Hiking

This last Friday we went hiking with some people from various German classes that we have had. It was a lot of fun to all be together. It was very excited and encouraging to see how much we could communicate. Four of us had been in the very first class together when we knew almost no German. Communicating at the beginning was pretty minimal. It is amazing to see how far we have come and how conversation was pretty much constantly flowing last Friday. I am so grateful to see how God has developed our German skills since coming. It is crazy for me to think about knowing that our classes were only ever in German. On Friday I got the opportunity to speak individually with our teacher which I really enjoy. She was praising our German, saying that normally when people go through just 5 months of her German class, they are not as advanced as Seth and I are. It was a big encouragement to hear and all I could do was praise God for blessing us so much. Please be praying for our relationship with our teacher as I have had the opportunity to talk about some pretty personal and spiritual things with her. She will be moving at the end of the month to Italy. She just finished law school and has to do her internship in Italy because she had studied in Italian. (She grew up in a bilingual home). She will be only about an hour by train away from us so we do plan to visit her still but be praying that God will give more opportunities for us to share about Him.

(not the best picture and we were missing one person as well. But we were all very tired as we had reached as high as we were going on the hike, where there was a little restaurant and we were able to get something to eat :)

Overall since coming God has really blessed us in not being homesick. Of course we miss our family and friends and being with them but God has really sustained us. Skype has also been great with connecting with friends and family. However this week has been a little more difficult. As silly as it seems, it was caused by football season starting. This is a time of year where we normally spend a lot of time watching games together with others. With football not being popular here as well as with most games playing in the middle of the night, it is definitely not the same. However, we did enjoy through skype watching the Nebraska game this weekend with some of my family. That was really good for me to do, even if we couldn't always tell what was going on in the game :)

This week has also been a great opportunity in connecting with youth! Seth and I were both able to connect with multiple new students in a one-on-one setting. It was awesome to see as those we met with opened up and really began to share their hearts with us. It is awesome to see what God is doing right now! Please be praying as school starts on Monday that we will continue to be able to connect with these kids even though there schedules are getting a lot busier. Also please be praying for one specific girl that I met with this week. She is a regular part of our youth group and church. Her father is not a believer and she was sharing some of the struggles that go along with that. We talked for hours and she really shared how her heart longs for her father to believe and to be the spiritual leader of the family. How she desires to read the bible together as a family and spending time in prayer together. When I left that time, all I was thinking about was how blessed I was to grow up in a family where both of my parents are believers. Something I don't appreciate enough. Please pray along with us for the salvation of her father.