friends.

to celebrate our "last" day of summer [before semester work begins], my friends Andrew and Miriam hosted a barbecue yesterday!

about 12 of us enjoyed a feast of meats, salads, bread, apfelschörle, birne-melisse wellness getränk, and homemade banana bread and s'mores. so lecker.

afterwards with our coffee and tea we had a great time of prayer for the upcoming semester. it's such a blessing to be part of the Body of Christ, and especially to have friends like these! i love you guys. :) i also was awed by how the Lord put the exact same things on each of our hearts- twice i was going to pray about a specific thing, and someone else did it! sabine said the same thing happened to her. how cool that our God loves to bless us as we seek His face together!

here's a few pictures of the girls. [the boys were busy at the grill. go figure.]

love!

bini and miri!

the kathas!

three cheers for the Maddens!

this weekend, my dear friend Jessica Reid married her sweetheart Peter, and they are now The Maddens.

it was lovely!

more to come.

bine sent this to me! hooray for friends.

yeah max!

our favorite swedish burger joint.

sverige three!

our house during the retreat

the backyard view at mike and sofia's house

mai with her flower

stockholm on the water

chiara and i at the cute little cottage

sverige two!

cherry blossom lane in stockholm!

the main square downtown stockholm.

birds-eye view at sunset.

packing up for the retreat

i want to live here!

sverige!

old-town stockholm.

annie, chiara, and sofia.

isn't spring lovely??

i wonder what's inside?

fika on the town! chiara, inga-lill, and i.

mit ganz lieb!!

lyds.ann.mich.

what fun.

i love it here.
tonight i went with another intern, lydia, along with 3 german girls, katja, tanja, and sarah, to the cinema to see a documentary auf deutsch! we saw Unsere Erde [our world]. basically lots of shots of all over the world, animals and nature. it was pretty sweet. we all were getting pretty sleepy towards the end but it was cool!
learned some new things about german culture, particularly in their movie theaters [Kino]:
-you get assigned seats, but you can also go online beforehand and reserve seats
-they show commercials first, ending with one or two ice cream commercials. then the lights go up, and the ice cream men appear to sell their goodies! amazing! then the lights go back down after a few minutes and we get on with the previews.

last night i led worship at monday night class at the church. it was so fun, and i prayed auf deutsch, during which i forgot how to say something and ended up laughing a bit [lyds thought i was crying!], but it went well.
i also got adopted by my family last night! the dad is super nice! i was really scared to get adopted, mostly because i hate/fear awkwardness, but it wasn't awkward at all.

our house smells like santa claus' house.. christy and anjulie have been baking cookies all night.

tomorrow is anja's birthday!!!!! :) should be a schon tag!

yesterday i purchased an amazingly enormous turnip [which i fondly deemed The Rutabaga], and tonight i cooked it. half was a disastrous, albeit perfectly seasoned, sauteed ordeal, which produced rapturous cries of dismay from michelle upon tasting. the other half was much improved by a good steady boil, and cooked up quite nicely. i, however, was quite through with my rutabaga by then, and willingly handed it off to a much more eager michelle [she finally worked up the guts to try the second batch]. [i love you misheru!!!!!]

and so the daily chronicle ends. it's been a good day. our cupboard is hung, our couch is fixed, our bathroom is clean, our cookies are burning [jk], and we've put our Wollemäuse to bed. bis morgen!

schon tag!

today i am 22!
i had a lovely birthday breakfast with anja, and katja and the coffeebar crew all sang to me and gave me cake with a little candle! and i have had 3 cups of kaffee, mmm lecker. later tonight we will do the Tim Tam Slam at the coffeebar and have some good fellowship. church was amazing this morning,
last night i went with keith and christy to Neuwied, where there is a bible study. it was at this turkish family's house, and their 2 little kids were amazing!! Magnolia is a spunky little curly-redheaded turkish-german girl whose birthday is on tuesday! i think she is turning 3 or 4 [got a little lost in translation.. she definitely let me know it was her birthday soon though!] we danced, and exchanged hair clip for necklace for a while, and spun circles, and made shadow puppets, and had an all-around grand time. the bible study was cool too! it's so great to see the Lord's hand orchestrating it all, and giving people a heart for the Word!! He is working everywhere!! i led worship on guitar, all in german. that was exciting!- i had never played most of them before on the guitar, and all but 1 or 2 i had never sang in german before. but, Preisen Den Herrn! He provided. and it's not about me!! i was so nervous about going and doing it but as we prayed beforehand the Lord blessed my heart with peace. talk about flying by the seat of your pants. amen! God is good!
lydia is making an amazing lunch for us now, and then we shall see what other fun things may come about today. tomorrow night we girls are going to the Schwarze Schafe!
ja, ganz genau. ciao!

sleep in heavenly peace..

after many years of faithful service,
a plethora of shows and festivals,
having survived high school and three college campuses,
a trek across norway,
a mission trip to mexico,
and even a few piano recitals
[much to the horror of my instructors!]...

my dear little thoroughly-yellowed pink chucks are being retired. for good.


they've been my constant companions since i was 15.

à la maison

well, i've returned from california. i love my home.

the conference was good. all the speakers were right on, and the worship itself was fresh and skillfully played. the workshops were ok, although not as informative as i'd expected them to be. i hung out a lot with the kids from the School of Worship in costa mesa- they're definitely cool kids. it was super busy schedule-wise, so i got approximately 5-6 hours of sleep a night, and had stuff going on all day long. but, despite the lack of rest, it was nice that they chose to redeem the time.

i drank altogether too much coffee, and currently even the thought of it makes me slightly ill.

it was cool seeing friends on campus, and meeting new people. i met a few who are hoping to come to germany this spring, so that was pretty sweet. i am so excited for next semester, and so blessed to return! the Lord is so good, and so faithful. it was more like a family reunion when it came to seeing friends from earlier days in germany. many a fond memory were shared, and chelsea and i had sushi! mmm. so delicious.

i got to lead worship for robin's Ruth and Esther class. that was sweet, because when i was at school out there she had me come in each semester to do a particular song for the girls.. so it was like old times being back in her classroom with a guitar and my minimal skills! amen.

the Lord provided a ride to the airport friday.. after giving me the full opportunity to trust Him and walk by faith. but His grace was more than sufficient- for, along with the ride, i was blessed by having time to fellowship with a dear friend.

so, there were some great aspects of this past week. it was also a hard week, and i am quite glad that i don't live in southern california. so here i am at home in silly, chilly, hotdish-eating minnesota, and ever so glad to be here.

www.isconsin

..is absolutely amazing! the loveliest week of my autumn was spent in wisconsin with dear friends.
i was introduced to milwaukee, jess' family, and spring rolls..
i was re-introduced to jess' sweet sister kadie, illy espresso, and sushi- ganz wunderschön!
and i was delightfully blessed with time spent with my dear friend, jessica reid.
plus we saw tahmi, walked to lake michigan -twice!- and drank a whole lot of coffee.

i am terrible about photographing events.. but here are the few i took!


Latte the Ragdoll Cat: we became fast friends.


Lake Michigan with Jess and Tahmi! [post-coffee at common grounds]


the Kenosha Castle Ruins, avec JessicaReid.


the Moon-Rise o'er Lake Michigan!


sweet home minnesota clouds.

lovely!