news for you :)

I write you from Florida in the land of wedding crazies. I am here with my fiancee Jon to see his best friend get married. He is the best man which is very fun. it amazes me how warm it is down here in December!! It feels like another world! We made it safely down here - we drove - and am very thankful for the drive with no problems other than a little bit of traffic along the way.

So anyway, this little email is not really about where I am right now, but for an announcement. Earlier in the email I mentioned my fiancee - this has only been true since Christmas Eve Day - the day I became engaged to Jonathan Michael Potter. He asked me at the Bayard Arboreteum in New York in front of the Connectiquot River, and of course I said yes. :) We have been together since May 2005. He is living in Indiana, so it has been long distance the whole time (so going to Germany wasn't too much of a jump). We are planning to get married next summer, 2007. We are very excited and have both our families full support behind us. It will be an adventure planning things while in Germany, but I know it will work out - especially with God's help!

If you could keep Jon and I in your prayers as we enjoy our last few weeks together and as we prepare for this new chapter of our lives even while far apart, that would be wonderful. Thank you for supporting me in my ministry both at home and abroad!

come fly with me

I leave for NY today! In but a few hours I will be on a plane - to go to Paris then to Boston then to NY - my destination. I am looking forward to going home for Christmas. I fully understand the meaning of those old songs now! :) Pray that all flights/connections go smoothly and that I would be safe (and my luggage would arrive with me!). Thanks for all your prayers and support!! Those in the States - I will see you soon!!! :)

cookies and cities

Here are some fun pictures from the weekend - the first is when we had milk and cookies with the girls and watched Charlie Brown. The rest are from Heidelberg. The girl in the last picture with me is Miri - one of the girls in my Counselor group from English Camp 2003 - yay for reunions. It was a great refreshing weekend and I am glad I was able to go!! Enjoy!

pizza and masquerades

Here are some pics of the past week or so. Things have been busy with visitors, themed hot lunches and Christmas Banquets. I have been kept on my toes. It has been fun despite some of the insanity though. I am looking forward to a little break this weekend - I am going to see some German friends in Heidelberg - 1 of my campers from 3 years ago. :) Praise God for big groups going which means very cheap transportation. I am looking forward to Christmas break and seeing NY again - and my dear loved ones and friends. Right now though I will carry on and get to know these awesome girls that God created. It is an adventure! Thanks for your prayers! They are greatly needed! Enjoy the pics...




Emily and Steph - 2 of my very cool seniors of Wittlingen - I had some fun moments with both recently :)









Italian Restaurant Hot Lunch Friday - Witt girls eat well thanks to Witt Staff :)









The Christmas Banquet this year was a masquerade - here I am with 2 other BFA RA's :)











Me and my fellow Witt RA's at the banquet - Jessica, me, Kristi and Rachel

Here are all the Witt girls - aren't we lovely?

Thanksgiving...a little Early

Well Friends, Happy Dorm Thanksgiving to you! Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving 2 weeks early - because it gives us a chance to celebrate Christmas as a dorm before we leave mid-December. Also it is between Canadian and American Thanksgiving. It ended up being a really good time - I even got to make rolls from scratch for the first time - a couple hundred of them :) We had 6 turkeys and a ham and 49 people attending. It was a nice change of pace and everyone lingered at the table enjoying good food and fellowship. I am thankful that we were able to have such a good night. We later watched White Christmas to begin hailing in the Christmas season that is coming.

The girls are off today - I stayed home with those girls who didn't go ice skating. It is a fairly busy weekend - our play practice girls have big practice this weekend - their play is next weekend. The next few weekends will be filled!! I am glad to be here but I must say I look forward to going home to see my loved ones in NY as well. I will be going Dec. 17 and gone through Jan 4th.

Pray for me as I make decisions and need wisdom with different things. Pray that I would build good relationships and know when to say things to certain people. Pray that our team would grow stronger and communicate well. Pray also for finances - that God would continually provide for various needs and bills that need paid for.

Praise God for the chance to be here in the fall time. Praise God for great girls. Praise God for fun experiences. Praise God for great conversations. Praise God that I will be able to go home for Christmas!!

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving - enjoy!

A view of our full dining room

Our girls like pumpkin pie! :)

Cameron (our adopted dorm girl) and Shannon - they ate at my table :)

An amazing sunset that we saw tonight!
My first pumpkin that I carved last week with Jessica! :)

Autumn Times...

I thought I would share with you a bit of the autumn beauty that I see all the time these days here in Germany. I am thankful to be here to experience the seasons change in a different culture. The bottom pictures are from Herbstmesse with the whole school on Tuesday. It is a Fall Fair in Basel - we took 5 buses in - it was a huge carnival all over the city. I went on a few rides and had a few heart to hearts. It has been a good week. Yesterday was a holiday - All Saints Day - so it was a different type of day as all the kids were home. We had Lord of the Rings Marathons and carved pumpkins (I carved my first one ever :)) Lots of fun. It is nice to have the different pace to have different chances to spend time with the girls here. Today was pretty normal but I was reminded on a walk just how thankful to God I am that I get to minister here for the year. God is providing even when I am not sure how that is all going to work out. God knows what He's doing - I just need to trust him. Thank you for all your prayers - they are greatly appreciated!!






The sun peeks through the trees in the woods near Sitzenkirch - we were in search of castle ruins.







This is the castle we tried to find - we ended up on the other side :( - oops - It was a great hike though - so beautiful - God is amazing - so creative!!




Here is a glimpse of Herbstmesse -

quite a bright colored carnival!! Lots of activity!













Me and 2 of my girls - Rachel (my seat buddy of the day on the bus) and Autumn (quite the character who makes everyone smile!!)

More Scenes from the Open House

Here are some more pics from our open house this past Sunday. Good Job girls for putting it all together so well! It was quite the unity building experience!!





I had to show a pic of NY wall since it is my native state- it was a part of the North America section. All the continents were represented in our dorm. My section was Antarctica (since I am in the outermost parts it makes lots of sense).










We had different food stands in our "food court" - Chelsea - one of the McClary kids was serving EisCaffe (Iced Coffee) at our "Starbucks" (the logo in back of her was drawn and colored btw by one of the talented girls here:))











Tamara was one of our ticket agents - she made sure everyone got on the "flights" they wanted.










Josiah is another McClary child - he was a fellow crazy tourist with me.















Heather and Torri made sure everything was secure at each security checkpoint! :)

crazy tourists...

Here I am as a crazy tourist in the land of North America of Witt. We had an open house today - it went really well and it all pulled together. The place looked great and it was lots of fun. I got to be loud and obnoxious on purpose which was amusing. I'll hopefully have more pics later! Have a great night!

some recent pics and times of life

Hello friends, I know it has been a little while since I have updated - sorry about that. Things have been rather busy here in the Black Forest as of late. We have had class parties, dorm swaps, pranks pulled, hot lunches served, various guests in the guest room and still more things yet to come. The past few days have been crazy as the sewage pipes were not working so well - they had to do some work on them. I had smelly water leaking into my closet and stuff coming into the shower - not fun. Praise the Lord it has been fixed - it was quite yucky. I have been airing my room out all day. This weekend will be busy with lots of grocery shopping, cooking, decorating and such for our open house which is coming up on Sunday. Our theme is to be an Airport - and we will have different parts of the house as continents. My area is Antarctica since it is on the outermost part of the dorm. It should be busy but a good time.

I have some pictures of the last few weeks. I hope you enjoy them.










This is my parents and sister Rebekah - she, praise the Lord, graduated from Marine Bootcamp this past Friday down in Parris Island. She is now an official Marine - Congratulations Rebekah!!We are very proud of her.












This is me and one of my girls, Torri - we went to our girls volleyball game as a dorm on Saturday - our girls won - 2 of them are on the team! Yay BFA! They won 3 out of the 5 games - so they were winners overall.











This is the Greathouse Family - Chris Greathouse (far right) is the PE teacher her, Jenny his wife is my Bible Study leader - she is very sweet. They have 5 great kids! :)












Here is me and my staff on PD day (Professional Development Day) - it was a day of meetings in the morning at a teahouse with the ResLife staff and the rest of the day just a chance to get to know each other better as a team. We went to Colmar,France and spent the afternoon/dinner together - it was really good in just having the chance to enjoy eachothers company outside of the dorm! Thanks ResLife!

I am thankful for the different times we have to rest - I went 7 days in a row last week without an official break - for those who don't know, weekends here are the craziest - we are on almost 24/7 at times - I was able to have a good day off with Jessica and her mom yesterday. I cherish those times. Thanks for all who are praying for me and keeping up with my life! You each are blessings!!

Ancient Cafe's in Deutschland

On Friday I went with a bunch of RA's and our Res Life Director's to a little cafe called the Niederweiler Cafe - it was established in the 1700's and is in a pretty part of town up in the hills by a stream. My favorite part other than the real German Cake and Coffee was the Knight with the skull inside - crazy. Here are some pics from that day!

















Sunflowers are a common sight all over Germany - that
and the many gardens!





















Here is Zach and I with our new friend the Knight



















The Lovely stream outside the cafe

















A group of us enjoying our Kuechen (cake) :)
The lady in pink is Lynn one of our Res Life Directors

This weekend we had a Fall Party where everyone dressed up as different advertisement logo people - it was lots of fun. We had a catwalk and some skits. Us RA's even did a version of the song "Taking Care of Business" showing the reality of RA life. Here are some pics from the party :).


The Men of HBR - Advertising Ramen Noodles

One of the Witt Girls, Autumn as Seventies Barbie

Siblings Shannon, Heather and Brandon as Snap, Crackle and Pop

Me and Fellow Witt RA Jessica as the Doublemint Twins :)

Roomates Verity and Hidy as a doll and Flight Attendant

The Hills Are Alive...

Well Friends, it has been pretty busy since I last posted. This past weekend I was able to take off and get away and rejuvenate for the next few weeks. I went with a couple friends to Salzburg, Austria - a lovely place I'd like to go back to again. It was quite an adventure since we didn't have a place to stay the first night because we got in too late to check into our hostel. God provided another place to stay that night so that was good. Rest was greatly appreciated. Since I have been back it has been pretty busy. I have hit some rough patches and am realizing that I'm hitting the transition time where things don't seem as exotic any more and I am missing things from home and routines from home. Pray that I am able to stick through this period filled with lots of humble pie!!

Below are some pics from my trip - enjoy!





Here is the guest house that saved us on the first night! It is in Mondsee, Austria.









Me, Jessica and Becky waiting at the bus stop to go to Salzburg.












The Lovely Land of Salzburg






Pretending to be royal in front of a palace.








Me and the land of Salzburg - I would love to return!

Budenfest

This past Sunday was Budenfest in Kandern, Germany. It was quite the cultural experience - you can buy lots of German food and drinks all around the town. It happened mainly in the Blumenmarkt. I had some currywurst and fries amidst with friends. The true cultural experience was hearing the German band play polka music. I truly felt in Germany after that!Here are some pictures from the day.



German accordian player in the German band

German father and son - I thought they were so cute together!

View of the Budenfest in action

Fellow RA's and a teacher too enjoying the fest!

View of my new home

This is Wittlingen Dorm - the mazelike house I will be living in this next year with 36 other people! :)










Hidy, Mary and Jessica (left to right) - 3 of the 4 Koreans in this wonderful house - they are on a see-saw within a 15min walk from Witt - we had a campfire over here.












Deborah - one of my dear freshmen and I having fun at the campfire outing - she is dramatic and likes to sing like me :)










Shannon, Cheri, Katherine, Deborah and Autumn sing their little hearts out!











Fellow RA's Zach, me and Jess in Basel on our day off yesterday - we went on the bus for the first time - it was a successful adventure! :)