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...