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.