Quick Update!

Hi guys! Sorry, I don't have any pictures right now (lame, I know) but I wanted to give a quick update as to what's going on in my life for the next couple of weeks. I will be leaving Bodenseehof literally in a few minutes and embarking on an adventure across France (Paris, Normandy, Montpellier, and probably a few stops in between) with my friend Kiana. Please pray for safety and that everything would just go smoothly and wonderfully. We would appreciate that a lot.

Also, big news, I am coming home at the end of March! It's certain, I have my ticket and will see you all soon!!!

Much love,
Lorraine

More From Christmas...

In Montpellier there is a really nice downtown area and it was all decorated for Christmas and the New Year. The super-lit-up building behind us is their famous opera house.
Sorry this one is sideways, but it is the Arc de Triumphe (Arch of Triumph) and is just a major landmark in the city.
This is how our gingerbread houses turned out...schade (German for "bummer"). We worked on them for almost three hours, used two different types of frosting, and used every possible method of construction, but to no avail. It was a lost cause. But it did keep us entertained for ages and was really fun all the same.
All over the south of France there are old Roman pieces of architecture and structures left over from the Roman Empire. This particular thing (aquaducts) was constructed in the year 900AD or something ridiculous and was HUUUUUGE.
Again, suuuuuper HUGE. I have more pictures to give a better idea of the scale and the surrounding area, but alas, have no more time tonight.

I love you all and miss you!

Christmas with the Woodyard Family

Now to the Christmas part! After finally getting back to school from Serbia (it was an 18-hour car ride), Owen and I spent the night, woke up really early, and got on the first of five trains on our way to Montpellier, France, where his parents and little sister live. I spent the last two weeks of break there with them and had a lovely time. Perfect, really. I couldn't imagine a better first Christmas away from my family.
Here I am with Owen and Mary Ann, his little sister.
In their mall (yes, a REAL shopping mall!!! I was SO pumped!) they had this giant pepto-bismal tree set up. It kind of reminded me of the game Candy Land. And kind of made me feel like being sick at the same time :-)
On Christmas Eve Mary Ann and I made gingerbread houses. A few pictures later, you'll see how they turned out...
I even got my own stocking!!!

My Christmas Vacation

Ok. Here is the story. My first week of Christmas break was spent on a mission trip to Belgrade, Serbia. We spent our time in the Roma (Gypsy) areas of town, helping out with multiple services for children and youth and one adult church service. It was a good week, but very hard. It's super crazy because you always here the stories of poverty and see it on the news and whatnot, but I all of a sudden found myself standing right in the middle of it with no way to really satisfy any of their physical needs. Yes, I could sing my songs and tell them all about Jesus, which we did on a daily basis, but it just seemed like I was doing so little to really help their situations, and that was hard for me to handle. Overall, it was a good experience though, and very worthwhile.

Anyway. The first picture is in one of the Roma neighborhoods where we got to sing and hand out Operation Christmas Child boxes. I'm sure many of you have assembled them. I have before and honestly never thought I would be able to witness the receiving end of the situation. It was really cool how happy the kids were.

It was SOOO cold ALL THE TIME. Soooo...we found ourselves doing strange things like, well, sitting on heaters and whatnot. And when I say SOOO cold, I'm talkin about -5 Celcius. It wasn't just Lorraine being a wimp.

We got to do about a half-day of sight seeing and went to this old palace that used to be the home of the Serbian royal family. It was REALLY cool. There were all kinds of underground passages and dungeons and look-out spots and crazy walls and stuff. Plus, we went there right as it was getting dark and so everything was lit up and beautiful. This specific picture shows a bit of history as well as a bit of humor. These are the heads of past Serbian kings...and current Serbian (well, not reeeeally Serbian) tourists :-)

More of the palace...kind of gives you a taste of what we were seeing. The grounds seriously seemed like they were never going to end.

A current ministry in Belgrade (Brot des Lebens, or Bread of Life) serves the Roma people as well as refugees from other countries. They are friends of Bodenseehof, so we were able to use their office as a central meeting place as well as a cafeteria. This is what the typical meal looked like.

Back in the saddle...

Hi guys! I'm back at school. I'm safe. I'm sound. The lecturers this week are great. They have been missionaries in Italy (Milano) for decades and have A TON of good stuff to say about life and God and missions.

P.S. I'm in LOVE with France. I think I might go back and go to language school. I have all kinds of pictures of France and my Christmas experience with my friend and his family as well, so as soon as I remember I'll post a few.

Lorraine's Current Whereabouts.

Hello everyone!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Sorry, I don't have the means to upload pictures right now and I don't know when exactly I will, but I just wanted to let you all know why I haven't been replying to your emails for a week...

I have been in Serbia! Belgrade, more specifically. A team of 10 students from Bodenseehof and 4 staff members all piled into vans and drove from Germany (16 hours! wow!) for a week-long mission trip. We worked with the Roma people (more commonly known as gypsies) who live in the absolute poorest parts in the city. We are talking, living in sheds made up of cardboard boxes and pieces of scrap metal. It was really eye-opening and really really really reminded me of my time in Mexico. Then we all drove back. Another 16 hours. Then I slept in a room at school, woke up early, and hopped on a train (the first of five) with my friend Owen to spend the rest of break with him and his family. And hopefully to learn some French!

I don't know how frequently I will be able to use a computer with internet, but I will be back at school and in the computer lab on January 5th!

More pictures of paintings.

More Pictures

You guys are all gonna get super pictured out. There's a ton more comin.

Lovely shot of Big Ben with Westminster Abbey in the background. Classic London!

This is my sing team! We are called The Mustard Seeds. We like to laugh. From left to right it's me, Jordan (went to London with me), Lisi (room mate from Austria), Peter (Kenya), Jenessa (Canada), and Caroline (Kenya).
This is my friend Audrey. Laying in the backyard. All the girls used to do this in clusters back when it was warm enough to be outside for extended periods of time without several layers and extensive physical activity. Super fun.
This is where I do all of my painting! It's actually supposed to be a tea room kitchenette, but I have sort of taken over and everyone just calls it the paint room now. I might have to clean up a little bit now though because they just installed sinks and counters and stuff so people might actually use the room more...bummer. The next pictures are all of paintings I have done since being at Bodenseehof. I probably won't make comments about any of them, but they are some of my favorites...

The Rest of London...

Ok. Sorry. Long time. Chord. Ugh. Still can't find. Borrow. *Sigh...

This is not in London. This is in my dorm. But I thought I looked like a rock star. Do I look any different from September?!

This is a nice little corner of Stansted Airport where our little gang spent the night. We all basically sprawled on the floor and on that bench. Not so comfortable, but VERY adventurous :-) From left to right, Aymee (Canada), Owen (Florida/France), Alex (Bellevue. Yes, WA), and Jordan (Minnesota).
We were about to cross the real live London Bridge and it got a little windy. Maybe I should go for a real mohawk next time... whaddya think Mom? ;-)

More with the London Bridge. Aymee, Alex, and I.

This is the kitchen of the little house we stayed in. Unfortunately, the hostel we had hoped for was out of rooms so they offered us some rooms in a house that they owned. It was being rennovated and pretty much in the ghetto of London, but it wasn't too bad. Pretty dirty, also not super comfortable, but again, VERY adventurous.

London, Part One

Tag! It seems as if I have temporarily (I repeat, TEMPORARILY!) lost my camera-computer-connector chord, so I am going to have to tell about and show pictures from my trip to London in a 3 or 4 part series. Hopefully by the time I have shared all the good pictures my travel buddies took, I will have found my chord and be able to share my own pictures :-)

So the picture featured above (wow. corny voice.) is me. Sitting on a HUGE statue. In Trafalgar Square. There is this giant tower thing in the middle, which you can see the base of in the background, and then these four identical lions positioned around it. At first I saw them from a distance and planned on climbing on their backs for a perfect picture pose, but it turns out that the back was just as tall as I am. That sort of put the caput on that plan, but this pose is a nice alternative :-)

There was an entire monument dedicated to the animals that have served in British wars. If you look close, you can kind of make out the words. I couldn't resist a picture ;-)

In Hyde Park (where the famous Peter Pan statue is!) there were TONS of birds gathering around the side of the river. We didn't have anything to feed them, but I was able to trick them into coming close. It was incredible how not-shy they were...a couple friends even touched them.

I was SUPER excited because we were sitting in Dominoe's Pizza, awaiting the arrival of our first real, thick-crusted, normal-sauced, extra-cheese pizza in almost 10 weeks!

Here I am with my friend Aymee from Canada standing in a real live authentic red British phone booth! It was kind of weird though because these things are ALL OVER the city, but I never once saw a person actually using one...hmm...perhaps they are more novelty-type items nowadays...

Sadly, all for now...but I will seach for more pictures on different cameras AND my own cable!

Tschüs!

!!!

I AM LEAVING FOR LONDON, ENGLAND IN 3 HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last week...this week...

Servüs!

Sorry, no recent (decent) pics to share, but I did just finish up a fairly busy (and fairly wonderful) week here at Bodenseehof. Every autumn Bodenseehof has a week of school-wide outreach where everyone in the school is basically put into teams (such as our sing teams and drama teams) and scattered all over Germany to put on English camps, youth group events, and evangelical programs and, well, this past week was it! I (along with my sing team, The Mustard Seeds...for the parable, hello!) was assigned to stick around school and help put on an English camp called 5 English Days. It was for students from the ages of 12-15 and was a nice break in the monotony of 7 straight weeks of lectures. We were able not only to tutor the kids in English, but also sing worship songs, give testimonies, share about Jesus and the Bible, and best of all simply make friends with them. We actually expect a bunch of the kids to show up for Bodenseehof events later in the year and since we are neighbors with a few of them we are planning on doing fun stuff in town with them like going out for ice cream and going to concerts (have any of you heard of Boss Hoss?!). Overall, it was a really great week, hopefully just as great for the kids as it was for all the staff.

AAAAANNNDDDDDDD...

THIS WEEK I AM GOING TO LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I leave on Thursday evening with a few friends and will be there until Sunday evening. It will be a pretty quick trip, but we have all kinds of exciting things planned and it should be a very grand adventure...look for the pictures!

Bellinghamsters, you will never believe this!

So. Big news. Yesterday I woke up, looked out on my balcony, and IT WAS SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. Just had to get that one off my chest. And it's not like it was blizzarding or anything and nothing really stuck, but it was exciting to experience the lovely little flurries. Especially since I have never seen snow in October before. Hopefully this winter will be a doozy! :-)

And some MORE pictures...

This is Daniel! He is Swedish and he is the assistant cook. He is wonderful and makes me special vegetarian food on a daily basis. I love him!

Here I am sitting in the Honeycomb, which is what we call the 'cafe'...it is where students maintain their sugar levels as well as read, play games, do puzzles, just hang out...y'know. It's the happenin' place.

Artistic picture (by Owen) of me on the job...

More pictures...

Here I am with 2 of my 3 roommates...on the left is Emily, who was born and raised as a missionary kid in Kobe, Japan...in the middle is Lisi, one of two Austrians at Bodenseehof as students this year. We took a series of Crazy-At-Neuschwanstein pictures but this was definitely my favorite.

I said 'Nice picture' and this is what they gave me. Thanks guys. On the left is Owen and on the right is Alex, who actually lives in Bellevue. Poor him, I know ;-)

See what I mean about the eery fog effect?

Some more of the lovely fall colors...

Wow I'm a Procrastinator.

This is the front entrance of my beloved Bodenseehof...the entrance to the administration building, anyway. Technically the admin. and dorm buildings are one connected by a hallway, but whatev. :-) Once you go through these front doors there is a LOOOONG hallway and everthing sort of stems off of it (first office, then kitchen, then dining hall, then open lounge and bathrooms, then Honeycomb (cafe, which I work at!), then lecture hall, some storage rooms, and at the very end is the dorm building. I live on the third floor on the back side. I'll work on getting some more pictures of the building though.

The school has canoes and kayaks available for all the students to use so a group of us went out for a ride. Although the Bodensee is really super huge (WAY bigger than Lake Whatcom), it is really rather shallow until you get 50-75 meters out.

On the walk up the hill to Neuschwanstein we passed this little waterfall. I thought it was quite picturesque!

Even with all the fog, the castle was still pretty impressive. I didn't go inside this time, but still felt pretty small and insignificant standing next to it. The creepy, medieval castle effect was definitely enhanced by the cool, clammy whiteness as well ;-)

A little taste of the fall colors...through the fall fog :-)

Neuschwanstein...for the second time...

Hey there everyone! I just got back to school from our trip to Schloss Neuschwanstein! I went to the castle in July with GAPP, but it was still pretty cool to go back. The weather really didn't cooperate though. TOTAL fog. As in, when we hiked up to the suspension bridge where all of those magnificent postcard pictres are taken from, you couldn't even see 10 feet in front of you...oh well! It was still nice to be there with all my new Bodenseehof peeps and to be able to do some more hiking around than last time. Here are some more pictures...enjoy!

So actually they will be in the next couple of messages. Cause it's dinner time. And I'm hungry!!!!

Getting some feedback...

Hello All!

I am really ridiculously busy at the moment (essay due, reading assignments, knitting circle, German classes, working in the school's cafe, leading a sing team, y'know, the usual ;-) ) but I wanted to pose a question just really fast:

What do you guys want to know about me and me-living-in-Germany?!

There are all kinds of things I could post on here, but I don't want to post things that are just going to bore everyone out of their minds. So comment me back and ask questions! Give suggestions! Anything you guys want to know, just ask!

Tschüs!

Lorraine

Reminiscing

I was just going through all the random pictures left on my camera from this summer and found this one. It was taken on a camping trip that Hannah, Tanya, and I went on at the end of August and just made me smile. We were standing on the banks of the Skagit River, in Lyman, Washington (if you have never heard of this town, no worries. No one else has either!) and the sun was shining and we were all in really good moods and like was just grand.

To Hannah and Tanya: I hope you are smiling right now just like me :-)

More Photos...

We (Lorraine, Owen, Daniel, Audrey, Justine, Stephen) had just walked FOR AN HOUR to get into town...and then we collapsed in this lovely park. And Lorraine made exhausted faces.

A nice building on the promenade (if you think that is spelled wrong, that's because it's in German)...right along the edge of the Bodensee.

In town (Friedrichshafen) there is this tall observation tower that goes out over the water and lets you look at all of Friedrichshafen and across the lake into Austria and Switzerland. Yesterday when a group of friends and I walked (FOR AN HOUR!!!) into town we climbed up to the top and got this lovely view, stretching from Friedrichshafen, which is the main large town, and down the coast to Fischbach, the smaller town where my school is.

On Friday night, we had what was called 'International Night.' Each country had to somehow represent itself and do some sort of presentation for the rest of the students and staff. The Americans decided to make a movie joking around with all the stereotypes of each individual state. I'll see if I can get a copy of the whole thing to post here. Anyway, these guys (left to right, Owen, Daniel, and Eric) were representing Texas (even though Daniel is the only one actually from Texas). Let's just say, it was a hysterical movie clip involving Texas-hick accents, oversized bellies, and the stars and stripes being replaced with 'ONE BIIIIIIG STAR RIGHT IN THE CENTER!!!'

This is one of my three roommates, Lisi. Sie kommt aus Österreich (She comes from Austria). I kind of caught her off guard :-)

Message to Dad: Check your email!!!