My New Living Quarters

Hello everybody! I am now writing from my new room. I am very glad to have been able to move in before classes start and I think everything is pretty much in place. The two other girls I am living with are very nice and welcoming. Thanks to the Varners I am already stocked up on study-food (a basic necessity for any serious student)! These are just a few pictures of my room and of course my closet. Now I'm really ready for college :)

This little guy is one of two cats who are frequent visitors to my room. His name is Earl. Both cats are very cute.

A Wonderful Treat

Yesterday Freya made a delicious dinnner for us: Linsen and Spätzle! It was great to have a little taste of home again! It was an especially good treat as I had been very busy the past few days preparing for the beginning of classes. Things finally seem to be coming together. Thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way and provided me with all the "freshman-essentials" :)

Our Last Stop

We have now reached our final stop along the road. This is a baseball game that the Lingenfelters (all of them!) took us to see in Altoona. This little guys name is Al (Tuna) :)
It was exciting because it has been many years since I had been to a game. Here again everyone was extremely welcoming and again it was so nice to see many friends again.
The rest of our stay in Altoona and Leamersville was very relaxing, as we had little to do. Sunday was the only busy day with three services.
I think we all are glad to be back in Columbus now.
My last home ministries was filled with events I will gladly look back on. Now it is time to get prepared for College. One of the things that impressed me most was how many people invited me to come back to their homes and visit if I ever needed a vacation. Pastor Mark in Leamersville even suggested I come and do a concert in their church! I definitely have much travelling to do!

Boating!

After the initial surprise at seeing some of my friends again we decided to get together and go out for some ice-cream. It was great to reconnect and have a mini OB reunion.

Another tradition was upheld, when we went boating with the Wileys. This was definitely a highlight of our trip. Zach was even brave enough to try the water-skis. Although it took him a while to get up he did finally manage and by the end of the day was able to stay up a considerably long time. We all were very impressed. A great thing about this day was that Anne was able to join us. It was fun to see a fellow "German" and since we hadn't seen her in quite a while we had much to get caught up on. All in all a great day.

Galen was definitely the master skier!

We had great weather so that those of us who remained on deck had a pleasant day as well :)

On to Lancaster, PA!

Our stop in Lancaster, PA was full of pleasant surprises. When we went into a restaurant to have breakfast with Edna we happened to end up at the table one of the girls on my OB team was waiting on! I had no idea she was even in the area. Both of us were shocked to see each other and I almost forgot her name I was so surprised. The world is definitely smaller than we expect.
Our breakfast with Edna was wonderful. It is always so nice to catch up with friends and Edna is of course very special. She showed us around her shop before we, sadly, had to move on.

Over the summer Zach, Mr V and I really had a lot to do. This was one of the more unusual situations we had to play in. This was at a church picnic in Ephrata!

We were told that another one of my OB friends was working that evening so we decided to go and visit her. It was so much fun to reconnect with her. She even gave us free pretzels which, though different from German ones, tasted really good.

In Telford

After our very exausting trip we were happy to spend some time with the Balmers enjoying many fine traditions like eating a lot of sweetcorn that we even picked ourselves and also a lot of peaches! Zachary really enjoyed driving the Gator after a quick driving lesson by Ken.

The Balmers also took us down to Philadelphia to take a look at Urban Hope, which is a GBIM project, designed for training in inner-city ministries. It was a very good visit. Ed Lewis was there to show us around and he invited some people from there who had recently accepted Christ to share their testimonies. It is hard to imagine the things some people go through and nice to see the way God reaches out to them. I am very glad we got to have that experience.

The boy in the picture with Zach is one of his friends from OB whom we also got to spend some time with.

New York City 1

This is how we began our very short but wonderful trip to NYC! We took the ferry past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. This was early in the morning so the weather was pleasant. This will only be an extremely condensed overview of our day. Even being very tired at the end of it we all had a great time!
(These are not nearly all the pictures that were taken that day, but I thought I would give you a brief impression of our time.)

Approaching NYC again.

And here we are at Grand Central Station. (It is still grand and it is still central :) )

This is a store we sadly didn't get to see from the inside, but I had to think of Steffi as we walked by!

Times Square was probably my favourite place in New York. I loved all the action and so many interesting people everywhere. Next time we'll have to go see one of the shows.

Here we are at Times Square on one of the huge screens. To our great surprise a very large lady appeared, picked up Daddy, kissed him and turned him into a frog. Perhaps he was the one who looked closest to that already :)

We also made it to M&M world. It was huge and we even got to see Cookie Monster and Elmo in front of it.