Plzen!

Sorry for the delayed update, but things have been busy, busy.
We have finished week six and are already halfway through week seven! Last week we had two younger speakers that tought us basic understanding of the Bible. I think my favorite day was when we went through the gospels and learned the differences between. I guess I had the mindset of once you read one, you've read them all. Oops! Also, we did a graffiti workshop, which was super fun!

Over the weekend we went to Plzen for a youth conference, and I must say my friends back home would've been proud if they had seen me. I slept in a sleeping bag on a dirty floor in a freezing cold room. New experience... waking up shaking from head to toe even though wearing sweatpants, T-shirt and hoodie while wrapped in a sleeping bag. Oh and I survived the shower that was either hypothermic cold or burning lava hot... Needless to say I also think I broke my speediest shower record. Basically this weekend was outreach prep.  :)

We also got to climb to the top of a church tower in the center of Plzen, which was absolutely horrifying. Going up 299 (yes, I counted) narrow and steep stairs was quite scary. I have already fallen down one staircase in my time in Europe, and I definitely didn't want to repeat that on these much more fatal looking stairs. When I reached the top I experienced a mixed feeling of wanting to cry, throw up and rejoice all at the same time. Luckily, the first two didn't happen. The view was beautiful! I will attach a picture at the bottom of us at the top, and look left of my shoulder... That is the second largest synagogue in Europe! Also, while we were in Plzen, we found McDonald's! As sad as it is, I don't think I've ever been so happy to see one in my life! It was an awesome little taste of home. Oh and since they don't have drive-thru, they have "McWalk." Genius and hilarious, I know.

This week we have Carl Tinnion, the leader of YWAM England and Western Europe. So far he has been incredible, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week! This weekend we will be in Prague then traveling back to Herrnhut, Germany for a few days! Then next weekend a few of us will be back in Prague just for a fun weekend of exploring! I can't believe that next weekend (Easter!) we will be celebrating 2 months of DTS! It's seriously crazy how fast the time goes.

Well that's all I've got for now! xoxo :)

Pieces of the puzzle..

     We just finished our fifth week, and I am feeling the homesickness I was warned of for the second month. This week I was able to Skype/FaceTime with quite a few people for the first time, which was awesome and sad all at the same time. Among that list was Sammy, Brit and my brother, all of whom I love and miss very much. Adding to the homesickness of month two is the fact that I am missing three of my closest friends birthdays all in one month (Jess, Kayla and Sammy). Even though its been tough this past week, I don't regret my decision to come here one bit. I keep reminding myself that I only have 20 weeks left with this wonderful little family that God has blessed me with. There will be tough weeks, but I am surrounded by an extremely supportive group here and also many supportive friends and family back home that continue to give me so much love and encouragement.

      This past week was not as mentally challenging as past weeks, but it was a lot of useful and practical information. The first half of the week was about discipleship, which reminded me a lot of what we teach our students back home. The second half of the week was focused on social justice, mainly human trafficking. I was so thankful for the practical information Margrit Thompson gave us about how to work with women whether on the streets or in the brothels, and that night we put it to practice! It was international women's day, so we took gifts out to the women. Two groups took the streets, and the other group took two brothels a little outside of town. I was in the streets, and I can't do the stories justice of how it went. It was a difficult but amazing night. Watching how the women reacted to just simple gifts and gestures of love and care really was heartbreaking, but it made me so thankful that God is using me for this ministry. His timing is so perfect. My favorite story from the night wasn't from prostitutes but two women that are alcoholics. We saw them a ways down the road outside of an alcohol shop. When we approached and gave them the gifts, they told us that 10 minutes before we got there they had just said, "It's international women's day, and no one gave us a gift!" Yeah... go God. The one woman immediately cried tears of joy, and before we knew it the conversation opened up and give one of our students the chance to speak a little about our great God that loves all, even them. The conversation ended in big hugs and saying they would be at our Thursday community night next week! I really hope we get to see them again. 

     I love looking back on the past few years and realizing how God has been preparing me for this. Four years ago after my first Passion conference I felt a pull in my heart to work with women who were in human trafficking, but I didn't know if it would ever happen. But God new the desires of my heart - to get to really know Him better, to work with these women, and my dreams to travel. Little did I know, He was planning to trump every dream I ever had with plans far bigger than I ever expected. So here I am now in the Czech Republic, realizing God spent the last 3-4 years preparing me to be here. My appetite for more "adventurous" foods changed a lot (thank goodness!), I went to 3 more Passion conferences, I took 2 levels of multicultural education, and then an entire semester of human services and counseling. Looking back and realizing that they were all just pieces to the puzzle is so exciting. I know that this DTS is just another piece of the puzzle, and its definitely a big piece! 

     I'm long winded today, sorry! I guess I'm making up for how little I spoke last weekend.

Lastly, we spoke about outreach this week! Our whole group will be in Eastern Europe, but we will be in two groups. We first chose regions, and this coming week we will have more definite teams and locations. The two regions are split according to the sea they border Adriatic (Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Albania) and Black (Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Turkey). So next time I post, it will most likely be to announce where I will be from the end of April to the end of June!

Thanks for taking the time to read this super long post!  :)

One month!

Well as crazy as it seems, I've been living in Europe a little over a month now! It's been a long and challenging week, but we made it to the weekend! Yesterday we had a party celebrating our month together! We got all dressed up, decorated the River House, had pizza and ice cream, played charades, did karaoke and somehow it turned into a dance party that went until about midnight. Hahaha! I love this crazy awesome little ywam family that God gave me! :)

It's finally "warming up" here in Cheb! And by that I mean we've hit the low 40s a few times, and the snow has started to melt. Woohoo! We are all desperate for spring to arrive so we can put away our winter coats and gloves and finally enjoy the sun, which has made two glorious appearances this week! Sad thing is that because I haven't seen the sun in over a month it actually hurts my eyes. Haha time for sun glasses!

Sorry this is a short post, but I am quite exhausted. So I will close with a photo :)

P.S. To anyone who didn't see my post on Facebook, I want to say another huge thank you to everyone who helped support me. In the busyness of moving and packing in the last week before I left I didn't get to finish all my thank you's. So if you didn't get one, I'm sooo sorry! It will be a bit delayed. But super extra thank you to all who helped get me here!!!

:)

Photos! :)

As promised in my previous post, here are some photos! This is mainly for the people who don't have  Facebook. Make sure you scroll down to read the latest update as well :)

                                                   Me being a nut in the front yard :)

 

Andreya and I in the square!

 

Week one! Our group and speaker Dan

Oksana and I


Our group up on top of a hill overlooking the city! Photo cred to Juan!

Me all bundled up on top of the hill :) photo cred to Juan!

Juan, Anna and I on the train going to Germany!

 

The water castle in Herrnhut, Germany

 

Our group going for a tour of Herrnhut!

That is all for now! Again, I will be trying to update on the weekends! xo  :)

A week in a castle...

I've been living in Europe for over 3 weeks now, and every day that blows my mind. I am living a dream that I never knew I had. Thank goodness God has bigger plans for my life than I ever had! I absolutely love the little town of Cheb and the little group that quickly became family. I will post some pictures with descriptions in another post.

We just finished our third week of teaching, and we spent the week at the Herrnhut, Germany base. Germany was beautiful! There was sooo much snow! Everywhere. It was a little too cold for my liking, but it was only a week, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing in the snow. As some of you heard, I fell down the stairs. Yes, it hurt, and yes, I have a massive bruise, but luckily I didn't break anything. My ywam family gathered around and prayed for my back, which was causing me a lot of pain, and the next day I was running down a giant hill of snow playing with my friends as if we were little kids. Thank you God! :)

This DTS is such a blessing and awesome opportunity for growth and learning. I already feel like I have learned so much! Somethings I have heard before, but it's like hearing them for the first time and actually applying them to my life. Trusting God in a very real way. Listening to God and not just talking at Him. Looking at prayer and worship differently as well. Needless to say, I'm starting to understand what everyone meant when they kept telling me that I was going to change a lot.

Last week we did a prayer walk and went through what some would call the red light district. Though there is not one specific place here. It is quite spread out throughout the town. I now understand why people say that Cheb during the day and Cheb at night are town different places. You can feel the darkness of the horrible things that happen. We prayed for the night clubs and the girls working inside and also for the girls out on the streets. It broke my heart to see girls my age and hear that they've been working there for quite a while. It's a sad and horrible reality, but we believe there is hope for this city and those girls. Again, no worries on safety. We went as a group and kept an eye out for each other.

As for our home, we call it the River House because we are right on a pretty little river. The building is an old monestery, and it is one of the oldest buildings around here. We are really close to town, so walk everywhere. My work duty is grocery shopping! So twice a week Oksana and I grab bags and head off to the store! It's not as easy as it sounds though because everything is in Czech, so it's interesting at times. But we fill up our bags and backpacks with all our groceries, pay, and walk back to the house. It has been very weird to me not driving everywhere, but I enjoy the walking.

Anyways, all is well here. I can't believe that it's almost been a month! I will try to post updates on the weekends, since that is the majority of our free time. Love and miss you all lots! Thank you for all your love and support!

:)

Finally updating!

Hello everyone! I am finally updating everyone on a little bit of what I've been up to. Sorry it took so long, but I don't get much time that I'm not using to speak directly to family and friends. Things are going great! This place is beautiful, and I have quite enjoyed the snow here!  Foods are quite different here, and I am still adjusting. So far I've tried spinach soup, fish soup, pork meatloaf, salami sandwiches, and curry. Along with some Czech snacks that I have now idea how to say or explain. Speaking of the language, I am starting to pick up some basics! It's tough though! Also, there are a lot of different languages spoken in our house, which gets extremely entertaining at times. Besides the obvious of English and Czech, we have German, Ukrainian, and South African! So yes, translations turn to giggles quite often.
So far we have had a few talks from our first speaker, Dan Baumann! And if you get a chance to find a video of his story... Listen to it! He is hilarious and has quite an amazing story. We are learning a lot about spending time with God and listening to him.
As for adjusting, it is a process I am working on still. I have homesick days. I love the group and the people I am meeting here, but I do miss home and my friends and family lots too! The biggest adjustments ar probably the obvious.. Food, weather, and funny things like toilets and showers. It's an adjustment, but exciting at the same time. We do a 6:10 "wake up" and we have 5mins to get dressed and out the front door for a jog. THAT has recently become the biggest challenge. Haha for those of you that know me, you know that me and sleep are best friends.
Anyways, at is all I have time for, for now. I love and miss you all very much!

Somewhere over the sea...

This time two weeks from now I will be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean...  Crazy, huh?

I keep rewriting what I want to say for this post because there is so much going through my mind right now. So many thoughts and emotions and reminders. I will start with some fantastic news...
I have raised all the money I need to go!!! HOORAY! To my family, church family, and friends - I truly cannot thank you enough. I remember when asked months ago what I was most worried about my answer was financial because I knew there was no way that I could get that kind of money together on my own. My church family has been absolutely incredible throughout this process. The love, support and generosity is overwhelming in the most wonderful way. There just aren't enough words to describe how thankful I am.

Many people have asked me if I have everything and if I am ready to go, and shockingly the answer is yes! I have everything I need to go. Excited? Absolutely. Emotional? Yes. Nervous? A little. This week has been a lot of realizations of doing things, going places, and seeing people for the last time for the next 6 months. I know this is just the beginning of those feelings, but I will be just fine.

Another thing people have been asking a lot is about the language... and sadly I have not learned nearly as much Czech as I wanted to by this time. I am still working on it though, and of course I will be learning much more while I am there!

Onto the topic of packing... At first I was totally freaked out by the idea of living out of one suitcase and one carry one for the next 6 months. Luckily I talked to a friend that has done it and reassured me that it is doable. Many people that know me enjoy a good giggle when thinking of me packing 6 months worth of things in one suitcase... they know me too well. But this is a year for big changes, and I am totally game for it! God has brought me here, so I know I can do it. Plus I'm sure He is probably also enjoying a good laugh watching me try to mentally prepare for packing. For an extra giggle... picture me living out of a backpack during the 2 months of outreach. It's going to happen people. I promise to take a picture for proof!

Anyways, sleep time for me! Busy week/weekend ahead... my best friend is getting married on Sunday!!! So excited and emotional and AH!


As always, feel free to write any questions or comments!

:)