Oh. My. Busy.

Busy busy busy. That is what these past few weeks have been, but we're almost through! I took the first of our girls to the train station this morning at 4am. By tomorrow afternoon, the dorm will be empty. It will be strange and, although I'm looking forward to a break, I will miss these girls so much.

The past couple weeks have been full. We had Christmas banquet, BFA's version of a homecoming celebration without the dancing and with food. We also celebrated St. Nick's day, a German holiday where kids put out a shoe when they go to bed and get some sort of treat in it the next morning. All our girls put out a shoe and "magically" it was filled with candy the next morning. It's a fun tradition and who doesn't like waking up to candy filled shoes in the morning? This is Ami and Hannah Jo's shoes.


We also had a cookie baking/decorating competition. The girls were so creative and made some delicious and beautiful cookies. Here's a couple pictures from the event. This is Soyoung and Betty, our dorm sub (it was the dorm parent's weekend off) setting out the cookie decorating materials.


Team number one, Rachel, Claire, and Hannah Jo.


Team two, Caroline, Anna, and Ashley.


Team three, Alesia, Karis, and Stacey


And team four, Svenja, Ami, and Hannah.


During the baking we also had some visitors. Carolers from Witt, another girls dorm. Here they are singing to our girls.


All in all it was a really fun time and put us all in the mood for more Chistmas activities which came this past weekend. We went ice skating, shopping in Friburg at the Christmas Markt, to the school Christmas concert, and then had our dorm Christmas party. After all the craziness it was time to settle down, study, and get ready to go home. The last finals will be done by 2 today, to the relief of all the girls.

That's all the activities going on here. I am thoroughly enjoyinig my German Christmas so far. It is a slower, more relaxed kind of celebration than in the states. I did go through a time of "mourning" not spending the holiday season back in the states with my family and friends and my home. I miss everyone so much but I know this is where I'm supposed to be serving and if that means spending Christmas here, I'll make the best of it. It will be different, new, maybe a little hard, but it will be a sweet time with Tim and Jean, my brother and sister-in-law and new friends here. I'm glad I was able to "mourn" before, and now I'm ready to celebrate.

To help me celebrate, there is SNOW! It is beautiful! Here are some pictures from a hike I took the other day. These first two are of Hochblauen, the highest peak in our area.



And this is the sun shining down on to our valley. This picture doesn't do it justice, it was gorgeous.


And some clse ups.



I hope I never take for granted the beauty that I see every day and continually praise God for His creation.

That's all for now. Tim and Jean come in 72 hours! Yes, I'm so excited that I'm counting down the hours. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season and thank you for all your prayers and support!

Peace.