The End?

Well, tomorrow is the graduation of all the seniors. School ended yesterday and people are cleaning up and enjoying talking to each other and signing yearbooks. Many good things are happening right now although it is very tiring and emotionally draining. Just a short update, but wanted to give one.

The End Comes...

Well,

The year is winding down. There are only 3.5 weeks of school left. It gets busier and busier. The seniors are slowly starting to get ready to say goodbye. The rest are looking forward to the summer and time away from school. It will be a crazy few weeks but a good few weeks. So many people have done so many great things this year.

The sports teams head to tournament this year. It should be a great time and maybe some winning. As for me, I am sliding into this RA thing and having a blast. It s great to be here and enjoy all that God is allowing me to.

Romania

Recently I had the privilege to spend 9 days in Romania with 11 wonderful high school kids and another wonderful adult. We spent those days in Marga, Romania at a youth center. This youth center is for kids of the village to come to and have a chance to learn about God and also hang out and play ping pong, soccer and other assorted activities. The center is run by a married couple. She grew up in Marga and he has been in Romania for about 12 years. She really has a heart for the kids of her village.

We presented a program which included a Bible lesson, music, games, crafts and a mime. After that was over and dinner we would just hang out with the kids for many hours into the night. These were long days.

We also did some work projects. We helped a family plant their potato field. We got done in 3 hours what would have taken them a couple of days. It wasn't that we were that good, we just had 13 extra people. We also added on to the ministry center's basketball court. Pouring concrete can be fun.

Romania is so poor and it was shocking at times to see how people lived. It does seem to be improving though. That is good. Overall it was a great experience and I was really blessed by it.

Well,

After the lame winter for cold and snow, or lack of, it seems that March may actually bless us with a bit of the wintry stuff. We have about 6 inches of snow here and it is supposed to snow off and on until Saturday. Maybe we will get up to a foot of snow eventually. That would be nice.

Anyway, in honor of the snow, the school has granted the students a snow day. So they are all staying home and enjoying the day off. Up here in the hills, we have enough to to play in, I am not sure what they will do down the hill. Spring break is coming up in a week and that will lead me to Romania for a week. It should be quite enjoyable.

That's the news for now.

Curling

So there is this sport called curling. It got pretty decent coverage during the last Olympics. Well today I had the opportunity to try it out. The entire Residence Life guys went. We made teams and everything.

Let me just say something. It is a lot harder than it looks. It is definitely a game of touch and balance. I was hilarious to watch. The first couple-few times I tried to slide the stone, I wiped out.
I also found out that Canadians are much better at this sport. Maybe it is because they do things like learn it in their PE classes. I got to do everything except what the guy is doing in the above picture. That was better left with someone that knew what they were doing.


Now this is what I did most. Sweep. They tell me to sweep. They tell me to stop. I just try to get it done. Overall, I really enjoyed myself and want to do it again. Once I learned how not to wipe out, it was cool.

In other news, we had our high school retreat this weekend. It was really good. Maybe I will write more about it later. Some kids are definitely asking themselves tough questions though.

Up-to-date?

Well, it is the end of February and school is starting to wind up. Basketball just ended and next Monday soccer and track start up. Soccer is the big sport here. The doldrums of February are being left behind and this weekend will be a help for that as the entire high school heads off to Nuernburg for a winter retreat.

Now you wouldn't even know that it is winter here due to the warm weather we are having, but a winter retreat will be attempted anyway. Either way, an enjoyable time should be had although I will most likely be exhausted.

Does anybody know what time it is?

Hey all,

It has been a while, but here I am. February is upon us and March is just around the corner. It is amazing how fast time seems to move. February is known as a hard time around here. It is a long stretch to a break and the guys are feeling it. Attitudes are hard and many aren't happy.

Please pray for us as we navigate and help the guys make the best of it. Also that we don't get stressed out.

An added opportunity

It was very unexpected, but it looks like half of my spring break here is going to be full. I am going to Romania. I was asked to be a leader to go on the trip. There are ten students going and 2 leaders. We are going to a center that works with youth where we will do a Bible school thing and also a building project.

I wasn't planning on this and I was looking at a relaxing time, but there was a need. Please pray that I will have the energy for this and that the trip preparation will go well. If you could also pray that the finances for the trip would work out well that would be great.

Thanks.

Pictours

Hey everyone, I decided to post some pictures of where I live with snow. These pictures were taken out of my 3 windows in my room.

This first one looks up the hill. Hochblauen is in the top right of the photo. It is a bit concealed by cloud cover.
This is the second pic. It looks down the hill towards Kandern.

This is the third pic. It looks up to the middle of Marzell and beyond. The Blauen dorm is the first house across the street on the left. Those are our vans in the driveway.


You can click on them to make them bigger!!

Oh the weather outside.

Well it took a while, but winter is finally here. It started to turn cold on Sunday and has gotten colder ever since. We had snow last night and then again it started tonight. It is falling lightly and beautifully and isn't supposed to stop until tomorrow night. Yeah, I am happy.

Also, if you could pray, fellow RAs Matt and Sarah recently had a baby. Her name is Anna Pearl. I had said before that the right side of her heart didn't work. She has heart surgery tomorrow. They are putting a shunt between her aorta and pulminary artery. Please pray for her and them.