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 

Give me your eyes

Operation St. Cloud was great!

I'm really sorry that I didn't post about it earlier, but I just never felt very motivated to write everything down. If you read Steph's Blog you already know that it was a really great idea. It was basically a missions trip but we did all the ministry work in St. Cloud. We stayed about 20 minutes from town in the Riverside Resort in Richmond, Minnesota.
The five girls of our team, Kenna, Kaitlin, Katie, Rachel and I, stayed in Cabin 14 and the 7 boys, Jordan, Will, Darris, Colton, Trey, Caleb and Josh stayed in Cabin 10.

We left on Monday at 11am from Calvary... well actually that's when we met there to pack everything up so we probably didn't left until 11.45. We head out to go on a Prayer Drive - we stopped at the Dream Center, Downtown in front of the Court House , Federal Building and Catholic Church; St. Cloud Hospital, Place of Hope, and at Southside Park where we did the VBS. We then also walked around and handed out flyers to kids for our Vacation Bible School. We then went to our Cabins where we unloaded everything, played volleyball (lots of fun!), ate, took showers, talked about the next day: what we would do for VBS etc., and we had Devotional Time and a Camp Fire.

A 'normal' day looked kind of like this:

  7.30am Getting up and ready
  8.30am Breakfast
  9.00am Devotional Time
10.00am Prepare Lunch Bags
10.30am Leave the Resort and drive to St. Cloud
11.00am Set up for VBS
11.30am Go out and ask kids to come
12.00pm Start playing with the kids
12.30pm Do the craft and snack after that the drama and lesson
  1.00pm Pack everything up and drive to Lake George for Lunch
  2.30pm Leaving the Park and going to the Dream Center
  6.30pm Heading back to the cabins

What we did at the cabins kind of changed in time every day but we basically discussed what we did so far and what we wanted to do the next days.

I really enjoyed the whole 'Operation' :)

Give me your eyes

Everything Burns

First of all the lyrics don't really fit, but the title totally does!

I have a huge, very bad sunburn on my legs and arms :(
I decided to go outside to read my book Wuthering Heights (thanks Laura for borrowing it to me), because it was only about 75°F - compared to the 100°F from Tuesday - I thought it wouldn't be so super warm that I would get a sunburn... well bad thinking.

I think I had about 2 hours total of sleep last night because I can't sleep on my tummy, but my sunburn is mostly on the back of my legs so sleeping on my back wasn't really comfortable either.

It's burning a lot and it's really, really, really red :(

I tried taking pictures, but they don't look anything like it really is. I also wasn't really motivated to keep taking pictures until I have a "real" one :D

Everything Burns