the first week of school

Sorry it's been awhile since my last post. We still don't have internet at home, so personal business has temporarily been placed on the back burner because I have so much to do while I'm at school.

Speaking of school, I survived the first week! Monday was new student orientation, and then Tuesday was the first day of school. It started off with a huge celebration in the auditorium known as the Opening Ceremonies. I felt like part of the Olympics as I marched with my fellow teachers into the packed auditorium to the applause of parents and students and triumphal music. In front of us marched seniors from all around the globe, bearing flags from their home countries, and behind us came the residence life staff. It was a tremendous, overwhelming experience for me and yet another opportunity to thank God for his provision and timing.

I will be teaching four classes this year: 6th grade math, 7th grade science, and two sections of 8th grade science. There are 10 6th graders, 17 7th graders, and 28 8th graders...that makes for 55 new names for me to learn! I ended up making flashcards with the kids' pictures on them and my roommate quizzed me. I recognize all the faces but a few still take me a little longer to remember. It's been quite the adjustment, going from 3rd to 8th grade students!

I'd like to write more and post a video but I'm using a school computer and am unable to do so right now...hopefully I'll have a few free minutes this week to go into more detail.

Tomorrow begins a brand new week...

weekend update

The second half of last week flew by as I met with the middle school staff for the first time, found my classroom, began working on lesson plans, and started setting up my classroom for the beginning of the school year. I found out that I will be teaching three classes this year: 6th grade math, 7th grade science (life science), and 8th grade science (earth science). Additionally, I'll have an 8th grade homeroom. The 8th grade is so large (29 kids) that it is being split into two sections this year so I'll have one for homeroom and teach two sections of earth science. I'm also what's called a class sponsor for the 8th grade, which basically means I will be involved in all aspects of the 8th graders' educational and social experiences this year, attending all of their events and getting to spend quite a bit of time with them. It also means I will be chaperoning the 8th grade week-long class trip to Lugano, Switzerland next spring during the middle school's "Experiential Learning Week"... more details about that much later.

After kind of a crazy week, I was fortunate to have quite a bit of fun and relaxing things to do this weekend. Friday night I went with new staff into Basel, Switzerland to do some sightseeing and explore the town. Basel is the nearest "big city", feeling a bit like Chicago with crowded sidewalks, buses, and five Starbucks. Kristi took us on a walking tour and showed us a church, the Rathaus (town hall) and the Rhine River. There was a jazz festival going on, so the river was especially crowded. The Rhine River has such a strong curreny that the ferry (which we took) is simply attached to a line that runs across, and all the boat operator does is turn the rudder and the current carries it across. We literally crossed the river in about 1 minute's time!

Saturday morning Jill and I went with Suzanne (piano teacher) into Loerrach. First we went to the Musikhaus, a music store, becuase she needed to have some repairs done on school flutes. While we were there, the three of us music lovers played around with all the wonderful instruments on display. The staff was very kind and had no problems letting us play! The downstairs was devoted to stringed instruments . . . I picked up a guitar, Jill picked up a violin, and we jammed! We even recorded a little video we like to call "The Last Day of School: Deutsch Remix."

We had a delicious lunch on the streets of Loerrach, where I ordered my meal in German for the first time! We had currywurst, which was a brat chopepd up and covered in an amazingly delicious curry sauce. I didn't think I liked curry, but apparantly I thought wrong. We topped off our meals with pretzels and apfelchorle: sparkling apple juice, my current Deutsch drink of choice. From there, the three of us went to a thrift store in search of a few things we are still looking for to have in our apartments. I found a hiking backpack very similar to the one I took to Minnesota, but about 2/3 the size, in extremely good condition, for only 5 Euro! It will definitely come in handy for things like weeklong class field trips to Switzerland...

After an adventurous afternoon, Jill and I returned home to work on our lesson preparations. When I left school on Friday I was feeling very overwhelmed with the lack of progress I'd been making on my lesson plans, but on Saturday afternoon I managed to get my first unit of Life Science outlines, and 6 of the 11 lessons written.

As a reward for all of our hard work, Jill and I treated ourselves to dessert at the Eiscafe, an Italian ice cream parlor around the corner from our house. They may not have Graham Central Station in a waffle cone, but ice cream is only .60 a scoop, and they have the cutest desserts! Their most famous seems to be the Spaghetti Eis, consisting of vanilla ice cream run through a spaghetti maker, smothered in strawberry sauce, and sprinkled with crushed almond "parmesan cheese". Delicious!! I am proud to say that I also made this order in German. I'm slowly making progress. After we ate, Jill taught me how to count to 20. Now that I have Euro in my wallet, I need to know how to count it.

This week is All Staff Conference, one of only three times that the entire BFA staff is together at the same time. I shared my testimony this morning with other new staff members, and tomorrow we will hear more stories. The mornings are pretty packed but we have the afternoons to continue in preparations for the beginning of school!

Some prayer requests:

• Construction at Palm/Maug
• ResLife staff and dorm preparation
• Teachers and classroom preparation
• Families preparing to say their goodbyes
• Continued progress at adjusting to German culture and language
• For a few more people to join my monthly support team - I'm still not at 100%

dorm tour

As I mentioned earlier, I had a chance to go Thursday night on a driving tour of all the dorms here at BFA. I thought it would be interesting for you to get a look at what goes on "behind the scenes" at BFA and have some names of specific people you can be praying for. Students will begin arriving one week from today and there is still much to accomplish in many of the dorms!

Sonne (say "zone-ah") is a male dorm located 9 km from BFA in the town of Marzell. Sonne is the farthest dorm from school, placed on what is fondly referred to as The Hill. Here is an opportunity for prayer, as the dorm parents, Daron and Kristina, have not yet arrived. Currently the three RA's (Tommy, Carrie Beth [CB], and Chris) are manning the house themselves. Chris is a 2009 Moody grad, and Tommy is one of the people I met at Janz Team training last summer. There are approximately 22-24 boys expected to call Sonne their home away from home this year!

Blaun (say it like "plowin" but with a 'b' sound) is directly across the street from Sonne! Even though Blauen and Sonne are close and maintain a great relationship with each other, they also operate as two very different and separate dorms. Blauen is staffed by dorm parents Joe and Susie, and RA's Soyoung and Julie. Julie is also a 2009 Moody grad. Small world! Additionally, Blauen contains one of the smallest and therefore closest knit group of students with only 13 residents.

Palmgarten (say it like it looks) is the girls' dorm actually located in Kandern, only a few km from BFA. This dorm is actually within walking distance of my house, so it's the dorm i will most likely be volunteering in on Monday nights (RA's day off) or Thursday nights (DP's day off). The dorm parents are Luke and Stephanie, another couple I met at Janz Team training last summer, and the RA's are Lizzy (another JT friend) and Bonnie. Palmgarten has about 21 girls and because of how the building was used before BFA occupied it, many of the girls have their own bathrooms! This is not typical at a boarding school so these girls feel pretty special. Also, something to note about Palm is that it was due for some roof work and in considering the options, BFA decided to renovate and build another dorm on top.

The dorm on top is Maugenhard (say "mou [like mouse] -gen-hahd"), which used to be located in one of BFA's most expensive rented buildings. It was decided that it would be more cost efficient to build on top of Palm and move the Maugie boys in on top. This has created a lot of controversy but it's no different than Sonne and Blauen's situation, except that they are in the same building rather than across the street. The two dorms will continue to operate as two distinct and separate dorm families, and they even have separate entrances. Maugenhard is staffed by dorm parents Lane and Michelle, with the help of RA's Timmy (another JT friend) and Amanda. There are abotu 28 boys slated to call Maug their home this year, but currently construction is still underway! Pray that everything would come together for Maug in time for the students and that the dorm staff wouldn't be overwhelmed by everything that's left still to accomplish.

Haus Bad Reidlingen (say "ride-ling-gen") is commonly called HBR and located about 4 km from BFA. The dorm parents, Greg and Danielle, are new this year and facing the unique challenge of being dorm parents as well as parents to their two young children so please keep them in your prayers! Two RA's are on their team: Brandon )another JT friend) and Anna (PFO friend!). Together they will take care of 24 young men this year.

Storchenblick (say "stork-in-blick") is a femal dorm also located about 4 km from the school and staffed by Jim and Lynn, friends I met at Janz Team training last summer. Together with RA's Stephanie (JT friend) and Candy, 17 girls will be living in Storch this year. While we were visiting Storch, one of our staff kids lost a tooth so Lynn treated us all to popsicles. Yum!

Our last stop on the tour was Wittlingen (say it like it looks, except the W sounds like a V), another girls' dorm about 7 km from BFA. The dorm parents are Brant and Laure, who I knew immediately were from the great state of Texas when I walked into the dorm office and was surrounded by patriotic colors, Texas flags,and other fun decorations. I was particularly excited to visit Witt because I had yet to be reunited with Cara, one of the RA's who I'd met at Janz Team training last summer! Erin is the other RA who will be helping take care of 20 girls in Witt this year.

As you probably noticed, I mentioned quite a few people who I met last summer at Janz Team training. I can't even begin to explain how wonderfully comforting it is to already know so many people serving at BFA before I even arrived. These are incredible people I thought I'd never see again because at the time I was headed to VCS and they all went to BFA. There are even more working in the school as teachers and support statt: Viki, Katie, Mark and Susan, Bo and Leigh... Funny how God works, isn't it? It's truly been a joy to be reunited with these friends. One even commented that it "felt normal" for me to be here and I couldn't agree more. I'm so excited to continue building my friendships with these people as we serve alongside one another.

pictures are up

Pictures from my first few days in Germany have been posted on Facebook and can be viewed by clicking here. You don't have to have a Facebook account to view the photos. Enjoy!

five days in

My first five days in Germany have been quite the adventure. I'm using the school's wireless network to update on my lunch break; in about 20 minutes I'm due for another meeting with the staff. So I'll just give a quick list of what's happened since I arrived.

• Kristi from personnel and my roommate Jill Musick picked me up from the airport on Friday evening.
• I showered then went to dinner with them, enjoying my first schnitzel!


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• Saturday Jill and I accompanied the RAs to a town about an hour north called Freiburg, where we window shopped and enjoyed reading German signs. I spotted a McDonald's, Starbuck's, and even a Tea Gschwender (!!) so all is not lost... ;)
• Sunday I attended Black Forest Christian Fellowship, the church that meets in the auditorium of BFA and has an English service. Later that evening Jill and I went out with Kristi, Suzanne (my host) and Viki (old Janz Team friend!) for Starbuck's in Basel, Switzerland.
• Monday - Wednesday was new staff orientation with the personnel office. I began going through the actions necessary to obtain my visa and German driver's license, register with the city, and get my German bank account set up. Please pray that all the details and technicalities would go smoothly!

I live on a street called Ziegelstrasse in quite possibly the cutest house in all of Kandern. It's commonly referred to by returning staff as "The Greenhouse"...I'll let you figure out why.

Jill and I live on the bottom floor of this house. The window to the right of the door is mine!

Today officially ended the "New Staff" orientation with the personnel department, but this afternoon I begin meeting with my department head and going over things like my classroom, my schedule, my syllabus, etc. Then next week we will be attended the All Staff Conference, get acquainted with and begin working with the returning staff, and get all the classroom details in order before classes begin the following week.

Some things I'm looking forward to this week:

• A dorm tour on Thursday night to visit all seven dorms
• A trip to Basel, Switzerland on Friday night to see the sights and learn about the city
• A trip to some thrift stores and getting the rest of our apartment "settled" with Jill

have passport, will travel

It's noon, and my suitcases are packed, loaded into the car, and ready to roll. I'm a little nervous about my suitcases being overweight but mom and I weighed them and each one is between 45-47 pounds, so hopefully the airport scales are not that far off from our bathroom scale. Also, we managed to make my winter coat fit in one of the suitcases so I don't have to carry it on the plane with me! Whoohoo!

This morning I took my last shower in the United States and will have my last meal at IHOP with some family this afternoon. Here is my flight itinerary, for those of you who might be curious.

• Depart Akron Canton at 6:47 p.m., arrive in Chicago at 7:20
• Depart Chicago at 8:45 p.m., arrive in Munich at 12:25 on Friday
• Depart Munich at 3:05 p.m, arrive in Basel at 4:10

Remember that these are local times, so when I arrive in Basel at 4:10 p.m on Friday, it will be 10:10 a.m. on Friday for those in the eastern times zone.

My next post will be in Germany! Thanks to everyone who prayed, gave, and helped make this possible; I wouldn't be leaving today if it weren't for YOU.