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 

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 

 

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

Only the beginning of the adventure

Okay here then the picture of Obadiah and me (my mom asked me about it, I kind of forgot to upload one the last time...) It's on Steph's Blog, I hope it was okay that I put it on my blog, too?!

At the hospital

He changed so much already it's incredible! But it's still the "beginning of his adventure"!
Praise God for this huge blessing :)

Only the beginning of the adventure

Prinzessin/Funkelperlenaugen

Happy Being-Married-For-250-Months-Anniversary Mom and Dad!

The picture is from your 20th anniversary when we went out for dinner :)

Love you soooooooooooooooo much! 

I hope you had a great weekend!

Prinzessin/Funkelperlenaugen

You're Here

I have a little host baby brother :)

All American followers probably already know from Steph's Blog so here then to let all the other people know
... also you really should follow Steph's Blog ;)

These are the first couple posts from Steph about Obadiah Benjamin:

Baby!
Obadiah Benjamin
Obadiah's Birth Story
Pictures of Obadiah on the first day
Visitors in the Hospital
Coming Home
Sunbathing


Congratulations again to you Mitch and Steph!

You're Here

Happy Day

Yesterday was a very happy day :)

My Christmas packet from my parents arrived:

It is very big :)

Thank you so much!

I already got my Christmas present with the packet but I gave it to Steph so that she can keep it until I can open it :)

We also left for the Fall Retreat from Youth Group yesterday, which was awesome. Unfortunately we are already back so we had just about 24 hours there but it was still very cool.

We girls slept in a cabin together with a squirrel :D

There was a hole in our window (the wood frame was eaten) so that's probably how it entered. It was very crazy: every time we got back from lunch etc. there were other girls running out of the cabin and screaming. I never got to see it but it should be very big ^^ Here are some pictures from the Retreat:

The bus

Sun goes down

Emily, Elle, Alex and Jamie

Alex

Everybody's listening to Josh ^^

Laura and Paige

Grace and Paige

Becky

This was the squirrel protection :P

We were kind of afraid and stand on the couch, table, etc. :)

That's where the squirrel escaped

Jamie and Elle

One of the fun games for our Girl-Guys competition (let the pencil jump into the cup letting it drop on the eraser)

Happy Day

Faithful

Wow, it's been a while again :)

I was bored the whole day for the first time since I arrived here in America: and it feels awesome!
Because I have a pretty bad cold, I'm tired almost the whole day and that's why I got up at about noon today :D I took a shower and when I opened the door Steph, Malachi and Tirzah were in the laundry room which is right next to the bathroom and Steph said: "Good morning!". I think that was pretty funny.

After I had 'breakfast' I skyped with my Dad, what took kind of long (about 2 hours) :) It's weird because every time I look back and try to find out what we were talking it's always just a little bit. But it's fun.

When we were done skyping I wrote with my aunt and a friend from Germany and I also answered a message from my godmother and her daughter. I read it again after I already sent it and realized that I would like to blog a lot of things that I wrote down in the message so I'm just going to copy these parts :)

Right now I'm just enjoying being bored after lots of busy weeks! Because I'm done with volleyball I have a lot more time^^

I enjoy going to church/Small Group/Youth Group a lot :)
And I would like to be baptized again here, because it's now that I understand the Gospel more and more each Sunday and I accept Jesus as my Savior :)

I'll go to Minneapolis tomorrow to go to the Theater with a friend of YFU right after church and I'm pretty excited about that.

It's so awesome her at school, it is not as hard as the German schools so that I don't have difficulties to understand the things we are studying. I was kind of afraid that it would be hard since it's in another language even if I think that I know English pretty well because I studied for 7 years already. But it's not as hard as I thought it would be and I'm sooo proud of myself that I have an A (~98%) in Math right now (I used to have a D in Germany ^^).

We had a bone lab in A&P and were able to see and feel the bones of a cow :D Including the knee joint and it was pretty awesome to see how all the muscles, tendons, and ligaments work together :)

The class (A&P=Anatomy&Physiology) is my hardest because we have lots of tests and I have to study vocabs and other things all the time, but it's so awesome and interesting. If I'm really going to study medicine I'll know lots of stuff already from that class :)

We have lots of projects and funny things in our Health class, too. We already watched two movies (A Beautiful Mind, and Philadelphia). Our first project was to pretend that we are HIV- positive. Our teacher gave us 9 little medicine bottles filled with Skittles and other pill-look-like candy we had to 'take' every couple of hours. They all had special instructions on them, e.g.: 'Take 1 pill every 4 hours on an empty stomach.', 'Take 2 out of this bottle every time you take one of bottle #1', etc. I made a schedule and set my alarm so that I don't forget to take them :)
Right now we have a project where we should write down what we eat (for 4 days). We went to the computer lab and typed everything into a special program and we printed 7 pages full of information about our diet. Now we should answer questions and write down how many vitamins, proteins etc. the diet included.

And I had a choir concert on Thursday and there will be a Band Concert on November 4th :)

Our whole Choir (Women's Choir of Apollo High School)

And again with our director Mr. Parker (I had my camera in my bag and Steph took the pictures Thank You!)

Chamber Choir of the UMD

And the whole Choir of UMD

I also got to know the American snow a couple of days ago :) It feels weird to have snow in October since I always had 'real' snow (enough to go sledging) in January. We were very excited in 2005 when we had snow on my dad's birthday which is on November 25. I don't really know what I should think about the snow: on the one hand I'm glad that the mosquitoes are gone, on the other hand I really enjoyed having a warm summer :) I also don't have a lot of winter clothes so that means shopping!

I hope I'll be able to post my next post very soon to keep you updated :)

Faithful

Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf

I was just about to watch a movie on my laptop when Josh and Malachi came into my room. They both had a book in their hands and I asked them if I should read the stories. They said yes and both laid down next to me in my bed.
I think Malachi fell asleep after about 2 pages of the first book. After I read almost the whole second one I asked Josh if I should go on reading or if he just want to go to bed (he looked very tired and didn't hold the pages anymore) but he said keep on reading. After one page he was sleeping as well :)

I love that German lullaby a lot, here are the lyrics:

 1. Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf!
 Der Vater hüt' die Schaf;
 Die Mutter schüttelt's Bäumelein,
 Da fällt herab ein Träumelein.
 Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf!

 2. Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf!
 Am Himmel ziehn die Schaf.
 Die Sternlein sind die Lämmerlein
 Der Mond, der ist das Schäferlein.
 Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf!

 3. Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf,
 so schenk' ich dir ein Schaf.
 Mit einer gold'nen Schelle fein,
 das soll dein Spielgeselle sein.
 Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.
 Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf!

And in English:

1. Sleep, baby, sleep!
Father guards the sheep,
Mother shakes the little tree,
Then a little dream falls down for thee,
Sleep, baby, sleep! 

2. Sleep, baby, sleep!
 In the sky, draw the sheep.
 The stars are the lambkins.
 The moon, which is the sheepherder.
 Sleep, baby, sleep!

 3. Sleep, baby, sleep,
 so I'll give you a sheep.
 With a fine golden bell,
 This shall be thy game journeyman.
 Sleep, baby, sleep.
 Sleep, baby, sleep!

I also loved to watch 'Das Sandmännchen' which is a German TV show for kids, unfortunately there is no video in English on Youtube :(


It was soo cute tonight ^^

Joshi and Chi laying in my bed :)

Schlaf, Kindlein schlaf

Pictures of you

Today we had our homecoming (football) game at Apollo were I played in Pep Band and helped out with Concessions during the 3rd quarter. I was home at about 4 or 5 pm and we left to take some family pictures in St. Johns. Here are some pictures I took (not just of family :)

Micah and Tirzah on their way to the photo shooting :)

Second place where we took the family pictures

The forest next to the lake

Eden (I like this picture a lot!)

Micah and Caleb joking around ;)

Caleb and Eden joking around :D

Mitch, Steph and Tirzah

Malachi (so cute!)

Joshua ^^

A very cool inscription for a figure of an Indian woman

Here she is

The sunset

... from a different position

Steph taking some picture of the sunset :)

The trees "bursting into flames"

And another point of view on the beautiful sunset

By the way, our homecoming dance was yesterday. I wanted to take pictures and when I took my second one it said 'No memory'. 

I forgot to put the memory card from my laptop back into the camera :(

Pictures of you

Eagles

Finally there's a new blog post :)

As a few of you (the Facebook-readers) already know, we won our second game :)

It was a home game this Thursday vs. Brainerd and it was sooo much fun! Rhonda - our coach - had made a deal with us before we started playing: If we win one of the three games, we would get chocolate chip cookies afterward. When we won the first one she said if we would win the whole match, we wouldn't have practice the next day (Friday). So we just went to 'practice' to finally get our volleyball clothes (t-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts) and talked for about an hour.

We also had our homecoming kickoff on Friday where they presented the homecoming (king&queen) candidates, the homecoming week themes for each day (Hippie Day, Fake injury, Workout, Pajama, Spirit Day) and then the teacher played basketball vs. the students.

For those of you who follow Steph's blog as well probably already know that I'm pretty busy with my full schedule. Sometime I really think I'm getting crazy because I'm never at home and I don't see my family, so that I miss them when I'm out of the house - which is ridiculous, how would it be once I'm back in Germany?!

And now that I had my first YFU Orientation today (which was awesome) I feel horrible because we had a couple of sheets where they ask how many time we spend together with our family and what kind of activities we're doing together. I really try hard to spend time with them but it's just so hard with all my volleyball practice and the games (I'm glad that I have my last game on October 19th). Don't get me wrong, I really love to play volleyball and the experience of being a team member and get to know the American team spirit is awesome, but I feel like I'm drifting away from my family. 

That thought is running through my head for like a week now and I can't find anything to change that feeling except getting an 48-hour-day. 

I planned to skype with my brother Marcel and I forgot about the YFU Orientation so I send him a message via facebook that it's going to be later, but he didn't had the time 'later' so we couldn't skype again (he was at his girlfriend's house the last time I skyped with my family). The last time I talked to him is over a month ago and now the emotions kind of overwhelm me. I won't say that I'm homesick, because I really don't want to go home (sorry Germany). It's more that I miss the feeling of family, simply because I'm never home to be part of it :(  

(I don't know why but I'm kind of too emotional today.)

When I wrote this Eden came into the room and asked me if I would like to watch Letters to God. I said yes, because I reeeeeally wanted to watch it ^^ 

When we watched it, Zeke came and laid down next to me - and gave me the family feeling I need :) 

All of these kids are amazing! I'm so glad to be here :)

Eagles

P.S.: I got an A+ in Language Arts and Math  :)