Merry Christmas

I want to wish everyone who reads this a very Merry Christmas.  It is Christmas night here in Germany, and I am about to hed off for bed, but wanted to post a message real quick.  My Christmas was uneventful. Christmas Eve I went to chapel, then to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader afterwards. The other 5/6 of my family happened to be watching the same movie on the other side of the ocean at the exact same time, so I thought that was kind of cool.  I then watched It's a Wonderful life, a family tradition every Christmas Eve. I searched for 3 or 4 hours earlier this week to find a copy and was saved by one of my high school club kids who let me borrow a copy. It seems little, but being able to keep that tradition even though I am thousands of miles from my family made a hue difference for me.  I then woke and made my families usual Christmas brunch of scrambled eggs, bacon, and instead of stick buns (which I don't know how to make) I bought some monkey bred.  Another one of those little things that goes a long way.  I then spent the day relaxing, resting, and packing for the trip coming up.

We leave tomorrow morning, way to early for Winter Blitz. I will be getting there around 530 to the chapel to get things prepared to head to Austria.  We will be there for 5 days of skiing/snowboarding/sledding. sightseeing and lots of fellowship time and hearing from a speaker about God. This is a tremendous ministry opportunity and I cherish prayers for the students who are going.  We have a lot of unbelievers going and it is a great chance for the to learn more.

I will poat an update when I return, hopefully with some great stories to share.  MerryChristmas again, and I hope your holidays are a joyful and relaxing time spent w/ family and friends, and remembering the greatest gift the world has ever received.  God Bless.

I'm back

I didn't realize it had been so long since I wrote. Sorry about that. I guess I have a lot to fill people in on. Sooooo, ummmmm. Yeah. Life has been good. Let's see, a few days ago I went to Munich. It was really cool. I went with Storey and Laura, two Club workers from nearby Hohenfels and Bamberg, and Philip, a friend of Storey's. Munich is a really cool city. It's big, so obviously I didn't see that much of it in one day, but what I saw I liked. There was a big Christmas market, which is a German tradition during the holidays. They set up booths and sell all sorts of different things, and lots of food. My goal when I go to one is to just eat my way around the market. German food agrees with me. Brats are obviously delicious. And I love schnitzel. I could eat it all day.

Yesterday we had a middle school bowling day, set up by MWR (Morale welfare and recreation). Good outing. I bowled a 118 bowling granny style. Not too shabby. Oh yea, it was a good day with the students as well.

My life right now is geared toward Winter Blitz, our camp and ski trip coming up in a few days. I am extremely excited to go, and not just because it will mean I am done preparing for it. We have 26 students going from our community, and we will meet about 300 more from around Europe. Prayers are greatly appreciated as we go: please pray for safety with traveling, skiing, snowboarding and sledding, relationship building between the staff and the students, and most importantly for the students relationships with God. A lot of them do not have any relationship with Him yet and will be hearing the gospel for possibly the first time. This is a fantastic ministry opportunity with the potential to change lives. Please pray for our speaker and the leaders during small group discussion time that God will give us the words to say.

As an added bonus to paperwork preparing for this trip, my car has decided to break down. Add that to the long list of other things that have broken on me in the last month and it's getting a tad ridiculous. German stuff just doesn't like me. Except Schnitzel.

More snow and locked doors

So today did not start off real great for me. First, I have a few more items to add to the not working for me list, which are christmas lights and my windshield wiper. Now the windshield wiper isn't exactly technology, but 2 days ago when I was brushing the snow off my windshield I bumped the wiper on the drivers side and it cracked in half. Bummer. I went and got a new one today, just in time, because it is snowing again. It has probably snowed a couple inches in the last 2 hours. So not a blizzard or anything, but it is steadily coming down.

Well, back to this morning. One thing that I find annoying about German houses (but other people have said they like them) is the front doors do not have a door handle per se. There is a knob thing, but to open them you always have to use the key. I have just been waiting to lock myself out of the house, and today was the day I finally did it. As soon as I shut the door I realized my keys were inside. Now, I have two spare keys, but they are in the hands of one of my chaplains, who is storing stuff at my house and was in meetings when I tried to call him, and I thought the other was being held by Aretta, who is in the US right now (I have since remembered she gave it back to me and I wisely have it on the counter in my house. dumb, I know.) So that meant I was stuck. My car keys are obviously attached the the key chain with my house keys, so I couldn't go anywhere. And as i mentioned before it has been snowing a decent amount here, and while it's not terribly cold, it is probably in the high 20's, which is cold enough to be annoying when you are locked out. I tried breaking into my house briefly, but couldn't really see a way. So I tried to get ahold of the chaplain again, but to no avail. Feeling somewhat frustrated but laughing at myself for getting stuck in a situation i saw coming yet did nothing to prevent, I tried my hand at breaking in again. I went down to the door that leads into my basement (it is on the side of the house, down a flight of stairs) and being somewhat perturbed, I just rammed it with my shoulder. To be honest, I had very little hope of this working, but to my pleasure and surprise, on the second thud the door flew open.

Now, obviously I was pleased to be able to get my keys (after i broke into the locked door from my basement to the main floor, but that just took a little jiggling of the handle to unlock), but this leads to a serious question about my house security. the basement door is deadbolted, but obviously not very well. Anybody could break in. Ok, maybe not anybody, but those able to generate a certain amount of force could do so. I need to solve this safety issue. Hmmm.

On a campletely unrelated nore I just hit my shin on the desk, surprisingly hard for being seated. So on that note of pain, I say good bye for today.

Change of Plans

Ok, I lied. Well, it wasn't intentional. I did not go away this last weekend. I was all ready to, and then the night before I decided not to. And i do not regret my decision. i was feeling really tired, not just physically, but more on the just feeling drained side of things. I have discovered, as i am sure many of you have, that going on trips is a lot of fun, but sometimes you feel even more tired after than before you left. This was my concern. So I stayed home, watched movies, ate a good thanksgiving meal, and unpacked more of my stuff.

I ate Thanksgiving dinner over at the hospitality house, which is a part of Cadence ministries. Cadenec is on a number of military bases worldwide, and i think the best way to describe it is that it is like Club beyond for adults. They meet every week on friday night and do some worship, have a speaker, and spend time in fellowship. They get together throughout the week for different events and outings, and basically are a relational ministry just like we at Club are. Brian and Aimee Kleager run it, and they do an amazing job.

Great football weekend, as Michigan State wrapped up a share of the Big 10 title. That hasn't happened in twenty years, so I am pretty pumped about that. Having no tv is making things difficult, but i find places to go to see the games i really need to see.

Speaking of no tv, i think the electronics in germany hate me. I have had problems with my phone, w/ my home internet, w/ the governement computer, my camera, and now my laptop is broken. I think I have to send it in to be fixed. I have a warranty and all that good stuff, it's just a nuisance, so no home computer anymore. i would send it in today, but it snowed here and the post shut down really early. it feels like i am the only one still in my office doing work on the entire post. There is no way of knowing that obviosuly, but i am the only one at the chapel. It's a good bit of snow, maybe 6 inches over the last 24 hours. A pet peeve of mine is when people say things like "I am from (wherever) and this (whatever it may be) is nothing compared to that." But I am going to go ahead and do that anyway. I don't think Grand Rapids ever shut down w/ snow like this. Just saying.

On a grammatical note, I do not spell check these posts or go back and fix things. My major issue I see is capitalization. I have decided my issue is that I take my finger off of the shift key too quickly, and therefore words like I often end up like i. just want you to know I am aware of it, i do know how it should be, and no I don't care. (see even there, the second I used in that sentence ended up lower cased and the first word in the sentence lower cased).

Ok, I am going home. If no one else on this post is working, i shouldn't be either (especially since my boss is in the US for 10 days). 7 hours on what for a lot of people was a snow day is plenty. Tomorrow will now probably have to be more along the lines of 10 hours, but that's ok. tuesdays are usually at least 10, if not more, but there is no Club Beyond tomorrow, since out of the 5 adults who do it I am the only one in Germany. I am not doing a club with 60 students by myself. ok, for real, good bye.

CHOW

This was from 2 weeks ago now, but on Veterans day, Sportscenter did a special episode from here in Grafenwoehr. Hannah Storm and Josh Elliot, 2 anchors, were here all day and they showed highlights, talked about the community, interviewed different people, etc. I was on tv a few times in the background. My Dad wrote me saying that he could see me, which was pretty cool to think about. One of my life goals was to be on Sportscenter, and while i was thinking of being more featured, being in the background is pretty cool also. I believe my parents did or are trying to make copies of the episodes, so if you see them, ask them about that. There some great segments that explained the post here and what goes on. I even learned some new things about what goes on here everyday. Some of my students were featured for different things, some got to play in the band, others were preforming at different areas during the festivities, so it was a great contact work day, going around and seeing everyone i knew. I was pleasantly surprised that almost everywhere I went I saw people I knew. pretty cool day overall. So I thought that was definitely worthy of being the CHOW.

Train rides and broken bones

Sorry for the 2 week absence. But i will do my best to fill you in on what has gone down. As I said in my last post, we went on a Middle School retreat to Nurnberg, a really cool city about a 45 minute train ride from my post. There were 8 different Club Beyond communities there, most from Germany, but also a couple from England. I love when we can get multiple communities together. It is a great chance for our kids to meet other people who are in the same types of situations as they are. And i really like being around the other staff as well. The weekend was a success i would say. Aretta was the camp director, so she was busy with camp stuff, so i was the community director for the weekend. I will admit it was a little stressful getting 30 middle schoolers on and off the train and getting them across the city, which was about a 20 minute walk with all of their luggage from the train station to the hostel we were staying at. But it went well.

We stayed at a hostel that is attached to a castle, so it has a very midevil look to it. It was pretty cool. Since we were staying there, our speaker spoke about the knights of old and the code they lived by. The speaker was Dale Mace, who is a club beyond staff guy in England and someone i have become fast friends with. He is the only other single guy on staff in Europe, so we have that in common. he is an extremely gifted speaker, and had a number of the students in tears each night. Working off the code for knights, he spoke on self worth and how we should draw our self worth and views of ourselves based on what God thinks of us, not what others think. It hit home with a lot of students, and helped them to confront both their own feelings of inadaquacy as well as how they speak to others and put others down.

Unfortunately, i missed he talk on the 2nd night. In a game leading up to that talk, we were doing a relay race where two students are dragging a third student on a sleeping bag. One of the girls from here was running backwards and fell and broke two bones in her wrist. We called an ambulance and went to a german hospital, which was a new experience for me. She ended up having surgery that night to repair her wrist and is doing well now, wih the addition of a cast. Her x ray looked like her bones in her wrist turned completely sideways, as if they were on a hinge like a door and the door was thrown open. pretty gross. So i went to the hospital with her and was there for a few hours until her Mom was able to get there. So unfortunately i missed the talk and small group time with my guys, which was really unfortunate but i was needed in the hospital more.

This coming weekend is obviously Thanksgiving and therefore a long weekend. I am thinking i will be heading out to a lake that is on the German/Austrian/Switzerland border. I have heard it described as one of the most beautiful places ever, so i am looking forward to it. I'll let you know how it goes. Two days ago I also went to Prague for the day, which is a really cool city. Gorgeous view and city skyline. I love living in Europe.

Meeting my new family

This last week I was at a staff conference and training for MCYM. It took place at a Christian retreat center in the Black Forest. It gave me an opportunity to meet all of my new coworkers from across Europe. I had met about a dozen of them prior to this, but there were about 40 more that I had not met yet. I was a little nervous at first, with meeting so many of my peers at the same time, but I am very pleased with how well it went. There were two aspects to this: there was first the staff conference with everyone, where we discussed our upcoming trips (just so you are jealous we talked about trips we are taking to Austria, Italy, Romania, Belgium and another place in Germany, for both high school and middle school stuff) and just spent time getting to know one another, catching up with others and just having fun. After this was over, the relatively new staff members stayed for a few days of training. I learned quite a bit, and it was really nice to talk to others who are new and talk about what we are going through.

I am now back in Graf, and it is nice to be back. I had a lot of fun this week, and it's good to be home. And the fact that it felt like home when I was coming back was very encouraging to me. Ok, one of our students here is giving me a hard time about being on the computer and needs a ride to Burger King, so it is her fault that this is not longer or more in depth.

Quick prayers for this week, we have a middle school retreat in Nuremberg from Friday to Sunday. Pray that the couple hundred middle schoolers that come together will both have fun and learn more about God. I'll make sure to let you know how that turned out. oh, and i know i promised pictures of everything, but I do not have internet in my new house, and i cannot upload pictures on a government computer (which i am on now) so those will be coming when i get internet at my house. So, i am sorry for the delay, but i will get those on as soon as I can.

tears and travels

No, the tears are not mine. Nor am I certain what they were all about. Last Saturday I served as a chaperone to the Vilseck High School homecoming dance. For those counting at home, this is the same number of homecomings I went to while I was in High School myself. I am not a real big fan of dances. but I did enjoy this one. I worked in the coat check area, so I was able to talk to a lot of students who I didn't know before (some of whom I saw on Tuesday at school lunch who talked to me again there.) Throughout the night, one of the more common occurences were the high school girls coming out of the dance hall in tears. Not sure the exact number, but it was definitely enough to be noticed. Ah, the strong emotions of high school and the possible pain/feelings like it's the end of the world at having your heart broken.

The travels part is about me. I am heading out tomorrow to the other side of germany for a staff conference/training. I am at the same time both really looking forward to meeting all of my fellow staff members that I have not met yet and slightly apprehensive about the potential for this to be a touch overwhelming. More so the excited part. I am really looking forward to seeing the staff that I have already met at other trainings and seeing them for the first time since I have been in Europe. I would appreciate prayers for safe travels and a good experience and the opportunity to learn a lot during the trainings. I will be returning on the 5th of november, so do not expect an update to the blog before then.

New Place

I am movg into my permanent digs in the next few days, which I am excited for. It isa duplex in Kaltenbrunn, which is a town about 10 minutes from Graf and 20 minutes from Vilseck. It is a lot bigger than I was expecting to get, and also a ta more expensice than I was planning, but it is a great place for me to go. I am posting a video on facebook of a little tour if you care to take a look. Oh, I have a car also. A 2000 Ford Focus. Pretty decent car, and it was a lot cheaper than any other decent car I looked at. So I am pleased with it. Pics of that will be on facebook shortly as well.

My chow for the week would have to be club on Tuesday. I made up a game of zombies, werewolves and vampires. Sounds creepy and weird, but it went over really well. The kids got all dressed up and had a great time with it. We were doing a talk about how Jesus is a confronter of evil, and about the battle being raged between good and evil and we were able to use the cultural phenomenon of these creatures fighting to say there is a much bigger and much more real war being waged.

Ok, that's enough for this week. Hope all is well.

Funeral w/ the sound of gunfire as a backdrop

Last week, there was a funeral service held for two soldiers from here who were killed in Afghanistan. It was not the first funeral service here since I have been here, and it seems like it will definitely not be the last. The soldiers from here are involved in a lot of the action in Afghanistan. For this particular funeral service, I was in the office, whic is at the chapel it was held at, to pick something up. As I was leaving, they did a 21 gun salute, followed by taps. What was eerie/strange/chilling about this, was the gunfire in the background. This post is a huge training area for soldiers, and there is often gunfire and explosions going on. It just seemed very eerie to hear a 21 gun salute while machine gun fire was being heard, and the same during taps. To think those may have beenthe same sounds these two young men heard in their last moments, and the fact that the guys shooting in the training area are headed to Afghanistan to do it for real, struck me very hard. Such is life on a military base.

They call me sir

Sorry for missing last week. I will post a couple this week to make up for it. One of the biggest things I need to get used to is being called "sir". I get called sir all the time, and it's really weird for me. To be honest, I don't really like it. When a kid calls me that, or the dreaded "Mr. Josiah", I let them know that w/ me that's not necessary. Most miliary kids are brought up to cal everyone sir and ma'am, which I think is really good, but I just don't really like it for me just yet. Also, there are a few younger kids of a chaplain that I have been getting to know pretty well, and they call me Mr. Walcott. That is extremely weird to me. I guess I am an adult and an authority figure here, just is different for me.

Brief hello

Hi. Just a brief note this evening. Thursdays are generally my day off, but not today. We had a dessert banquet put on by the Club Beyond Booster Club here on post to raise some money for the teens and the upcoming trips. It went well, had a decent turnout, made a little cash, ate lots of desserts, etc. I am pleased w/ how it went. Had some really good conversations with the teens who were ther to work the event, which was about 30 of them.

In other news, I signed the lease for a new place this morning. It is a duplex, and when I move in I will put pictures on the internet for all to see. I will start moving in on Monday, and then over the next week start to stay there permanently. It has been great staying where I am at right now, but it will be nice to have my own place and get settled.

Ok, I am exhausted and in desperate need of sleep. I will write again on Saturday, which will be my day off for the week.

Sep 30 Chow

This last weekend we had on overnighter for the ECHT group, that s European Church History Tour. It is a group Aretta has started up, to study and learn about church history and do some Bible studies, and living in Europe making sure to take advantage of the opportunity to travel and see some of the history first hand. The theme for the year is laying down your life, so we did a Bible study, and watched the movie Romero, which is about an arch bishop in El Salvador who was assassinated. Then we spent much of the evening just hanging out and playing games. Stayed up until about 3:30 as it tends to happen w/ high schoolers. That was fun. Waking up at 7:30 wasn't quite as fun, but bearable.

On a completely unrelated note, I did the chain gang at the high schools football game, talked a little trash to the other team, got to feel important like I was part of the action. Fun times.

Always yield to tanks

I want to use this post to share a bit about how the base is laid out. We are at a unique location, having one post actually split into two seperate posts (Army term for base, this has been really hard for me to get down because in the Navy it is known as base) with a giant training area in the middle. The entire thing is known as United States Army Garrison Grafenwoehr. But there are two parts to it: Main Post, commonly referred to as Graf, and Rose Barracks, or Vilseck. Vilseck and Grafenwoehr are the towns where these bases are connected to. It takes a little over 20 minutes to drive from gate to gate. At times this can be a big annoyance. For Club Beyond we work on both sides, since the middle school is in Graf, and the high school is in Vilseck. We have an office on each side at the chapels. Working on both sides, there are some days when it is unavoidable to head back and forth, which is time consuming and a slight annoyance. Other times I see it as a benefit. It helps me get into different mind frames, that when I am in Vilseck, it is high school stuff, and vice versa in Graf for the Middle School.

The training area is cool to have here. Many days when I am working, I hear gun fire and explosions coming from the training area. A number of different countries come here to train. One day a few weeks ago, I saw soldiers from at least 7 different countries. There is a tank trail that runs back between the two sides, which if you are in a government vehicle on official business you may take, which I have done a couple of times. It is really cool back there. And yes, you have to yield to tanks. Always. They don't stop. And they have big guns. Don't get in their way.

A lot of army bases in Europe look exactly the same, that is to say, kind of ugly. Buildings all look the same and it is kind of dreary. Thankfully, the base here, I mean post, is not your typical Army post. It has a very Germanic look, and open green spaces. I am very appreciative of this.

The post used to be a German base, but the Allies took it during World War II, and it has been an American Army post ever since. This is one of the big reasons it isn't an ugly American base. It's kind of surreal, seeing Americans and Germans training in the same area, where 65 plus years ago they were fighting.

Well, that seems long enough, don't want you to get bored reading this. I would appreciate prayers as I am finding a place to stay and a car to drive. I have very promising leads on both fronts, so prayers that this goes smoothly would be much appreicated. Thanks

Cool Happening Of Week (CHOW)

In addition to weekly updates, I want to write each week about something cool/interesting/encouraging that has happened this week. And since the military is all about acronyms, I want to get in on the party so this will officially be CHOW Time. So that is what it will be posted as.

On wednesday morning, some of the students here did see you at the pole. See you at the pole, for those that might now know, is a time when students get together before school and ray for their school and community. It is completely student led and organized. One of the girls who comes to club, Bailey, organized it for here. It was really cool to see her dedication to getting the word out about this event, and to see the excitement of some of the other teens had in preparing for this event. Aretta and I got up and made some hot chocolate and muffins and blueberry bread for the kids who were there. Around 10 kids were there at first, then somewhere around 10 to 15 more joined in. Bailey then played guitar and sang (which she is really good at, we have an extremely talented group of teens). I am not a big get up early type of guy, but it was worth it to see this. Just thought I'd share.

September 23

Howdy. It's thursday, meaning it's time for an update. This week has been a good one, very busy, but good. Thursday is my day off, so it sort of symbolizes the end of the week. Tuesdays are high school club and wednesdays are middle school club, which are a lot of fun, but also take a lot out of me, so having Thursday off is a nice way to recharge the batteries.

I have been extremely pleased with how club has gone so far. Club is similar to a youth group at church in the states. We open up with dinner for high school, then some games, mixers, get to know you's, etc. We follow that up w/ a message, and then some small group time to discuss the talk. That is a very simple explanation of what it is, and a lot more goes into it than that, but in a nut shell that's what club is. I was a little nervous about the clubs heading over here, there is a lot of planning that goes into it, and it is very exhausting. But I have ansolutely loved them. It has been a great way to get to know the teens better. I will post some pics from the different clubs later on.

I am starting to get a little settled. This week I passed my written drivers test that you have to take in order to drive here, I got a mailing address, a phone, a bank account, and I have looked at a few different cars. I hope to have purchased one by early next week. I am still searching for a permanent place to stay, and I would appreciate prayers that I find a decent place that is affordable.

Ok, I want to make sure I am writing about something you want to know about, so give a suggestion or topic you want to know about, and I promise to write a post about it.

Welcome

Due to popular demand, I am going to start a blog. I will include more day to day experiences and how life is going for me personally than I do on either my facebook page or in my Newsletter. I will post a new topic/story at least once a week, most likely on Thursday, because that is my day off. I will also post pictures of where I am living and of the teens I am working with. These will also appear on facebook, so feel free to look at either.

In order to feel like having a blog is a worthwhile endeavor, I encourage and ask for comments or questions, anything you can think of, so I know that there are people reading this and getting something out of it. And if you would like to hear about certain sapects of life here in Germany, please ask and I will write some posts about whatever you would like to know more about.

So to begin, the title of my blog is a quote from C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. I am committing myself to going further up and further in, committing myself fully to the work that God is calling me to.

I hope this helps to keep us more connected, and thanks for reading.