Katy's picture

Katy painted this picture a few weeks ago. We think it's amazing.

Candlelight Dinner

Next weekend is BFA's annual outreach dinner. It is a huge event held over two evenings - Friday and Saturday, and takes months and months of preparation. The point of the evening is to invite Germany friends and neighbours for an evening of fun and entertainment, as well as a presentation of the Gospel. This is a highly anticipated event in this community, and both evenings are always completely booked. The theme this year is "time" and that theme will be woven throughout the evening by a story about a time machine, and ultimately the whole aspect of "what are you doing with your time?" will be personalized.
Each stop that is made in the time machine is represented by an act from that time period. Bethany is in the "Les Mis" act you can see below. They are working very hard to look angry and intense! Katy will be serving both evenings for the dinner. Howard and I will take guests on Friday evening and will be serving on Saturday. Please pray for these evenings - for the German guests for an openness to the Gospel, and for all the performers, servers, cooks and hosts.

Nautilus

The band Bethany is in gave a concert last Sunday night for the BFA students. They opened for a free concert given by "The Fold".(I know nothing about this band but they were touring in this area and somehow a contact was made.) I was not there because I was still sick, but all reports were that the band was amazing and everybody had had a great time.

Basel, Switzerland

Basel is a beautiful European city just 20 minutes away from Kandern. It is also a city with a massive pharmaceutical industry employing almost 24,000 people. It is a very cosmopolitan city and we always hear lots of English in the streets (and even Portuguese as there are some 4000 Brazilians living there!). We have even had some involvements in a Brazilian church there. Basel is a great and safe city and when we have the time, we love to just wander the streets and enjoy being there.


Inside the post office.

The pictures I didn't take...

I went to a guys' dorm this morning and spent two hours cutting hair. Five haircuts and five great visits. I enjoy this type of thing so much as I get to know the kids on a more personal level. It's wonderful how much they'll talk when they're under the scissors! Unfortunately I forgot my camera this morning so I can't show you who these great kids are, or the pile of hair that had collected by the time I was done. Maybe next time.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A lovely bouquet of my favourite flowers from my husband.

Spring is...springing

I've been sick for over a week now with a form of the BFA bug. While I've been housebound, the weather has been bright and sunny, day after day. Today I went for a walk and this is what I saw...

What's in an RA?

That's a good question. What is in an RA that would make them sign up for a job that requires mothering 25+ girls 24/7; answering 100s of questions a day, making decisions, helping with homework, doing van runs to take visiting friends back to their own dorms or homes or taking sick girls to the doctor; running on empty but still having time to give hugs and smiles and words of encouragement; cheering for them at their games and holding nervous hands before they perform at a recital; making room checks and doing lunch prep; getting up early to get breakfast ready and staying "on call" on a day off when almost half the dorm is sick? What's in an RA that would make them sign up for the hardest most stretching time of their lives? It's called a willingness to serve and give and love - Jesus with skin on. That's what's in an RA and here are 3 of the best at BFA! Way to go Rachel, Janet & Ellie (who are actually finding a bit of time for themselves to just veg a bit while the girls come home from school).

School spirit

Our girls have great school spirit. It amazes me the ideas they come up with and how that bag of dress-up clothes in the attic (which would rival Dr. Dress Up's tickle trunk!) always seems to have just the right thing.
A few weeks ago Katy and her friends Morgan and Deborah did a 90s Spirit Day. Or was that 80s? You decide! At any rate, it was a great time for them as usual!

Kandern's parade

Yesterday afternoon was Kandern's Fasching (Carnival) parade. It's during an event like this that we definitely feel like foreigners. Most of the frivolity is pretty harmless, but there are some deeper, darker parts as well which we don't really understand that well.

One of the lighter things is seen in this picture. Those big sacks these men are carrying are full of confetti. The parade participants love to throw confetti on the people watching the parade. You can imagine the huge mess afterwards (especially if it's raining, or snowing for that matter) and for that reason, confetti throwing was outlawed in our town a few years ago. However, I guess the revelers made such a fuss that the town gave in and let them have their fun again.


Check out the shoes...

Fasching (Carnival) in Lörrach

Katy and I went to Lörrach (about 20 minutes from home) on Saturday to do some birthday shopping for Bethany who was away for the weekend. I hadn't realized that we would be right in the middle of some major "Fasching" celebrations - lots of bands! So, while Katy shopped, I stood at a window and took pictures (thus the slight glare). This is just a tiny sampling of what we saw. The bands are generally pretty good and there's always lots of drumming.

People love to dress up their kids as well and some of the costumes are pretty amazing.

Kandern

We live in such a beautiful town...