BAKE OFF

Every Sunday evening we have "Dorm Fellowship" which is usually a time where we come together and regroup spiritually as a dorm. The past few Sunday's we had serious dorm fellowships so we wanted to lighten it up a bit and let the girls have some bonding time. Luke came up with the idea of a bake off. We put the girls in teams of 4 and they each gave us their ingredient lists. We told them the only parameters is that they had to be done by 8:30 on Sunday evening with presentation in hand. We "flew in" three judges (from three different parts of town) and told them there would be three awards handed out: Best in Show, Presentation and Taste. They had a blast and it was a really great night for the dorm!

Emily and Krystal mixing their hot fudge in the kitchen

This yummy dessert won best in show

The very prestigious judges (naturally Luke wanted in on the judging action!)

These are the three trophies we made

The winning teams happy dance when we announced the results

There are good pumpkins....and bad pumpkins...

Last weekend the dorm was invited to HBR (a boys dorm) to carve pumpkins. They asked us to bring 14 pumpkins to split between 47 guys and girls in teams. The girls had a great time and a few of our girls were even part of the top three prize teams. After lots of hot chocolate, spiced cider, delicious applesauce cake and peach crisp- we went to their rec room to play "name that tune." It was among one of the more hilarious games played with a group of MK's and young adults. A couple days later a few girls and I were driving by HBR and saw that all of our pumpkins were still on display on the dorm steps. We decided to play a mini prank and steal 4 out of the 14 pumpkins to display at our dorm. This may seem harmless since there were 14 total pumpkins and we brought them anyway, right? Well, that is thinking from my female perspective which is very different than having 28 boys witness you take 4 of THEIR pumpkins. The guys apparently got pretty riled up and later that night we had a surprise attack on our dorm where the pumpkins were smashed and pumpkin goo was spread all around. Luckily, HBR came to help clean up and like gentlemen, later on in the week came over dressed in ties with a cake in hand and sang "stand by me" to our dorm. Lesson for the weekend: never pretend to steal anything when there is testosterone involved.

1 of the 6 crates of pumpkins we bought

This is a typical pumpkin stand alongside the roads in Germany

Major concentration in pumpkin carving (this was the winning team!)

Carving out the pumpkin

Picking up the larger pieces of the mess after the guys came

Luke is surveying the damage from the inside where it is safe and smell free

HBR with their cake, ties, and amazing singing skills....apology accepted

Before and After

This is our new tv room that I talked about in our last post. I finally found our "before" pictures so I thought that would help show just how much work went into this room. This is where we have weekend movie times and our dorm fellowships on Sunday evenings. It is proving to be a cozy place to be now that the weather has turned to fall!

The new tv that Doug and Priscilla donated to the dorm. The girls love it!

The green couch in the corner was found in spermull. There are a few days a year where you can put anything out on the corner of the street and the city picks it up and trashes it for you. We rescued this gem of a velour couch and it is a great addition to the room. Some may say 70's, I say awesome.

Mixing the cauldron of gray paint...it took two of these to paint the room.

Lizzy and Bonnie working hard!

Vacuuming up the bugs....look at that face!

Notice the floor to ceiling furniture. This was AFTER we cleaned out the room. You couldn't even walk in it before we attacked the mess.

The last 6 weeks...

The seniors and juniors in our dorm are on their class trips this week, which means we have only two girls left in the dorm! It has given us a chance to connect with the two individually, but also to catch up on some much needed blogging and a new newsletter soon to be sent out. Here are a few photos from the last few weeks of events!

This is our new tv room that we spent a couple weeks remodeling this summer. It used to be a storage closet and we installed new carpet, painted, and rearranged!

We have dorm fellowship every Sunday night. On this one we went up to a fire pit and made s'mores, then worshipped around the campfire.

The whole dorm dressed up for Fall Party. The theme was opposites. We had "fit and fat", "baby and grandma", "coke and pepsi"...etc.

This is "fit and fat"- they won the award for best dressed.

The seniors came up with some new birthday traditions this year. This is a picture of them passing the birthday pillow with the present on it as they play a song for the birthday girl.

The boys dorms decided to have a Rugby match and our girls had a cheer off with another girls dorm. They definitely won!

The school added high school intramurals this year which the girls love. Our dorm is extremely talented in sports, but many girls have to choose which sport they love the most because it costs their parents money per sport.

Finally, a moment to blog!

Our staff at Palmgarten! Lizzy, Luke, me and Bonnie. We are blessed.

We are two weeks into our first year as dorm parents and so far.....we love it! We spent the last two weeks before the students got back renovating a storage room into a tv room. When we first saw it, it was stacked floor to ceiling with furniture that we had to move out and into the dorm. We then painted the walls, put in new carpet, installed lights, and moved the furniture around. The finishing touch was the 42 inch tv that Luke's parents donated to the dorm! The girls LOVED the finished product.

Since they have arrived we continue to learn how to grocery shop for 23, how to cook for 23, how to communicate with 19 sets of parents, how to adjust to staying up until midnight again, how to be creative in planning events, and how to balance life in general. I went for a walk with one of the girls and she asked me what the hardest thing was about moving into the dorm. I had to think about it for a second, and then decided that it is the realization that I have 19 people watching all my actions and words. It's a big responsibility and everyday I am realizing how I am being spurred on towards holiness. You can't fake an everyday, genuine relationship with the Lord. They see through inconsistency, but they also have amazing capacity for grace and love. I am learning and loving. 

-SW

Back at home

Luke and I just got back to Germany after being away from home for 6 weeks! After our training my parents came to visit for 2 weeks. It was a wonderful time to spend one on one with them. I'm so grateful our families invest in our lives here. It makes being away a little easier. Now we are back into a routine, we are beginning to pack up our apartment to move over to the dorm. Our dorm apartment is still under renovation so we're going to make the most of moving little by little. Jersey is happy we're home, she's had enough change for a little while. Little does she know....a new home with 22 more people around is just around the corner! 

We took my parents to our favorite restaurant for their 30th anniversary! 

A little PFO update

Our training has been outstanding this week. The wealth of knowledge and years of experience have blow us away. It's been a stretch getting back into the "classroom" setting and sitting for long period of time, but it is well worth it. We have been hearing stories of God's faithfulness to international schools all over the world. We've been blessed by some great story tellers who recapture pivotal moments in their ministry, and stories about students lives that are changed as a result. We have been learning about the TCK (Third Culture Kid), which is a kids who lives in a culture other than their passport country. We have been talking about transition, taking personality tests, communication evaluations, and discussing differences in cultures. My favorite sessions have been our time with the group of staff who are going into boarding programs next year. The times have been extremely valuable going over relationships with parents, discipline, dorm atmosphere, relationship with Resident Assistants...and so much more to come. We have another 6 days here at Houghton College with a break tomorrow. It has been encouraging to meet other dorm parents who are going into the same situation as we are and being able to talk through our questions and concerns. Mostly, we are having fun learning about the kids we have the privledge of serving next year!

This is a panel of 9 different international schools represented at this training. Senegal, Malaysia, South Korea, Germany, Romania, Czech Republic, China, India, and Ecuador.

We have classes all day and then we play at night =) Luke is playing a little too hard and in the last two days got a black eye from a soccer ball to the face with sunglasses on and a frisbee to the nose!