Build Your Kingdom Here

Wow, it's my last day in the US and a lot of 'This is my last time doing ...' are popping up in my head!

I got to do a lot of fun things, got to meet old friends and also some new ones - for that I am so incredibly thankful!

Here are some things that I did this summer:

• enjoy the Minnesotan weather
• be thankful for AC
• meet my baby sister
• meet YFU friends - George, Karla, Rebecca, Pippu, Eva, Hung and Micah
• go to the MOA three times
• go to Chicago
• rejoin Junction 180 (youth group)
• visit Calvary
• get the best quilt/blanket anyone has ever seen - thank you Bonnie!
• go camping two times
• see God's beautiful creation
• drive 156 miles straight (with an AUTOMATIC car - one thing I've missed pretty much all the time was my precious clutch)
• go up to Moorhead to visit Laura
• learn again how to listen to eight conversations at once
• meet Jess (twice!)
• enjoy people's faces when they eat German chocolate :)

There was probably a lot more fun stuff, but it's so hard to put everything in words!

I am so glad that I was able to come stay with my family again, meet old friends and make new ones :)
This was an awesome summer that is over way too soon! I learned a lot and feel so blessed with all the ideas and memories I get to take home!

We sang this song in church at the beginning of my stay here and ever since it is one of those songs that I can just always listen to without getting tired of it :) It just always fills me with joy!

Build Your Kingdom Here 

Ready or not

Well I wasn't really ready for another birthday yet, but I guess that didn't really matter :)

I had an awesome day, starting with going down to The Cities to meet Jess after just a little more than to years. Mitch went down there to pick up the Horol Missions Team from the airport and I thought it would be a nice opportunity to get there!
We met at Caribou to talk and catch up on each others lives, so good!

When we got back home I could already smell my birthday cake and I was really excited to have carrot cake again - something we need (more of) in Germany!

Somewhere between coming home and eating dinner Tirzah asked how old I was now and when Mitch said 'She's 19 now', Tirzah said 'Oh so you're a mom now?'. Best quote of the day!

I got to choose my favorite meal for supper just like every other Theis kid, thanks to Steph for cooking and baking for me!

While eating Mitch started a round of "Memories we have of when Kathi first came here" which was really fun to remember little things of my exchange year!

After supper we had the cake with ice cream - yummy!

Parents + birthday child photo

Now I just got home from a friend's goodbye party who is going to Uruguay this year - yay going abroad!

Thanks for all the congratulations, I had such a great day!

Ready or not

10,000 Reasons

It's been way to long!

After two years I finally got back home. Kimmy said that today when I talked to her in church: "I didn't know you are home yet." - that made me smile!

I arrived at MSP at 6pm on Saturday July 20, 2013 after a long journey from Germany over the Netherlands, to Iceland and finally to America. As Steph mentioned in her blog post already the timing was perfect and neither of us had to wait for a long time :)

We stopped at the Albertville Outlet Mall on our way home where I bought new Nike shoes since I didn't bring any tennis shoes. Luckily I didn't have any problems with the time difference so that I just went to bed and woke up when everybody else did.

Church the next morning was so much fun! Just seeing everybody again and their reactions of seeing me again :) I saw Tracey and walked over to her and she looked so surprised! "I thought I would never see you again in MY LIFE!", is all she said for a while.
Missed my second church family so much!

On Friday Allie and I went to Panera for lunch. It was so nice to talk to you again girl! Sally picked me up later that day and we went out for dinner and saw a movie later. I just missed my little Japanerin and her humor :)

I didn't get a lot of sleep before we left on Saturday morning to go camping down by Rochester at Whitewater State Park. I just realized that the last time I went camping was probably two years ago when I went to Sonshine :) Steph also posted about our camping trip in multiple blog posts with 100 pictures os make sure you check that out!

Speaking of pictures, I brought my SLR camera that uses films - so no digital pictures to post here :) I will scan and post a few after I get home and got them developed but for now you'll only have my texts and Steph's pictures.

Anyway, we got home from camping on Wednesday and I left again on Thursday afternoon to go camping with the Youth Group up North in Schroeder.
The landscape up there is just so beautiful! It was so much fun! We focused on "being still and know that He is God", going through different Psalms and the Lord's Prayer. Besides that we went cliff jumping, swimming, hiking and climbing - such a great trip!

I just got home last night and was very happy to finally be able to sleep in my bed again. However, Tirzah claimed it back during my second camping trip so that she really wanted to sleep in it too - we ended up sharing it which was really funny since she is about half my size but used twice the room!

Church this morning was again really awesome, I met Kimmy - so great to see her :)

I'm going horseback riding now and to Youth Group later tonight... Life is GOOD!

10,000 Reasons

It's your life

Happy Birthday Mitch :)

Miss you and I wish I could be there!

- Kathi Barbie ;)

It's your life

The Story

Happy 45th Birthday Mom!

I enjoyed go seeing a movie with you and I hope you did too :)

Love you <3

The Story

Just The Way You Are

Wow, it's been quite a while since I posted my last post.

What was 'Wonderful to me' then actually costs me a lot of time right now so I guess that's one of the reasons why I didn't blog. That and the fact that nothing really exciting happened...

BUT it was Eden's birthday yesterday and I thought I should post something about that :)

Happy belated Birthday to...

... the best roommate you could ever think of

... a very special friend

... a teenage girl

... my little sister

I really miss you and I hope you had a great day!

Just The Way You Are 

 

Wonderful to me

Okay, I think I might post pictures of Christmas some other day. All the pictures are on my computer and I usually write my blog posts with my laptop - I'm too lazy to put them on my laptop also - so I guess you're just going to have to wait :D

However I really wanted to post about this:

Yesterday I went to a YFU - Youth For Understanding - meeting (of members). Here in Germany YFU separates the whole country into different groups (national committees) and I'm part of the one called 'Westfalen'. On this map, you can see where the different committees are. The meeting lasted about 10 hours and we had a lot of different things to talk about. We also voted for a new head of our group :) Since YFU is a non-profit organization/association almost all of the people working for it are volunteers. I think there are about 30 people working in the main office full-time but the rest is volunteering :)

We also have various representatives for different aspect. For example there is one representative for publicity. That person's job is to organize presentations about YFU (e.g.: in schools,...).

Then there are also representatives for:

• cooperation (keeps members motivated and helps wherever he/she can) 
• publication (responsible for the yearbook and some other stuff that is released by YFU during the year)
• interviews (has to find rooms, team members, etc. for the interviews of the applicants who want to go do an exchange year)
• preparation (organizes the orientations for the students that are going to leave)
• follow-up (organizes the orientations for the students that just got back)

We voted for all of those and a couple other ones - it's hard to find the right translation so I just didn't list them. Anyway I was voted to be representative too and I will take care of the parents :) Meaning I will organize meetings/orientations for the parents of the students that will leave to go abroad this summer. It's my job to be available to them in case they have problems and I will have to find a location and team for the meetings. I'm really excited for that even though I thought it would take up too much time in the beginning. I was asked if I was willing to do it a few weeks before the meeting yesterday and after I thought about it for a while I really wanted to do it! I think it's a great way to get more involved with my exchange organization :)

I'm going to take some pictures now for my art project ;)

Wonderful to me

Something Beautiful

So here it is - later then I expected - my blog post about December 25th.

On the 25th we did our gift giving at about 1pm instead of doing it on the evening of the 24th. Usually that's how you do it in Germany, but since my mom is a nurse and had to work that night we just did it on the 25th.

This is what I got for Christmas:

• 5 pair of tights
• 3 books
• 2 DVDs
• a gift certificate for a jewelry store
• chocolate
• 2 rolls of film (black and white) that I need for an Art Project
• a gift certificate to our 'local' book store

Here are a few pictures of the gift giving :)

Our Christmas tree

The presents

Four candles for Advent

Unwrapping my tights :)

dad unwrapping his first present

Got 'To Save a Life' on DVD - Love that movie!!!

Eating my chocolate Santa

My jewelry store gift certificate :)

Loved Christmas!
Post about the 26th comes soon, but now I have to get ready for New Year's Eve :) Guests coming in an hour ;)

Something Beautiful

Power of the Cross

Christmas was amazing!

My mom had to work on Christmas Eve and I thought we should do the gift giving on the 25th like I had it last year in America :) So for Christmas Eve Mama, Papa and me first went to church at 4pm, then we ate at my grandparents house (the ones who live right next to us) and after that my mom left for work and me and my dad headed to my aunt and uncle's. We had a fun night with them, my cousin and my grandma! We played 'Who am I?!' where everybody gets a post-it note (with a persons name on it) stuck to his or hers forehead and you then have to ask question about 'yourself' that the other people can answer with yes or no.

For example on my note it said 'Joan of Arc' so I was Joan of Arc, but because it was on my forehead I didn't know that, everybody else could read it though, So when it was my turn I asked questions like:

• Am I a person? (yes)
• Am I still alive (no)
• Did I die more than 100 years ago? (yes)
• Am I female? (yes)
• Did I live in Germany? (no)
• Did I come from America? (no)
• Was I from France? (yes)

Then you just have to go on asking or try to guess who you are. Joan of Arc was the only female, dead woman that I could think of that lived in France so then it was pretty easy... My dad was Bruce Springsteen, my aunt Angela Merkel (our president), my cousin was Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, and my uncle was Steve Jobs. I really like that game :)
After that we talked for quite a while and also my other aunt and uncle (my dad's brother and his wife) came over for about an hour or so... Then we played 'Black Stories' for a while. It's similar to 'Who am I': one person draws a card and reads out the title and short sentence about the story from the first side of the card. He himself then reads the back of the card and the other people have to ask him questions that he can answer with yes or no until they know what happened in the story.

I guess it was around 1am that dad and I left and we then went to bed pretty quick :)
I will post about the 25th and 26th soon - with pictures :D

Power of the Cross

Without you

Post number 100 goes to my big brother :)

Happy Birthday Br♥di

Hope you are having a fantastic time in Ecuador and - besides your birthday - a nice Christmas and a Happy New Year :)

I love you so much and I'm really, really proud of you - for mastering all the hardships over there in Ecuador ;)

Looking forward to celebrating your next birthday WITH you!

Without you

Say, Say

Does anyone know any good books?

It's so inspiring and fun to read my bible right now. Sometimes I just don't feel like it at all, but I really enjoy it recently and I thought it would be great to combine reading the bible with another book. So far I enjoyed reading 'Lies young women believe' and 'Your scars are beautiful to God' in small group but apart from that I never really found another book that inspired and touched me the way those two did.

So if you have any that you would recommend reading PLEASE comment or email me ;)

Say, Say

Don't stop

My blog got a new design :)

I like it a lot and I really hope you do too and will continue reading my blog.
I thought it could use some new color and gadgets so that's why it's green now and has "What I'm writing about" at the right side. I also like it better when the Archive is on the left side and the main blog posts in the center of the blog. If you have any other recommendations about how I could make it look even better, just comment this post or email me ;)

I realized that I don't write really often so I also decided to at least try to change that.
Hope I will be able to do that :D

Oh and I forgot, I also added labels to my posts, I didn't get through all of them yet but I'll finish that as soon as I can... I thought it would help to bring some structure into all of this :)

Don't stop

Kisses and Cake

Happy Birthday Steph!

I wish I could give you that cake :)

Hope you have a FANTASTIC 29th (!) birthday with a different cake. If you got my packet already, enjoy the chocolate, if not.. well I hope you don't have to wait much longer! 

Say hello to everybody over there!

Love and miss you incredibly much,

Number 11 ♥ 

Kisses and Cake 

You are holy

I went to church again today!

The church is called 'Christian Center Bielefeld'. It's really close to me and I went with a friend (my brother's best friend's mom Brigitte who we will also be celebrating Thanksgiving with next week ^^). We both felt so welcomed right away and it was such a great community and sermon :) I decided to buy a German Bible, since the only German one I have so far is the German-English one Steph and Mitch got for me on Christmas (there's a picture) and since it's both English and German it's pretty heavy to carry around every Sunday. So now I have a smaller one. Also they asked in the beginning before the sermon if there is anybody new that was there for the first time. We then both got a little packet with a welcoming letter, some information about the church, two gift certificates for coffee at the little coffee bar they had there and one gift certificate to get a free New Testament. When I payed for the Bible and got the free New Testament, I also got another book for free. Then when we left the church with the friend who invited Brigitte and me she both gave us a book called 'Jesus unser Schicksal' (in English: Jesus our destiny). So I left the church with four books even though I only bought one :)

I was so excited and now I am so incredibly happy that we were able to go.
I'm also listening to Louie Giglio's 'UnThinkable You - Journey with God' right now.

We watched 'How great is our God', 'Fruitcake and Ice Cream' and 'Indescribable' during Youth Group before and I just found 'UnThinkable You - Journey with God' yesterday. Here is a link to a short video about the different sermons.

Wow, there are a lot of links in this post and here is the last one for today :)

You are holy

You're Beautiful

Today one year ago - November 7, 2010 - I was baptized!

I can't believe it's that long ago already! When I look at pictures (for example my profile picture here) it feels like it was last weekend that I gave my testimony to the church!

It was such an amazing day and I know that I won't forget it!

I love the song! It's so true and really encouraging for me ;)

You're Beautiful

All I Have is Christ

Wow, I'm back in Germany for more than two months already and today was the first time that I went to church since July 24! I decided I wanted to check out the church I went to with my family - that would be once a year: Christmas - before I came to America, but I kept finding 'excuses' why I couldn't go.

I got so mad at myself because I didn't do anything, I think in the last 2 months I read my Bible once completely on my own - I listened to the sermons from Calvary that are online so I read a few passages along - so I did quiet time once. I don't even know why I think it's so hard, it really isn't! Back in America I thought it would be so though to find a church that I would like to go to and stay confident in my faith.

I didn't go to church the first Sunday because we took my brother to the airport (he went to Ecuador do to voluntary work for a year) and after that I just found a whole lot of reasons why I didn't go.

Last Monday me and my mom visited my Godmother, because it was her birthday, and I talked to her daughter for quite a while! She asked me if I wanted to borrow a couple of books from her and she gave me "When God Writes Your Love Story" by Eric and Leslie Ludy. I started reading it yesterday when I took a break from studying for my drivers license test and I really like it - I'm only on page 48 though... I am a really slow reader. Anyway, when I read it I realized how much I pushed God away the last couple of month and I started watching Fireproof, knowing it would remind me of the greatness of Him! I felt so good when I went to bed last night :)

Then this morning I woke up at 8.45am to get ready to BIKE (I usually hate biking, I'm just not the biggest sports fan, but it is so nice outside and my parents were still sleeping...) to church. It is so cool that I went this Sunday because it was the best sermon I ever experienced in Germany! The church has a sister church in Ghana and works together with a missions organization. They had a choir from Africa come to our church and the songs were so beautiful. Plus it was a very long sermon (2 hours) compared to the usual ones (45 minutes) so it was a lot closer to what I am used to from Calvary :) And another awesome thing: they translated most of it in English for the choir. I know it sounds weird but I still understand English way better than German. There are a couple of old words that are used quite often in church that I don't know so it was nice to have the English translation :D

My school offers a retreat for 10th grade (my grade) every year to a former monastery. They take 30 people every year. Here in Germany we have Religion class in school, but if you want to you can pick Philosophy instead beginning in 9th grade. If there are more than 30 people signed up for the retreat they'll prefer the students that chose Religion and if they still have to many, they will draw the names. I'm really excited for this and hope I'll be able to go.

I love all of the Animation videos from Sovereign Grace Music, but this is definitely my favorite one so far.
It is so incredible and almost always makes me cry.

Please pray for me that I take my time to read God's Word more often and trust in Him!
I miss you guys ♥

Paradise

School started :)

Actually it did about 3 weeks ago already (September 7th), but I didn't find the time yet to write a post about it!
Since our school system is a little different, we don't have the same schedule every day, so this is mine:

Monday:

1. Geography
2. Geography
3. Social Science/Economics
4. Social Science/Economics
5. Biology
6. Biology
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. PE
9. Religion

Tuesday:

1. English
2. English
3. - OPEN -
4. - OPEN -
5. Social Science/Economics
6. Biology
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. - OPEN -
9. Math

Wednesday:

1. English
2. Art
3. - OPEN -
4. - OPEN -
5. History
6. History

Thursday:

1. German
2. German
3. Religion
4. Religion
5. PE
6. PE
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. Math (extra lesson because I just don't get it xD)
9. Chemistry

Friday:

1. Art
2. Art
3. Math
4. Math
5. Chemistry
6. Chemistry
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. History
9. Geography
10. German

We start school at 7.45am and our breaks between class aren't all 5 minutes long, so here are the times to my schedule:

1. Period: 7.45-8.30
2. Period: 8.35-9.20
3. Period: 9.40-10.25
4. Period: 10.30-11.15
5. Period: 11.25-12.10
6. Period: 12.15- 1.00
7. LUNCH BREAK for 1 hour
8. Period: 2.00-2.45
9. Period: 2.55-3.40
10. Period: 3.45-4.30

My school - Niklas-Luhmann-Gymnasium

That means I get out of school at 3.40pm on Monday, technically 3.40pm too on Tuesday but I have saxophone lesson right after so I'm not home before 4.45pm. On Wednesday school ends at 1pm for every student because the teachers have conferences and on Thursday I'm out at 3.40 again and Friday it's 4.30pm...
School days are sooo long, but occasionally we get some periods off when teachers aren't in school because they are sick or on a class trip. Because my English teacher was gone last week I didn't have to go to school till 11.25am :) That was nice. I miss being able to sleep long in the morning because school doesn't start until 8.20 - I miss Apollo!

Well anyway it feels good to be back in school after my super long vacation this year (from May 26-September 7... my classmates only had from end of July to September :D).

I'm also repeating my year that I 'missed' in school here while I stayed in Minnesota. Turns out to be a really good decision, because a lot of other exchange students I know that are continuing in their old grade are struggling already! My new grade is awesome even if a lot of my classmates are about 2 years younger than I am - I got into 1st grade with 7yrs., most kids are 6 :)

I talked to 8th and 9th graders and their parents about doing an exchange year on our annual information night about exchange programs and it was sooo much fun sharing a couple stories.

Well anyway I'm a little busy too now with getting my driver's license so I don't know when I'll be able to post again...
Hope it'll be soon though!

Paradise

The hardest part

So now that I got the Family Trip post out of the way I still have a lot more to catch up on!
At first I really had a lot of stuff to do so that I didn't get the chance to blog more but then I also didn't really want to finish the post, because it made me a little sad thinking about everything again!

I had so much fun on our trip and the whole rest of the year so that it's really hard to just finish it up like that.

Anyway. 'The hardest part' was going back to Germany, not knowing when I come back to America (it's definitely a 'when' and not an 'if' though!).

I was pretty busy with packing my 3 suitcases - which I started doing about a week before I left. And even though there were 3 suitcases with lots of room I still had tons of clothes I gave to Holly and Hope because I just couldn't take them with me :)

My last Sunday at church and Youth Group made me pretty sad. I asked Josh if I could come up front during Youth Group to thank everybody and say goodbye. When I did that everybody gathered around me and prayed for me and that already made me cry :(
Thinking about it again right now makes me wanna go back right now - especially with school starting tomorrow :D

On Wednesday we had a Goodbye Party for me which was pretty amazing! I have no clue how many people came to say goodbye but there were a lot and it was so nice to see everyone ones more before I left!

That night I finished up packing everything while Mitch was playing XBOX 360. I asked him when we will leave and he really freaked me out when he said 8 AM. We ended up leaving at 7 and that was totally enough time but still made me worry a little that I might miss my plane which took of at 10:56AM (you now being there 2 hours earlier made it 8:56 plus driving for about 1 1/2 hours is 7:26 and then usually you should plan with traffic so I would have left at 6 xD) Anyhow we were just fine and not that I would have complained if I missed it and would have had to stay in America a little more :)

I felt a little sick that morning and like I would throw up every moment (probably because of all the emotions...) so I decided to sleep on the way to Minneapolis.

Arriving at the airport I checked in my suitcases and then we still had some time to take pictures - which you can see on Steph's blog :) Then it was time to say goodbye which was definitely the 'hardest part' of the day and the worst goodbye I ever had! Not knowing when you see your family again really isn't fun at all!

When I walked down to my gate I was crying pretty bad and a airport person even asked me if he could help me somehow. I was so messed-up I forgot to go through the security check correctly: I left my shoes and belt on, didn't take my laptop out of my bag at first, didn't empty out my pockets...
Oh dear I made some people mad :)

I bought an 6-hour-energy-shot because I forgot to buy one earlier. It's good to have when you have such a long way to go and don't want to be sleepy when you arrive :)

Then I went to my gate (E6) and waited till it was boarding time. I sat next to a woman who was really nice and we talked a lot about being an exchange student etc. It was nice talking to her and it kept me from being to sad. She had EarPlanes and said she would give me her extra pair if I wanted it. It helped so much and I was really glad she gave them to me.

In Chicago I went straight to my gate because I was afraid to miss my flight like I almost did coming to the US. I met another exchange student from Germany who was there with Rotary and a missions group who went to Ukraine for 3 weeks.
In the airplane I was sitting right in front of the 'wall' between the business and economy class so I had a lot of room for my legs :D I wasn't able to watch the movies or anything because we didn't have a screen in front of us but I just watched a couple movies on my iPod :)

Arriving in Germany I had to wait a little long to get all my suitcases and my saxophone but once I had it I got to my family really quick! My parents, my brother and my aunt and uncle picked me up and it was a fun way back home!

Well now I'm home for over a month already and it's weird thinking about heading back to my German school tomorrow. I also started having driver's lessons so I can get my license as soon as possible. Fun times!

Again I will recommend Steph's blog post about me leaving on July 28th! 

The hardest part

On the road again

Our trip was awesome!

The first stop was visiting Mitch's grandma in Yuma, Colorado. It was really cool with all the open area around. Steph said: 'When anybody tells you again the world is too populated tell them to go to Colorado.'
I won't write really detailed in general just because I have so much to post about otherwise and I don't want to sit here for four hours and write everything down. Steph did a really good job describing what we did during our trip so I will just link her post. So this is her blog post about Yuma.

Eden's and my room at Grandma Lungwitz' house

So much wide open space in Colorado :)

After Yuma we drove to Estes Park in the Rocky Mountains (still Colorado). There we had the Theis family reunion with about people. It was the family from Mitch's grandparents (his dad's parents) and down. Steph's post
It was really cool to meet everybody and get to know 'my whole family'. I'm so glad I decided to extend my stay for a month because otherwise I would have left on June 23 and wouldn't have been able to meet all of them.

After the family reunion we left to go to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. It was incredible! Here are Steph's Blogposts: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

Well okay originally I wanted to also upload my pictures from the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone, but I don't have enough room on my laptop to even have a preview of my pictures when I double click on them so it's really hard to post them... sorry. Maybe I will eventually when my laptop is fixed but I can't promise that... we'll see I guess :)

Anyway the song was Mitch's idea. He told me about it while we were driving to Yellowstone and I like it a lot!

On the road again

The Little Things

...that will happen soon!

Tomorrow at 4am we will leave to go on our big family trip to Colorado where we have a Family Reunion! We will also travel around after that (Yellowstone, etc.). I am so excited to be able to see more of the US before I leave!

Three days after we come back I will leave for Sonshine (July 13-16), a christian music festival where Skillet, Switchfoot and lots of other cool bands - all in all there are 100 I think...

I'm very excited for all that!

Alright I have to pack the rest of my stuff for tomorrow now!
"See" you in July.

The Little Things