Germany...oh yes.

I am loving it here!
LOVING IT. I hope you all are doing well! I still need peoples addresses please, for mail, if you'd like me to send you things!
I've been discovering so much, and the time is already flying too fast for me! I can't believe I've been here 2 and a half weeks already! There is so much to tell and remember!
But I may as well tell you about the weekend--we went to a street festival in Sindelfingen, which is about 20 minutes away. It was called the Midsummer Night's Dream festival! There were tons of lights and fire-shows, people dressed up in costumes wielding torches and doing acrobatics and dramatic skits.
Cheryl, the kids and I met up with some of their friends, the Doss's. We all went for authentic, yummy-beyond-belief schnitzel! It was incredible. Then afterward (which, in Germany, is a LONG time later!) we got crepes (banana-Nutella...my favorite!) from a crepe stand!! It was a wonderful evening! The Doss's have a piano, too, that they might not have room for-- a baby grand! We might get to put it in OUR house! And I may be giving their daughter, Jillian, lessons...wouldn't that be cool??

I've also made some friends, mainly a guy named Florien who is actually Italian! He's lived in Germany his whole life, doesn't speak very good English (although it's lightyears better than my German!), but is fluent in both German and Italian. So while our conversation was very rocky today, we were able to help each other with my English-Deutsch dictionary, and we'd try talking in my Spanish and his Italian to see if it helped! He has a friend who is Dominican--what are the odds? They speak to each other in Spanish and Italian! Me and a few of his friends went for pizza today and it was nice to hang with people my age, even if we didn't talk all that much. :)

Tomorrow we are headed to the International Baptist Church in Stuttgart for the 11:30 service..I'm hoping to make some friends!

Some prayer requests that are becoming apparent are:

-my safety, wisdom, and discernment. As I start becoming more adventuresome, I know I'll be stepping out on limbs to discover more of my surroundings, and in turn, myself. I just don't want a silly mishap of judgement to land me in a world of trouble.

-smoothness for the transition for Cheryl. Nothing has really been going according to plan with the move, and it's stressing her out, understandably. I'm hoping a lot of things simply fall into place so we can all let out a huge sigh of relief!

-my visa to come through. This is the most important one. Cheryl's working on all the legal options, but prayer for her wisdom and discernment would be great! I absolutely love it here and don't want to go home early!! There are way too many adventures to be had!

Some praises are:

-How well I've fit into this family! I already feel like I belong here. It's a different feeling than I've ever felt before, being able to fit in so well with people I just met. I'm so glad that even though I'm so far from everything, I'm not stressing too much and just taking things as they come! I'm loving every minute!

-The kids love me! Woohoo. :) sometimes they don't like me much, but I think they were just surprised-- I'm actually going to be disciplining them, not just being a playmate!

-having a "family" away from home--- I had a really great weekend with some close friends last week, and it's so comforting knowing they're only a train ride away!



I've been learning so much about myself in this short time so far away from home! Thank you for all your love and support from the everyone reading in the US... the Springs, Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Nashville, Chatfield, Spokane, Richmond, La Mirada, Chatanooga, and those in the Dominican, China, Korea, and Germany... I love knowing you're all there all over the world! I had to write them out to realize how vastly the people I know are organized all over the planet. Thank God for internet, we're really lucky. :)
Life is never boring with you people in it!

much love,

Ciera