Merhaba!

Mid-Year Spain 2011

Hello friends!

My team and I are here in Nerja, Spain safe and sound. Here is a verrrrry brief recap of the past few days:

Day 1: Bed bugs in our room. Gross!

Day 2: SUNshine! Worship! Rest!

Day 3: Bazaar - so cool! Almost everyone brought 5 items from their country and we did a swap! I got some pretty cool things :)

Day 4: Hanging out with new friends and spending time with our STINT coaches from the USA. They came to check-in, encourage and build us up during this week.

Day 5: MR. MIDYEAR - A fashion show of guys from a lot of the countries represented. It was pretty funny. It involved cultural apparel, dancing and random questions. The night ended with a dance party - which as some of you know, I love to DANCE!!!

Day 6: Ted [my friend who is teaching english in Spain] came to visit for the afternoon! We went into the Caves of Nerja! Really cool...

Day 7: FLYING ALL DAY... 3 countries in one day. Phew!

It was a great time to refocus and realize how fast the year is going! Thank you all for your partnership and friendship with me along the way.

Egypt: Day 4

Friday we toured a lot! I saw the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx and went to the Egyptian Museum. It was very exciting to see all these things. I did not realize the Pyramid were only discovered in the 1950's!

Saturday, I met several of the people in the office of Cairo. They were so friendly and welcoming. I took several pictures of the office and spent time with one of the women in the office for lunch. She shared with me how much she loves working in the office here. It was good to build a relationship with her and helped me see the importance of what I do back in Paris and how it helps field staff.

So far so good!

Some quotes from our region

STUDENT-LED

“Mohamed is a college student I had the privilege to share the Gospel with many times. After one year and a half of seeking the truth Mohamed decided to give his life to Christ.”

"This year is proving God’s grace and mercy. How unlimited are God’s blessings, that nothing of our weakness can limit the power of God as long as we trust Him.”

LEADER-LED

“Other women who have heard about what’s happening in their city have asked if they can join in.”

CHURCH-LED

“This is my first time I heard about planting churches so I pray to God to give me a vision and power to start to planting a church in my area.”

“Praises to Lord Jesus Christ! He really likes me and other people. He is my Lord and Saviour. I thank him for this.” -

VIRTUAL-LED

“Since I gave my heart to the Lord, I feel lighter – it is like I got rid of seven mountains that were weighing down my back. Before, I beat and mistreated my wife, but now I have peace and I will never go back.”

Christmas Vacation...

I'll post more, but here is a very short picture slide show of the Swiss Alps!

Christmas Vacation!

I am writing this from my hostel in Salzburg, Austria. This Christmas break, both of my sisters were able to come visit me for two weeks! Their first week here, I was still working, but on the weekend, we went into Paris and hit all the main spots!

The Louvre,

Notre Dame,

Champs Elysees,

Arc de Triumphe

and the Eiffel tower!

Gracie celebrated her 21st birthday here - so I threw a little party for her! The girls on my STINT team came as well as 4 of my French friends. We had a lot of fun playing card games and celebrating Gracie.

At the end of the week, it was time to start our vacation of backpacking through Europe. Thursday night, the 23rd, we made our way into Paris with all our gear in hopes to catch our night train to our first stop: Venice, Italy. I say in hopes, because we assumed with our EuRail passes, we did not have to reserve seating - which was not true. Fortunately, there was room on the 8:30 pm train and we were on our way to Italy! The conductor liked us and made sure we were safe by showing us how to lock the door properly and hiding our money just in case. It was great! We had our own 6 person triple bunk bed to ourselves.

We arrive on Venice [it is an island] around 11:30 am the next day. It was beautiful, but rainy. Almost EVERYONE was wearing rubber boots! Restaurants on the main canal were flooded!

We enjoyed all the fun things to do in Venice, including a gondola ride!

On the 26th, we took another night train to Vienna, Austria and stayed there for one night. Gracie and I went on a tour of the catacombs in one of the cathedrals. There were a ton of HUMAN BONES! It was pretty interesting...

December 28th, we took a day train for 2.5 hours to Salzburg, Austria. I think this has been my favorite place so far... We have seen a couple of the places they filmed the classic film 'The Sound of Music' which I have watched growing up. It was so cool!!! The castles, mountains and little shops are really cool too.

More to come!

Thanksgiving

It is hard to believe our Thanksgiving feast was almost 2 weeks ago! It was a great success, so thank you all for praying.

We have 25 people come to our apartment for the feast, which was a great turnout! We had spend the days prior cooking and baking all home-made goodies for the event: apple sauce, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, pumpkin pie... It was sooo good.

We had lots of neighbors come, including Grandma! She said she had a wonderful time and was thankful for kind neighbors. I think this feast helped our neighbors get to know each other as well!

One of the activities we had them do was the classic "trace you hand, because it looks like a Turkey [???] and write what your are thankful for". It was so fun to watch all our French friends participate in this childhood activity. We then cut them out and taped them to the wall. The funny part is, while instructing the activity, my roommate forgot to explain how the hand looks like a Turkey... so I just wonder what they thought..

Thank you all for praying! I apologize for not blogging more often. I promise I will be better about it!