Christmas Markets

Europe has these things called Christmas markets. In the center places of towns they set up all these little booths and lights and you just walk around eating food and looking. I have had the pleasure of going to 2 in the past week.

The first one was in Colmar, France. What a quaint little town. It is pretty old and the shops were set up in about 5 or so different places. It was nice and relaxed and some really old churches that I got to see.

The second one was in Heidelberg, Germany. I had the privilege of spending the last weekend there with 12 fellow RAs. Their Christmas market was much bigger. There were lots of people too. It was all down one main street in the different squares. It was quite nice and relaxing. Oh, and to boot, there was a Roman castle above it. Pretty cool.

As for the dorm, we are coming down the homestretch. The guys leave in a week and a couple of days. They are coming into exams and life is just crazy right now. All we have to do is make it 2 weeks. Please pray for the guys.

Something to know

Hey all,

I just wanted to ask for your prayers. Two of the people that I work with are married and expecting a baby. They found out last week that the baby has a heart condition where the right side of the heart is not developing. There is nothing that can really be done before the baby is born and then the baby will have to have surgeries to help correct the problem.

Here is a link with more information.

Matt

Herbstmesse

Here are some pics that were taken at Herbstmesse. It is a big fair thing that was in the end of October into the beginning of November and the whole school goes on October 31. The rides were in the open areas of Basel. These pictures were taken by BFA people. Here is a link to the BFA photo gallery with lots of neat pictures. Here is a link to the specific photo gallery for Herbstmesse.




Here is Basel. That is the ferris wheel that I rode. It was really high, but I survived. It was an awesome view of the city



Here are two of my boys on the bumper cars. The guy on the left is Tim and he is the student body president. The guy on the right is John. He is one of 4 brothers in our dorm. BFA has a time when everyone gathers at the bumper cars to ride. Over 500 tickets were sold to BFA. There was no set direction to drive for these bumper cars.



Here is a picture of staff. The guy on the left is Jeff and he is an RA with me at Sonne. The 3rd from the right is Sarah. She is pregnant and also RAs at Sonne along with her husband Matt. I don't know who the guy all the way on the right is.



This is a pic of more RAs. The Rhein river is beautiful, especially going through Basel.



This is the view from the top of the ferris wheel. It was pretty.

Have a great day. Now that we have faster internet I hope to post more pictures.

Picture

Here are my boys.

More pics coming

Thanks to the one...

This past Thursday, BFA celebrated Thanksgiving. We cooked up all the fixins as well as 6 turkeys and 4 hams. We had 43 people all together around one big long table. It was loud and the food was good. Then we watched some good ole American football afterwards to polish the Thanksgiving feel off.

It was nice to have a little feel of North America here in Germany. I think that the guys really enjoyed it too. After the meal, we all went around and said something that we were thankful for. Some really good things came out. There are many neat things that people are thankful.

Tonight I go into Basel, CH with some guys for an outreach thing. It should be fine. Basel is a great city.

Eclecticism

It sleeted last night. That is right, snow is just around the corner. I like snow but everyone here tells me that I will eventually be sick of it when it gets to be April and maybe May. We shall see.

Today the guy RAs walked up to the World War memorial in Kandern. It was nice and has a nice view. It is weird to think that I am in Germany who had a pretty significant role in both World Wars. Ah, history. I like it.

Not a sermon, just a thought

Some may say that this RA position here at BFA is a pretty thankless job. I have thought it at times. The guys don't notice what you do and your fellow staff members expect you to hold up your end of the work. In the end it ends up being pretty thankless.

This got me thinking. How often is God in a thankless 'job'. If things are going well, we just expect them to. If things are going bad, we may blame God. How much do we thank Him? How much do I thank Him? Not much.

I got to work on that. I have been told before that it is a good thing to thank God for something or 5 every day. I think it would be a good practice.

A Wonderful Thing

Two Sundays ago, I had a wonderful privilege. I got to lead some worship at church. There is a church that has services on Sundays in the auditorium of the school. It is an English speaking church that many of the people that serve at BFA go to.

As many of you know, I love worship through music. I love music so that helps. It was a great opportunity that God gave me to do it. Many times God gives us gifts beyond what we can do to serve Him. This whole position at BFA is like that. The worship was just another example. I am so thankful for that opportunity.

I'm sorry

I want to do a mass apology to everyone who has emailed me. I have been horrible at getting back within a reasonable time. Sorry about that. I could make some excuses but that won't help anyway. I just need to work on it.

In other news, I thought that I would give you some information about the dorm. The house's first part was built in 1820. And the second part was built in 1899. It is an old building with a really homey feel. It used to be a guesthouse so it transformed well into be a place for 28 guys to stay. We have a soccer field near us and the Blauen dorm is across the road. I should try to get some pics up for you. Oh, I wish I had a digital camera. Oh well.

Peace all.

A New Experience

Granted I am in a completely different culture so new experiences are probably the norm. But today I did something I haven't done before. I took a guy to the German doctor. Doctors here are pretty different. First off, the waiting room was actually a room with a door. And then it was quick. Within 20 minutes of walking in the door, we were walking out.

Another interesting thing about German doctors is that they don't tell you what is wrong. They just tell you what to do to fix it. It doesn't seem to matter to them what it is and they could care less about telling you. This observation is based on more than just one experience. So I have no idea what is wrong with my guy, but we got medicine to make him better. Yippee.

One of these days I will eventually tell you about the Alps, but not now.

Also, I miss live music. I didn't realize how much I went to.