have a very merry Christmas!

Christmas in Berlin

So if any country knows how to do Christmas right, it's Germany. It's pretty much everything you would picture Germany to be like during Christmas: Christmas trees in every room (REAL ones), lights everywhere, handmade nutcrackers, beautiful ornaments, gorgeous Christmas cards, all kinds of chocolate and candy, Christmas kuchen and other amazing foods at the Christmas markets. It's really just incredible. My roommates and I bought a little Christmas tree for our apartment and it's such a pretty little tree - definitely makes it feel like Christmas. The weird thing is though, that this 3 foot tree comes in a hefty pot - yeah, it's still growing. Katie and Bryce individually carried it all the way from the shop to our apartment (probably a bit less than a mile), which was hilarious to see. Katie described it as carrying a very difficult child that keep pulling at her hair.

We have had many student events in the past few weeks and it's really cool to see all the friends we're making. Our last event before Christmas break is a cookie decorating party. This was the most successful party for the team last year and we're definitely looking forward to it this year.

Fish and Pipes

I've never personally owned fish before and after some recent crazy events, I'm not sure that I will. Emily got four of them a couple of months ago and diligently and lovingly took care of them better than some people take care of their children. YET about 3 weeks ago, we came home one night to a dead fish on the floor! It obviously had jumped out from the lidless tank.

Fish suicide - unbelievable.

Even funnier is that we named the fish after the guys on our team: Dave, Bryce, Andy and Jon (and now, Dan, the algae eater). It was Fish Jon who jumped. Emily got a replacement and (since he was much smaller) we promptly named him Little Jon. And unfortunatley, that's not the end of it. Today we came home to Fish Bryce dry and dead on the floor. What in the world?! It's an epidemic. Who knew fish could be so depressed? Emily just now covered the tank with aluminum foil. Oi...

In other bizarre news that only happens on STINT, we are still having apartment troubles. Our apartments are great - they really are - but different issues keep rising. Only one of our showers works at the moment, because the other's hot water heater broke and the tub is waiting to be replaced. It has been this way for about a month now. Also, the kitchen sink's pipes got blocked for a bit, which also affects our washing machine. Basically bad smelling water from the washer flooded onto our kitchen floor. And this is after discovering a large area of mold growing on Amanda and Katie's bedroom wall. We think this is probably from a pipe leak in the wall. And because this is Germany, there are several steps it takes to get things done. We've been laughing it off, but oh how we would love to have these things taken care of.

:)

Thanksgiving Party

So the Thanksgiving Party yesterday was just so fabulous that I had to let you all know right away. Including the STINT team, there was about 50 people there! That's about 35 students! And it was really a blast. I think the German students really enjoyed it - even the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, which they thought was so bizarre. But many of them brought store-bought or homemade German desserts so it was a wonderful blend of German and American food. And it was just really awesome to have the friends I have made so far meet each other and also meet other students from other universities. It was really special and definitely evidence that God is doing a lot this year in Berlin. But I know I'm not just speaking for myself when I say that we're all running on very little sleep and are physically and relationally exhausted from the party (think of 7 solid hours of conversing and being social - enough to make the biggest extrovert tired). Not to mention all the setting up, cooking and cleaning up that it took to accomplish the party. So please pray just for some good rest for us this week. Also, our second Fire-Abend is on Thursday - please pray it will be just as successful (if not more) as last month's. Danke sehr!

Happy Thanksgiving

While the rest of Berlin carried on with their lives, us American celebrated a very traditional American Thanksgiving. Luckily we had some visitors bring us very American necessities, like cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin, corn syrup, cream of mushroom soup and other things from an American military base here in Germany. So we cooked up a storm yesterday morning and then carried our wrapped dishes on the U-bahn (quite the sight to see) to go eat at the Sfura's. We ate and ate and ate, played with the kids, watched movies - it was nice.

Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving party for students. We're expecting a lot of people - around 40 to 50 including us, which is super exciting. And once again, there will be much cooking (and eating) happening. :)

First Snowfall

It's funny how the snow today made me feel more at home here. I guess four years of Syracuse weather will do that to you. But it does really bother me that it is currently 4:25 pm and it's pitch black outside...

Getting Cultural

So, it's been a pretty busy month so far. Our first Fire-Abend was really awesome - 15 students came! We definitely have high hopes for the next one. We had Cultural Training in the beginning of this week, which was certainly a learning experience for all of us. We talked about the difference in American values vs. German values and the differences in how we converse. It certainly stirred up a lot in us, but I think we can take what we learned and really use it practically as we develop relationships with the German students. We also had our second Kurz Film and Keks this past Thurs. We had 8 students show up and the topic was 'exclusivity'. The cool thing about these discussion times is that students will hang out and talk with us after the event is over and stay pretty late.

I'm starting to develope some good friendships with a few TU girls, which is really exciting. As a TU team, we're trying to decide if we could start a TU Bible study or some sort of 'Christianity Explored' sort of gathering. Please pray that we'll have wisdom to figure out the best thing to do and also that we'll meet more interested students and also continue to grow the friendships that have already started.

S-Club

Our first life topics discussion (aka Kurz Film & Keks) was last Thursday and was definitely a success. We had 7 students come out and had a really good discussion about "justice". I was able to meet up with a girl from the TU who came to K&K which was really cool. I have really loved being able to meet up with interested students one-on-one. I've had a few opportunities to really share with a few girls, which is just awesome.

On a random note, I met 4 people from PA on Sunday. I met the pastor of the church I'm going to start going to (Berlin International Church) and he's from York, PA. In fact, the mother church that planted BIC is in York. Then a girl sitting in front of me was also from York. And that day, the mother church's pastor and his wife were visiting so I met them also. Pretty cool.

Slightly funny cultural experience moment: Emily, Bryce and I went to a military music festival, which was pretty awesome, because it's about as close to marching bands Europe gets. So we get there and after only a moment's hesitation end up buying scalped tickets. Ha! And then on the way in, they were checking our bags. So the woman checking my bag pulls out my Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer and asks "Was ist das?" in absolute bewilderment. I swallowed down a laugh as I quickly racked my brain for what "sanitizer" could possibly be in German and only ended up saying "Hand?" It was pretty priceless.

This this week is our first "Fire-Abend", which right now is our monthly meeting which has a similar goal of Cru's weekly meetings back in the states. Please pray lots of students will come! Thanks!

Ich bin ein Berliner...

... officially!

In the words of my teammate, Katie: "Germans are fast and efficient. Expect for when they're not. And Germans never go on strike. Expect for when they do." So basically, in order to get a visa, we have to register with the city. In order to register with the city, we need to have proof that we live here. So it took us a while obtain our proof and then we found out that the people who do registration were on strike. To make a long story short, we got up at 5:15 am yesterday in order to get in line by 6:30, because by the time these places open (8:00 am), there's a line of 100 people waiting to get something done with the city. So being there at 6:30 am, in the dark and freezing cold, paid off. We're official.

We had our first party last night - kind of like a 'welcome back' party for students. We had 25 or 30 students there which is quite successful. We met a lot of students, students met students and we had a lot of fun. The thing about German parties however, is that parties generally go well into the night/morning. Even more so than parties in American colleges - seriously. So we finished up around 2:30 am, and the last students to leave weren't even tired. A few even went to another party after ours. But since we had been up since 5:15 that same morning, you can imagine we were a bit tired.

Our time on campus now consists of meeting students and doing short spiritual surveys with them. I've had a few opportunities to make appointments with students one-on-one which has been really great. It's slightly overwhelming to be meeting so many people, but I'm really excited to get to know some of them better.

Tschussiluss!

First Week of Classes

It's been quite the week. We did surveys at all the campuses to find students who might be interested in God and/or Campus für Christus. Certainly A LOT of rejection in many ways, but I know I've learned a bit about what ministry to Berlin students is going to look like. And we did over 1,000 surveys in total! That's 1,000 students who at least briefly thought about God, spiritual things and what that means in their lives. That's pretty cool. It was also cool to see all my team members step out in faith, especially the ones who don't know much German. God did a lot this week and I'm really thankful. We're all really excited for the students who marked some sort of interest and are replying to our emails to meet up and talk. This coming week will hopefully be a lot of followup, but it will also just be sharing our faith with students. We're having a big "welcome back" kind of party on Friday. It should be a good, casual atmosphere to get to know students better and although I'm unsure of what it's going to be like, I'm pretty excited about it.

One Month/Meet the Entourage

And we're definitely on our way! We spent this past week planning and preparing for the first week of classes and things are definitely coming together. It's going to be a very busy week of surveying, meeting and talking to students. These first few weeks are the most important so we'll be on the campuses most of the day. Please pray for this coming week.



Meet the Entourage:

I figured you should know some of the people who I may talk about or you may see in pictures who are not on the STINT team so here they are:

Elaine: Elaine is from London and studies at Cambridge. She's studying German and French and is on her year abroad here in Berlin. She's not taking classes, but needs to be involved in something that requires her to speak German. So what better way to spend your year speaking German than to do German ministry! So Elaine is basically part of our team and we definitely love her.

Monte and Anne Keltner: Monte and Anne are on staff with Family Life (a ministry of CCC). Monte was actually in my language class with me. They are great and very hospitable to us.

Kevin and Lisa: Kevin and Lisa are from New Zealand and are on staff with Athletes In Action (another ministry of CCC).

Ben and Jessi: Also with AIA, Ben and Jessi are from Washington state.

Leah: Another AIA staff member. Leah plays basketball with a women's group here, but she can't actually play in their competetive games until she has her visa. Unfortually right now, a few divisions of city registry and the US Embassy are on strike now and it's taking a while to get done. So please say a prayer for Leah that she'll be able to get that soon.

There will probably be some more, but I'll save them for a later post.

TU!

There are three major universities in Berlin: Humbolt, Frei and Technische. As a STINT team, we have split into three smaller campus teams. That way we will really get to know one campus, the way things work, what the students are like, etc. I was assigned to Technishe along with my teammates, Dave and Amanda. Go TU! This campus has students that study science, engineering, etc. anything technical of course. So you can start praying for this university. :) We also have several contacts of students who were talked to by both summer projects this past summer. Please pray that we'll be able to get a hold of them and that they'll be interested in meeting with us and getting involved in Campus fur Christus.

Pictures!

I thought I'd post some pictures for those of you without facebook. The group pic is my class from language school. They were really sweet and I'm going to miss them. Below that is the TV Tower and then the Reichstag. Then it's the ladies out for Tai and last is the canal right down our street. They have a massive Turkish market by there every Friday.

Und das ist das.

This week has been super busy, having language school and then meetings. We're all rather tired and most of us are ready for language school to be over. Our last day is tomorrow and I'm actually kind of sad about it. It has been kind of intense and no graduate enjoys having homework and studying again, but I'm going to miss my class. They were a lot of fun and we really bonded over the past few weeks. Plus, it was also such a great opportunity to really remember and improve my German in an environment designed for that. And now I'm not going to have that. But I really want to commit to purposefully learning German after it's over so as to not be complacent with where I am (which really isn't that good). We've also been helping the Sfura's move in this week. Yesterday, we helped clean the apartment and tomorrow after school, we're moving them in. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm so excited they'll finally have a place of their own. Oh, and the Trepod's just signed a lease for an apartment today, too! So, slowly, but surely, things are coming together. I think we're all ready for all the details to come together and to get some rest so we can really start on the campuses strong.

This is where I live.

So this week has absolutely flown by. After language schools in the morning, we've visited the universities and had lunch with the students. It was really great to finally be on campus. It's kind of intimidating, like being a freshman all over again, except this time, not fully understanding the language. We also had a staff meeting for all Crusade staff in Berlin for all ministries. It was really cool to how God is working in Berlin. This week we also got a chance to go to the Wansee which is a very pretty lake and we walked around and took pictures. Today some of us girls went to Leipzig for the day. It's such a cute, super German city. We got to climb the tower of the church where J.S. Bach conducted and directed. Really cool. The apartment is slowly coming together. There are still quite a few details to take care of, but it's starting to feel more like home. Tomorrow, I'm going to try a German speaking church that some of the return STINTers go to. This coming week is our last week in language school. And in the afternoons, we will be doing some planning/training for the semester. Please pray that God will really guide us and we contintue to move forward. Please also pray for our STINT couples, Dan and Krista, and Matt and Leslie. Dan and Krista still don't officially have a place to live yet, but they've applied for an apartment nearby. And Matt and Leslie are trying to get their new place set up so they're family (they have 3 kids) can finally move it. It's just a really slow process getting their place painted and a kitchen installed. Thanks so much!

A week in...

It's only been a bit over a week and yet it feels like I've been here for so long! The apartments are 10 times better now that we have crucial things like lights. We're still in the process of setting things up though. The boys still don't have a working stove or washing machine and our washing machine doesn't want to work either. Oh the joys of living in a foreign country. ;) But we're all adjusting, exploring our neighborhood and practicing our German. Unfortunately there's some sort of bad cold traveling among my team and I think I caught it today. It's pretty nasty so please pray I get rid of it soon. We (as the new STINTers) are now looking for a home church. There are more choices than I thought there would be. The biggest decision to make is if I want an English or German speaking church. I still don't know. Then I spend most of the day painting the Sfura's new apartment. After language school tomorrow, we're going on a campus for the first time! Very exciting.

I'm here!

Hallo!

So, finally I'm here in Berlin! It's really crazy to be here after a long summer of anticipating this moment, but so great for our whole team to be together for the first time. But it's been so crazy since being here. We've had so much to do and really jumped right into it. Every morning we have language school. It's rather intense and the first day, after our placement test, I was put in a middle level class and I really struggled. It's been such a long time and even though I can know some grammer, I'm really slow at speaking and listening. I dropped to a lower level class and it's going much better. In the afternoons, we either meet with our team or take a trip to Ikea to furnish our apartments. I'm pretty exhasted, but doing well conisdering. As we're getting more setteled, I'm feeling more comfortable at home here. In the coming days, we'll be doing more team building and then start planning for when the semester starts - very exciting. Thank you all for your prayers. I know I would not be doing as well as I am without them.

Ta-Da!

After many years of fighting it, I have finally started a blog. :) This is to keep family, friends and supporters updated on how things are going while I STINT in Germany. I leave in two weeks (Sept. 12th to be exact) and I'm virtually finished raising my financial support - praise God! Last week I returned from Colorado where we had our briefing which was a really amazing experience and I got to meet most of my team for the first time. Many STINTers left straight from Denver to go to their assignment. I'm really grateful that I could come home for a few weeks before leaving. Not that I've been home much in the past week. I left for Syracuse almost as soon as I got back to PA to see some friends once more. It was definitely strange being back on campus and knowing I'm not a student, but I had a really good time. And then, just a day and a half after I drove back home, I flew to Cleveland (where I type this now). Maybe it's because I can't seem to stop traveling, but time is really flying by and I'll be in Berlin before I know it. So exciting! After a long summer of raising support it's easy to wonder if the time would ever come, but here it is! Only two more weeks!