So as my first youth group lesson while on furlough we talked about none other than feet.  Feet have been our theme for our entire furlough: David’s sermon, our presentation, and any other lessons.  This comes from the Scripture Romans 10:13-15, and basically we focus on the end of “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”

So you can see from our pictures that we also played some games that focused on feet.  The youth had to be blindfolded and figure out with their feet what they were touching.  Also another game was that they had to find their shoe while being blindfolded.

The Scripture I used for the youth lesson comes from 1 Corinthians 12 describing how we are the Body of Christ and each part is important to make up the entire body.  We went around the room discussing what gift everyone had to see where they would be placed in the Body of Christ.

I had a wonderful experience at my very first German camp in Gemünden, Germany. Gemünden is pretty close to Frankfurt. Susan Bratcher, works at our sister church in Hildesheim, and we were the cooks for the whole week. It was a kid’s camp with kids ages 10-15.  We had about 40 people total with a little over half of that being the kids. I spent most of my time in the kitchen cooking.

I really thought that by the time I would be home I would miss Dave (because he did not come) and I wouldn’t want to cook anymore. Well, I did really miss Dave. This was the first time that we had been separate for a week. But to my surprise when I got home I had so much fun cooking at camp that I went home and cooked and baked up a storm.

It was my first time to follow a recipe with German instructions and German measurements (milliliters and grams). When I had a problem understanding the German recipe, people were always eager to help and I got to use a scale to weigh my ingredients. It was fun!

Well, I was not in the kitchen ALL the time. I was able to play capture the flag with the kids and sit around the camp fire eating Stockbrot (pizza dough on a stick) and marshmallows. The most wonderful part was that I could make a big mess in the kitchen cooking and then the kids came in to clean the kitchen afterward, which was part of their camp duties. Wow! Sure wish I had this luxury at home!

This was our last Social Get Together for the year. Craig planned lots of fun including this balloon volleyball game. We had a blast. I believe it was our team (Gumby) that won!!!!

Part of our LST project includes organizing Social Get Togethers with all of our Readers. I organized two, and Craig Rapp organized the other two. We had lots of fun.

Some of the things we did included: playing Taboo, Apples to Apples, Job Guessing, Who am I?, Pictionary, and water balloon games. These were four fun-filled Thursdays. We always met on Thursdays at 7PM so everyone would not forget the special occasion. We had several readers come. And I believe two nights had over 20 participants. Here are some pictures.

Every 3rd Friday of the month the church has a game night. We have a great time playing board games, croquet, eating snacks, and talking. Sometimes there are a lot of people that turn up for this event.

Well,  it is long overdue to update and tell everybody what we have been doing for the past month.  David and I enjoyed 3 busy weeks at the end of May and beginning of June reading with our LST Readers.  We already mentioned that we had about 40 sign up with us.   So we were very busy.  On top of that, we visited a school in Peine (Burgschule) and talked to 9th graders practicing their English.

In between, Randy and Katy have had several grill parties.  At these grill parties the Smelsers invite their English classes from the Volkshochschule (Adult Education Center).  So we enjoy an evening of grilling, eating, talking some English, and listening to mostly German.  These evening parties last about 3-4 hours long.

Now, when it came time for the Rapps to arrive, David and I moved upstairs to Randy and Katy’s guestroom while the Rapp team from Texas stayed in our room (the church’s guestroom) downstairs.  Craig and Kyle Rapp, a father and son team, came to Peine for 2 weeks to join us in the Let’s Start Talking work.

Craig and Kyle did an excellent job!  They helped out so much.  David and I were about to go crazy with all the work, so we were very thankful that God sent the Rapps when He did.  We got to spend a lot of time with them eating together, talking about the experiences with our Readers, showing them around Peine, teaching them how to shop, etc.  We had a good time.   They even took us out to eat, several times!!!  We also got to celebrate Kyle’s 14th birthday while they were here.  We are so blessed that they could come, and we really hope they enjoyed it.