Over the river...Almost

Recently I had a birthday and it involved a certain watery tradition of the dorm. I have been wanting to get pictures up for you so you could see some of it. It took me a while, but here it is.

This is me giving my birthday speech. It was a grand thankful speech and way too long for the impatient guys. They were really eager to creek me. Notice the water on my shirt as a foreshadowing to the event.

This is half way down to the creek. They started singing, 'Nah, nah, nah, nah...nah, nah, nah, nah...Hey, hey, hey...Goodbye!" and didn't stop until I went in.

And this is me going in. They had great joy in doing it and after I went in, I was sure to give giant hugs to whomever I met on the way back to the house. That is why they are running.

Well, enjoy and have a good laugh at this.

It's been so long...

Wow, there has been lots to do recently. Many things are happening right now. The guys are getting a lot busier with extra-curricular activities and I get to take them to such places. Laundry finally went smoothly today. Hopefully I will continue to smooth everything out as I get used to it.

Football is something that I thought I wouldn't get to watch, but there is this wonderful channel called NASN(North American Sports Network) and I got to see two games this past Sunday. A little taste of home.

Nothing of great significance has happened recently, but I seemed to be reminded often that I am not in my comfy North American environment.

Please pray for me that I will respond well to the students and also work well with my fellow staff members.

Other prayer requests are a bit more personal. Probably my hardest adjustments since being here have been losing my independence and also leaving my support structure back in the states.

God bless

A weekend of Germany

This is where I, with a couple of my guys, hike to on Saturday afternoon. Round trip it was about 6-7 miles. It was pretty neat. The castle started sometime in the 1200s. I could give you more information if I knew some German, but oh well. We were able to climb up to the top of the turret and look around. Pretty cool.

On Sunday, we went into town to a festival called Budenfest. There were all kinds of food stands there were you could get pretty much anything. They also had a polka band that I got to hear. It was pretty interesting to be submerged into complete German culture for a bit. I got myself a nice and juicy bratwurst to celebrate the day. A neat experience to be sure.

A website for y'all to search. It is all in German so I apologize for that, but it is the website for the town that I live in. On the left you can click on something called 'Fotos". There are some nice pictures there.

Weekend Update

Okay, so it isn't really the weekend, but it is close enough. It has been crazy busy this week. So much has been going on. We are definitely in the middle of the school year already. Running people everywhere. Trying to keep up with everything. Nothing like doing 10-15 loads of laundry on one day.

I am slowly starting to get into a rhythm which will be nice. Crazy stuff is happening though. The ceiling in our dorm parents apartment fell in on this past Monday. A headache that wasn't really needed. I got my first day off since I got here this week. It was nice to just sleep in and do what I wanted to.

I have some contact info for y'all. If you want to mail something you can send it to one of two places. Either the dorm or the school.

The dorm address is:
Kanderstrasse 8
79429 Malsburg-Marzell
Germany

The school address is:
Postfach 1109
79396 Kandern
Germany

And my phone number is: 00 (49) 7626.8504