traveling adventures...

Do I ever travel without incident? I am beginning to think that every time I travel, there will be a story to share. This time it was not a huge story, all the men I met were rather normal and my luggage made it with me... which was a miracle, I think.

I am in Kandern Germany for a couple weeks. I am so glad to be here. My heart is happy to be here. Getting here was interesting... I was delayed in the Washington Dulles airport for 6 hours...I walked past the rainbow lighted glass block wall which the Lithuania team of summer 2001 stood in front of for a photo...ahh the memories. I chatted with several interesting people. The man who was sitting next to me on the plane is a Christian and it was so great to hear about he and his wife and their family and we talked about the Lord a lot. It was very encouraging. The funny thing was that I thought he was an engineer of some sort when I sat down. (he was not nerdy looking... just looked like the engineer type) Well, he is an engineer and he thought it was so funny that I had guessed correctly that he called his wife and told her. fun times.

While I was in Dulles, I emailed Deb to let her know that I would probably be late so she should be aware of that in coming to pick me up at the airport. Well, I got into Frankfurt, and moved from line to line to line trying to procure a new boarding pass for my new flight and did not have time to do anything else than notice that my cell phone does not work over here... Guess I forgot to arrange that with Tmobile. I made it to the gate and got on the plane. When I arrived in Basel, I tried to use the pay phones to no avail... and thought.. well... I hope Deb is out there... and I hope she did not wait too long. And the whole time I am thinking about how much everyone in Kandern knows how responsible I am and how I am sure that they are each asking each other if I have contacted them.

On Deb's side, her email was not working, so she did not receive my email and had to wait for a long time at the airport for when I should have been arriving. Later she called and found out that I was registered for the later flight but was not confirmed... Everyone in Kandern was asking if anyone had heard from me and talking about how unlike me it was to leave them all clueless... Sigh... ´But... the good news, Deb came to the airport anyway for my later flight and she was there when I walked out! I bet the relief on my face was very obvious!

So, this morning, my first morning in Kandern, I got in a minor car accident. Sigh...what a way to begin. I am fine, but it is rather interesting to go through that process in another country.

But, I am here for 2 weeks and then I return to the States to find the remaining people to join with me in ministry. Do you know anyone who wants to join my team?

World Relief in Burundi Africa

I have some really talented friends! Seth Chase and his amazing wife Trina are working with my dear friend Sara in Burundi Africa. They are working with World Relief.

Seth is one of the funniest and most genuine people I have ever met! Here is a video he just finished. He does some really funny videos but this one...is the serious, grab your heart kind.

sigh...

My little brother is 28 years old. And he is not little. I remember the first time he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder and began to spin around in circles... I was yelling at him, "Let me down! Let me down!" And I am pretty sure I was kicking my feet and pounding on his back with my fists... that was about 8 years ago. Ah... I love him. :-)

A quick recap

I figured out how to transfer the photos from my camera to my computer... well, my friend Jeremy Pietzold helped me. He is great. I am excited for he and his lovely wife Lisa to be parents soon!

So, here is the recap with photos..., :-) March 31st was my friend Jamie's birthday. It was very special to me that I could be with my friends to celebrate Jamie!

Maria is a friend of mine from Kandern. She and her mother are Estonian and they have relatives in the Portland area. This is a photo of the evening when my mother and I got to host Maria and her mother for dinner at my mother's house. We had a lot of fun and apparently both mothers love maps. :-)

I was blessed this past weekend (Easter weekend) to go out to Ohio to be at the wedding of my friends Scott and Adrienne. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Felts! It was fun for me because I am friends with both of them and we all had some great times together this past year in and around Germany. (which is where they met) And as they danced their first dance as a married couple, I could not help but remember the process that God took them through to get to that point. Yes... I shed some tears. It was beautiful. :-)

And now, I am back in Portland. I had some interesting plane stories...but those can wait for another day.

hmmmm....

So… I had an interesting run in with a 52 year old man on Wednesday. Many of you know that I frequently have rather interesting interactions with men on my travels., I blogged about it back in August 2006. For all of you who are wondering about my relationship status… still single. :-) These men are usually much older (this case in point) or about 5 years old or…they don’t love Jesus and there was the French man who simply thought he had found a nice girl in me. It all makes for some funny stories and somewhat fond memories.

So, to the current situation, I was in a local Gresham coffee shop this past Wednesday. (no surprise there, I know) But I was waiting for my drink to be made… I branched out and got some latte with caramel, hazelnut and vanilla… too sweet! But I digress...

I was waiting for the drink and I was twiddling my thumbs. A man walked by and asked if I could twiddle them backwards. To which I responded “yes” and proceeded to show him. I also felt the need (not sure why) to go on and tell him that I also spell words backwords in my head. Did you all need to know that random fact? :-)

Well he asked me if I knew what the longest word in the English language is… Um… no… I don’t. I felt like I should know it… So he said he would tell me after he went out to smoke his cigarette. Lucky me.

He did tell me when he came back in… some computer word I could never remember if I tried. I asked if it really was just one word because I am learning German and many of the really long words are actually several words stuck together! He then asked, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” “yes, I replied in German, I speak a bit” At that he began to tell me much of his life story including the fact that he is fluent in Hebrew—and Yiddish (combo of German and Hebrew), was up visiting his daughter and grandson and could I believe his good luck in finding a pretty girl with red hair and blue eyes to talk to?! "especially red hair" Honestly... is my hair that red? Sheesh. And by the time I extracted myself from that semi uncomfortable situation, he had given me three ways to contact him. Don’t worry… I have not intention of contacting him. Praying for his salvation.. yes. But contacting him… no.

This makes me wonder… do redheads have more fun? :-) whatever. What I do know… is sometimes my natural bent toward being friendly to people around me, gets me into situations that seem a bit over my head. I am sure thankful that the Lord is my protector. I was not in any physical danger with this man, but it did make me think.

flying again

So I am getting on a plane in a few minutes. This post is courtesy of the free wifi at Portland International airport... they charge you a lot to park in the parking garage here....but you have free wifi. :-)

I am super excited because I am going to Columbus Ohio for the wedding of my dear friends Scott and Adrienne. Should be fun!

Oh, and as a side note... my friend Jamie....I have several friends named Jamie, this one, I went to High school with... She celebrated a birthday this past weekend and it was so nice to be in town to celebrate with her! I will post a photo when I get them off my camera...

Jesus prayed for me...

Have you ever stopped to ponder the fact that Jesus prayed for future believers after he prayed for his disciples that night when He prayed in the garden? I was reading in the book of John recently and I was struck again with how much Jesus cares for me. And I was also struck by how much our unity in the body of Christ is meant to glorify the Lord and to show others the glory of God.

Honestly... without Christ, how could we all love each other? In the body of Christ, there are different parts...and that makes us all have different views on life and different ways of approaching things. One may approach all others with complete trust and another may approach all others with complete distrust. And yet... we are to be united in Christ to show how amazing God is!

I love it!