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 ;)
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
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 ;)
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 :)
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!
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 :)
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 ;)
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 ♥
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:
Geography
Geography
Social Science/Economics
Social Science/Economics
Biology
Biology
- LUNCH BREAK -
PE
Religion
Tuesday:
English
English
- OPEN -
- OPEN -
Social Science/Economics
Biology
- LUNCH BREAK -
- OPEN -
Math
Wednesday:
English
Art
- OPEN -
- OPEN -
History
History
Thursday:
German
German
Religion
Religion
PE
PE
- LUNCH BREAK -
Math (extra lesson because I just don't get it xD)
Chemistry
Friday:
Art
Art
Math
Math
Chemistry
Chemistry
- LUNCH BREAK -
History
Geography
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:
Period: 7.45-8.30
Period: 8.35-9.20
Period: 9.40-10.25
Period: 10.30-11.15
Period: 11.25-12.10
Period: 12.15- 1.00
LUNCH BREAK for 1 hour
Period: 2.00-2.45
Period: 2.55-3.40
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!
