Here I am

Here I am - this is me
There's no where else on earth I'd rather be
Here I am - it's just me and you
And tonight we make our dreams come true

It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you
Here I am

Here we are - we've just begun
And after all this time - our time has come
Ya here we are - still goin' strong
Right here in the place where we belong

Oh It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you
Here I am

Here I am

Yeah

I've been waiting for you

Here I am - this is me
There's no where else on earth I'd rather be
Here I am - it's just me and you
And tonight we make our dreams come true

Oh It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you
Oh It's a new world - it's a new start
It's alive with the beating of young hearts
It's a new day - it's a new plan
I've been waiting for you

(Waiting, waiting, waiting)
Oh Here I am 

(Oh, Here I am) 

Here I am - next to you
And suddenly the world is all brand new
Here I am

Here I am - where I'm gonna stay
Now there's nothin standin in our way
Oh Here I am - this is me 

Exactly today one year ago I got my information where I'm going to stay for my exchange year. It was a Saturday and I slept in... I always do - very, very, very long :D When I came downstairs my brother and dad were watching Formula 1. I sat next to them on the couch and after about 10 minutes I think Marcel said there was a letter from YFU. It was just a regular letter so I thought it would be more information about Orientation or some other meeting, but in stead I got my host family!

I was soooo incredibly excited that I started screaming and I ran back in the living room to tell Marcel and Dad. Then I kind of got mad that they didn't woke me up earlier, but then again I thought it was my own fault because I can get very grumpy when I can't sleep in on Saturdays :D

Anyway I remember that my mom worked the night before and was still sleeping but because I was so loud she woke up and I told her too. And then I started googling everything I could possibly google about: Saint Cloud, Minnesota, Apollo, etc.! I was so excited ;)

After I did that for about 3 hours I realized that I should probably send an email to my host family. So I did... it took me about 1 more hour because I wanted it to be perfect, because it's the first personal thing that the Theis would get from me... the email is 12 lines long. It is so funny to read it now because I remember how I sat there with my parents in the living room with my laptop at midnight writing it :)

Three days later, March 9th, I checked my emails before school at 6 o'clock in the morning ... I think I checked them literally every 30 minutes during that time. I ran into my parents bedroom to tell my Dad that Steph send me an email back with a link to her blog. It was really nice to be able to look at all the pictures when I came home from school - it was so hard to concentrate in school for 8 hours because I really wanted to read the blog :D

I really can't believe that all this is already a year ago.
"Here I am" now and "There's no where else on earth I'd rather be"

A couple YFU exchange students from the area met yesterday for a potluck at a volunteers house and we talked about "Paying it forward" - telling people about the exchange program to find new host families or exchange students for the upcoming years so that the next exchange students know their new family as early as possible. There are students every year who don't know where they are going to spend the next year until just a couple days before they fly to their exchange country.
So if you're interested in hosting a student this next year please talk to me :) I would love to tell you more about being an exchange student or you could also have a look at Steph's blog to get some impressions what it's like to be a host family. I really like this post.

Thank you so much to everybody who made this exchange year possible!
Especially Steph and Mitch who let me be "No. 11" in their family :)

Here I am

P.S.: Dad you remember where this song is from? Little hint: It's a movie :P

Beautiful

Last Saturday we had a Spa Night with our Youth Group Senior High Girls at Jodi's Loft. It was so much fun and super relaxing! We all wore PJ's and brought a pillow to make everything comfortable. Grace straightened my hair and that was when I finally decided to get my hair cut again :) It just looked way to long and my last hair cut was in July '10 so I thought my hair would probably split pretty soon - I was surprised that I didn't find any split ends so far.

Anyways I asked Jodi if she would have time to cut my hair this week and she said that I should text/call her and she would figure something out.
So then yesterday after school Sally and I met in the Band Room after school where we waited a little and then about half an our later we drove to Charisma (the name of Jodi's Loft - see website linked above).
My appointment was at 4pm and I basically didn't have to wait at all :)
As always I didn't really know how much shorter I wanted it to be - I usually think "Oh just a little this time so that it will grow!", but then I always end up cutting it short :D
I think I really do want to have long hair again (it hasn't been longer than shoulder-length since 3rd grade...) but I just don't want to wait for it to grow -.-

Jodi did a great, great, great job. I don't regret getting it cut at all even though it's probably shorter than ever before! I like it a lot - and I have my curls back that I stole from my Daddy when I was born!

The quality of these pictures is pretty bad, I know! I took a couple with my Nikon camera, but it didn't work out at all! I recently struggle a little with finding the right mode to take pictures with so the colors aren't right at all. So I took these with my Laptop-Webcam, which was also easier to hold :) But my glasses reflected from the light so that's why the first two are without glasses...

After I got my hair cut, Sally and I picked Tony up. He goes to Apollo too and is an exchange student from Japan. It's always very funny with both of them because Sally is half Japanese so they usually speak Japanese and because I'm teaching her German since we first met we usually speak English and whenever she can say something in German (e.g.: "Wie geht es dir?"- "How are you?") then she will always say it in German :)  The three of us went to an Indian restaurant and we then drove to Apollo to play our last Pep Band for the Boys Basketball game: Apollo vs. Tech
We won and that was pretty cool because we're basically rivals so it's kind of a big deal to beat them :D For me it was just funny to watch all the fans cheering for their team... I'm not really into sports ;P

On the way home we had to pass the MAC and because there was something going on too (probably hockey game) a police officer controlled the traffic so that the people from the Mac could leave the parking lot. It took forever to go home - about 20 minutes instead of 5 - and Sally didn't really like that. So I bought her German chocolate that my family send me with my Christmas Packet (can't believer there was still something left :P), wrote "Thanks for driving me home!" on there and put it in her band locker where she keeps her trumpet. She was pretty happy :)

In school I had my last Math test, a Reader's Theater performance for Acting class and the US History Vocab Final today. Now I have Spring Break and I will get new classes: American Dream (LA) and Digital Photo on Monday, March 14th :)

By the way Mom, the packets arrived today... that was super fast this time!

Beautiful

A Night to Remember

 ... well two nights actually :P

Okay so then finally a new blog post :)
The Night of the Stars: It was sooo much fun to be part of that great show!

At first I didn't even know that I was in the show, then when I found out I didn't want to play but because I felt bad to say I won't play after such a long time I just did play. After the Solo/Ensemble Contest then I felt so comfortable about it that I just thought that we'll do fine.
And by now I'm not really nervous before concerts because I've been in concerts since I'm about 4 or 5. So when we finally had the show it was just awesome. I met a whole bunch of people from Youth Group in the Green Room and before that night I didn't even know that they'll be in the show - I think they didn't know that I was either ;)

We played our quartet in Act 1 (7th performance) and we were able/allowed to watch the rest of the show after that. It was super funny, for example Taylor Latté Boy and its response to it :)

Then when I came home from the show on Friday at around 10pm my friend - Julia who went to the Hockey Game with me - already waited for me. She wanted to see the show and I thought it would be great if she could stay over night from Friday to Saturday and see it on Saturday since she had Basketball practice very long on Friday.
So we watched a movie, ate popcorn and apples with chocolate that I melted (Eden said we would ruin perfect chocolate :D).
On Saturday then there were a couple other exchange students from YFU and also more students from Apollo and from Youth Group that I know. I really, really enjoyed those two shows!
Julia ended up having another sleepover at our house because we figured it would be easier that she would go to church with us on Sunday and her mom would take her home afterward... and we were able to spend more time together of course ;P

 A Night to Remember

An die Musik

Solo/Ensemble Band Contest was great last Wednesday! I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot, especially after our Jazz Band performance because the judge gave us tons of advises ;)

We got and 'E' for "Excellent" for both performances which is the second best/right in the middle:

'S'="Superior"
'E'="Excellent"
'G'="Good"

We definitely still had to work more on our quartet, but I feel a lot more comfortable now for the Night of the Stars than I did last week before the contest! Our director wasn't allowed to conduct so the main issue was staying all together in the same tempo. She is conducting for the Talent Show though and we went through it a couple times and it's going pretty well - we also had our sound check at the theater today.

I will sing 'An die Musik' (eng.: 'To music') by Franz Schubert for the Solo/Ensemble Choir Contest that's coming up and I had my lesson for that today. It was so funny to sing German, especially because I'm singing like an American and my (American) teacher had to tell me how to pronounce a couple things.
I really, really like that song and I'm looking forward to the contest.

An die Musik

Bad Day

I am sick again :(

My throat started to hurt again yesterday and now it's very sore (and annoying). It was completely okay for about three weeks after my cold - that I had during TCX - was gone. When I came home I took my temperature: 95.4°F/35.2°C but I thought because I just walked from the bus stop home, it probably wasn't really accurate since it was pretty cold and windy outside. I just took my temperature again and it was 96.1°F/35.6°C.

I have my Solo&Ensemble Contest in Big Lake tomorrow where I play Alto 2 in a Saxophone Quartet, so I guess I have to take some pain reliever before we start playing, because it wasn't that great when we practiced in school today. Please pray for me ;)

We also play the same song (All Breathing Life by Johann Sebastian Bach) for our Talent Show "Night of the Stars". We're playing it a lot slower than they are singing it in that version, but I can't find another one...

The Talent Show is Friday, February 18th and Saturday, February 19th in the Paramount Theater in Saint Cloud. I'm selling voucher tickets (as a fundraiser) for our TARGET club,  so the full money would go to the TARGET club. It's $5 for kids&students and $12 for adults. Otherwise the tickets are $6 for kids&students and $15 for adults at the doors.

The talent show is also for Tech Students and there are a lot of different acts, so not just music :)

Contact me if you're interested in tickets!

Bad Day

All I Need

I bought my Purity ring last Sunday :)
Here it is:

Also here are a few (I think) pretty cool statements that we got during Sunday School this week. We also went over them yesterday in Bible Study again:

1. God had his second cup of coffee before I get out of bed

     → He is active and engaged.

2. God loves people more than I do.

     → He cares about people and wants to help them.

3. God wants to use even me to evangelize.  

     → He wants to grow my faith and show his unique work in my life.

4. A branch that doesn't stick to the vine won't bear fruit.

     → Evangelism is most enjoyable as an outflow of my love-relationship with God.

5. Evangelism is not solitaire.
    → I am part of a team effort to share the Gospel
6. I need my ears and eyes more than my mouth.

   → Evangelism is 9 parts listening, 1 part talking. I need to be listening to God and His Holy Spirit, to other Christians, to the situation, and to the person I'm talking to!

7. God's words are better than mine.

   → Speaking God's words is (approx.) 10,000,000X more powerful than speaking my own words.

8. People are snowflakes, not shopping carts.

   → Each individual has a unique story to share, a unique personality, a unique view of God, and a unique need for Jesus.

9. Evangelism is a PBJ.

   → The historical Gospel of Jesus goes with my personal Gospel story like peanut butter goes with jelly.

10. I get on God's train, he doesn't get on mine.

   → God is the primary evangelist, not me. He is working, striving, speaking, witnessing, fighting, birthing, praying... I get the privilege of joining His efforts.

11. Just ask.
   → God will allow me opportunities to share the Gospel if I want to.
12. If I climb out of the foxhole, I might get shot.
   → Satan will resist my efforts to evangelize.
13. Talk to listeners.

   →I need to be aware of the other person; usually, if someone isn't listening, I should stop talking.

14. People are people, not minute rice.

   →Evangelism isn't one conversation. It isn't about being "done evangelizing". It is process, a relationship, that will demand my investment. After talking with someone, I need to pray for them. Talk with them again. Invite them over for dinner. Listen to them. Talk with them again. Pray for them. Introduce them to my friends who like the same things. Pray for them again. ...

15. Don't leave the baby in the street.

   → My responsibility doesn't end when someone becomes a believer - it is just beginning! New believers have a host of need that demand spiritual parents and a supportive community of other people. I should buckle up for the long haul.

16. It's not about me.

   → I am sharing God's message by His power for His glory out of love for someone else.

17. Just start where I am. If I am afraid, I can tell God and ask for help. If I don't know any non-believers, I can ask God to bring me some, or bring me to some. If I don't love people, I can tell God and ask for help. If I don't see progress, I need to keep praying and waiting. If I don't experience God or am not excited about His Gospel, I can tell Him so, and ask for help. Remember, He WANTS to expand His Kingdom, an He wants to use ME!

Here are some Bible verses that go along with that ;)


     ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
               - John 15:7

     ¹⁸If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹If you were of the world,  the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
              - John 15:18-19

      ⁹And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, ¹⁰ for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people."
               - Acts 18:9-10

     ¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
                - Romans 1:16

     ¹¹And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for even unto death.
                 - Revelation 12:11

All I Need

The Hey Song

I watched my first hockey game yesterday :) 

It was Saint Cloud State University vs. Minnesota State University. I went there with Julia - she's an exchange student from Germany too - and her family. 

Julia plays basketball at her high school so they picked me up and I stayed at their house for a little while so that she could take a shower.

Whenever SCSU made a goal they played 'The Hey Song'. When we play for a game at school with Pep Band we sometimes play that during timeouts and it was so funny to hear 5000 people singing 'Hey' :)

The Husky goaltender

I saw some people that I know from SCSU (from our time at TCX) when we came in and when we sat down I zoomed over to the other half of the arena:

Josh and Kari (3rd row from the bottom 2nd + 3rd from left)

It was so much fun. I usually don't like watching sports but I think I could definitely go to a hockey game again :)

The Hey Song

My own little world

My own little world had -30°F/-34°C on Friday morning and all schools around were closed or hate a 2 hours late start... our district didn't :(
I would have totally loved that since I didn't feel very good. I had an upset stomach and felt like I had to throw up the whole day (I didn't) and I was veeeery tired even though I went to bed at 9pm on Thursday, so I had 10 hours of sleep!!!

I usually would have just stayed home but I had a sketch test in Anatomy & Physiology and I have a test on Monday in Psychology so I didn't want to miss the last lesson before I have to take that. Mitch brought the two daycare kids (who go to school) and me over there so that we don't have to wait for the bus when it's so cold out. I asked him if somebody could pick me up after I was done with Anatomy and Psych (I was lucky that I have them in my first two periods) and he said that Steph could pick me up on the way home from her doctor's appointment. So I had Anatomy & Physiology, Psychology, Math, Lunch and half of my Theater class. That was just perfect because we had another test in Math that our teacher didn't told us about before so I didn't miss it. I also would have had open in Choir and Band because we had sectionals so it didn't really matter :)

When I came home I lay down on the couch and fell asleep :D I think after about an hour I woke up and went downstairs to lay down in my bed. I was so glad that I packed my stuff on Thursday so that I could just rest till Mitch, Micah and I left for the YFU Midyear Orientation at 5pm. We went to Sam's Club first and got some milk, lemonade, pancake mixture, and some other stuff that I don't remember. I still didn't feel very good so that it wasn't the best environment with all the food around me. Can you imagine that I saw chocolate brownies and felt very sick? Now it seems kind of strange :P
As soon as we were done shopping we drove to Calvary where we had the Orientation in our Youth Room. I went straight to the next couch after I brought in some stuff :)
The first students arrived at about 6pm and we started at around 7.30pm. Now I don't remember what we discussed when and the whole program like I listed it for Blizzard but here are just some things we did:

Games:
 - Mafia 
 - Making a pyramid with cups, stacking them back, making a pyramid, stack them, making a pyramid, stack them (as fast as you can)
 - Puzzle a cereal box together (just the front side) which was cut into I think 12 pieces

Talking about:
 - Contact to family and friends in your home country
 - Talking in English rather than using your native language (also when you talk to people from your home country in order to improve your English skills
 - What do you think are you most proud of about your exchange when you are back in your home country
 - Church attendance
 - School
 - Spending time with your family
 - Phone calls and internet use
 - What were the best moments in your exchange year so far
 - How to solve problems with your (host) family
 - Being homesick
 - ... and lots of other things :)

We watched several videos:

And also the video for the song that I picked for this blog post :)

We also talked about how important it is to find new host families and exchange students.
We asked around when we (exchange students) got the information about our family. I think there were about 5 or more (out of ~ 25) students who were called just a couple days before they flew over here or who even went on the airplane without knowing where they would go! I think that must have been very hard, waiting for so long. I got my letter with the names of my host parents, their address, age, profession, my host siblings' names, the email address of one of your host parents, the telephone number and the name of my school on March 5th, 2010, so I didn't even have to wait for three months after I was accepted by my exchange organization.

Reading the questions

Junior (from Thailand)

Pippu (Finland) and Nina (Switzerland)

Discussing questions

Group picture

If you are interested in hosting a student this year or if you would like to be an exchange student visit YFU, read my host mom's blog to get an idea what it's like to be a host family or contact Marilyn Hostetler. She is the Field Director for this area from YFU and I think she would be more than glad to tell you more about YFU :)
And of course you can also ask me tons of questions (or more).

My own little world

Greater than we can imagine

Micah and I've been to our Winter Church Retreat "Blizzard" last weekend and it was awesome! Unfortunately I didn't took as many pictures as I planned to and the ones that I took aren't that great :(

Our cabin #6

My bed :D

Outside of our cabin

We talked about being rooted in Christ and our speaker used Colossians 2:6-7 to explain what that means.

Our speaker

Colossians 2:6-7

Emily and Elle

Here is our schedule (I'm copying from our program and I know that there were a few changes made but I don't quite remember where...):

Friday:

4:30   PM   Leave from Calvary
                    Dinner on the way
7:30   PM   Arrive @ Wood Lake Bible Camp
                    Register
                    Move into cabins
                    Free Time
  8:30 PM   SESSION 1 - Meet in chapel
10:30 PM   Night Game
12:30 AM   Head to cabins
  1:00 AM   Lights out

Saturday:

  8:00 AM   Wake up
  8:30 AM   Breakfast in K.D.A.
10:00 AM   SESSION 2 - Meet in chapel
11:30 AM   Quiet time in chapel
12:00 PM    Lunch in K.D.A.
  1:00 PM   Group Picture
                      - Meet @ Field behind chapel
                      - Dress for outside games

  1:15 PM   Tubicide
  2:00 PM   Free time
  5:30 PM   Dinner in K.D.A.
  6:30 PM   Un-Talent show
  8:00 PM   SESSION 3 - Meet in chapel
10:00 PM   Blizzard Party in K.D.A.

Sunday:

  8:00 AM   Wake up and pack
  8:30 AM   Quiet time - Meet in chapel
  9:00 AM   Brunch in K.D.A.
10:00 AM   SESSION 4 - Meet in chapel
11:30 AM   Move out and clean cabins
12:00 PM   Head home
  3:00 PM   Arrive back @ Calvary

Alec in her 'Rihanna-pose' :D Fun times!

Alissa

Matt

We had lots of funny acts in our UNtalent show and three judges who played like they were the judges from 'American Idol'. It was so funny to watch all that especially because our Simon was very close with his comments to the real one. Because we all knew that she (our Simon was female) wasn't serious it was very funny. At one point she was so mean that the Sound Crew turned off her microphone :D
Here are some videos of different acts we got to see:

Senior Girls dancing Chihuahua:

Use somebody performed by Will, Cody and Andrew/Spoden:

It was a very, very great weekend!

Greater than we can imagine

Wenn sie diesen Tango hört

Okay it wasn't Tango that we danced but I just love this song! I'm sorry that it's in German.

I walked over to Allie's house. She lives about 5 minutes away and is a friend from school - we have Acting/Theater Class together. I first met her when Karla (a YFU hostmom) took us to her house after the scrapbooking sleepover thing :) Allie's mom is Karla's sister.

Anyways we played "Just Dance 2" and "American Idol" here are some pictures:

The TV with 'Dancefloor' in front of it

Allie

.. and her as a superstar.

.. and her singing

By the way this is quite a long time ago - January 5th :)

Wenn sie diesen Tango hört