December in Germany (mostly)

It's been one crazy (but really great) month. Here's a quick update:

At one of our city-wide Campus meetings (Fire-Abend), we had a talk on the importance of evangelism and the simple steps students could take to start making it a lifestyle. Our speaker (a German Campus staff member who works with business leaders) told the students that if they have questions about sharing their faith, they should ask us as the STINT team. He said how we've come to do this in a different country, in a different language and do it all the time. He even said we are heroes! I was so surprised and touched to hear him say that (got a bit emotional, haha).

My homegroup at church had a big Christmas party this month. I love going to an international church for many reasons, but one of them, honestly, does have to be how many different and awesome foods I get to eat. Of course, I also love how I can feel comfortable and at home with a group of people that represent 10 different nations. But most importantly, they represent Jesus. :) We sang "Silent Night" in all the native languages we had there, which was so cool and special. It's such a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to be a part of something like this.

I also got to go to Dresden this month. Dresden was the most destroyed city in Germany from WWII so it's almost entirely rebuilt. But they rebuilt the "old city" part of it almost completely replicated. So it's absolutely beautiful, especially during Christmas time. In fact, they have the oldest Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas market) in Germany!

Believe it or not, I was also in America this month! Three of us 2nd-years went to New York for the wedding of our teammate from last year, Jon. It was just for the weekend, so it was kind of overwhelming and exhausting, but really fun and really cool to see a bunch of my teammates from last year. :)

In more random news, my heater in my room broke for the second time this year. After calling the heating people, they said they were overwhelmed with complaints with heaters breaking, because of the abnormally cold temperatures Berlin is experiencing right now. He told us just to give it a whack with a hammer - not kidding. So Katie and I picked up a hammer from the boys' apartment and did exactly that. And guess what. It worked! So I'm super thankful that I have heat in my room again. It's been below freezing for about a week now. This is definitely the coldest and snowiest I've ever seen Berlin. After four years in Syracuse, I should really be used to this...

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a good slide into the New Year! ;)