Faith Walk: To Löbau and Back - Day 1

I'm skipping part of my time here for all of you back home, and I will go back and fill in the gap, but I wanted to share what has happened for me in the last  week while its still fresh. So here it goes...

Wednesday, September 13, 2011

Wednesday started like any normal school day. My room mates and I got up and got ready for prayer meeting and lecture. During the prayer meeting we prayed for Nepal and the flood that is being predicted to hit it's shores any day now. Last week we didn't have a speaker so different members of the staff got up and told some of their stories from DTSs that they have gone on. The one we heard that day was from a girl named Miriam. She and her group had no money for their outreach so when the time came around for them to head out that is exactly what they did. They started walking in the direction they felt God was leading them. Through out their travels God provided everything for them and created a lot of amazing connections with the people that they came in contact with. At the end of the story everyone was super pumped and just amazed by her story of their trip. The leaders (Josiah and Kristen Teft) asked who wanted to do something like this. About 90% of the room raised their hands. They said good, because we were going to go on a faith walk of our own. We were to go out and help others, to be blessings to everyone we met. We had to be out of Herrnhut (pronounced HER - N - HOOT) by 2pm (at this point it was about 12:30) and we weren't aloud to bring any of our money with us. We would be split into group of 4 or 5 and everyone would be given one euro apiece. There would be at least one boy in every group and one person who spoke German, and every group was aloud one cell phone. Each group had a student leader that was appointed by the school leaders. The leader of my group was a girl named Kate, in our group was also Emily (from Colorado), Brian (from Florida), and Sebastian (from Northern Germany). Our group met together prayed and talked for a few minutes and then split up so that I could pack and the rest could eat lunch since I was the only one that lived by the castle and everyone else lived in town. I had 20 minutes to pack and shower, talk about rushing. I packed my hiking back pack so fast that I couldn't remember what all I had packed and had that ominous feeling that I forgot something. But I did it, probably the best packing I have ever done in my life. After meeting back up with my group and grabbing a quick bite to eat we headed off to town so the rest could pack their own bags.

What I had in my possession :
- hiking backpack
- Sleeping bag
- Deck of cards (saving of my sanity for needed alone time)
- 24oz water bottle
- my journal
- 5 sharpies in various colors :)
- 2 ballpoint pens
- 2 pairs of regular socks and 1 pair of super thick fuzzy socks
- pair of tennis shoes
- my camera and lenses
- 10 2GB memory cards
- underwear
- clothes on my back
      ~ jeans, 2 tank tops (it was a hot day), sweatshirt, belt
- tooth brush and tooth paste
- deodorant
- monopod (for my camera)
- rain cover (for my camera)
- pillow case (to stuff whatever clothes I wasn't wearing in and use as a pillow)
- yoga pants
- extra sweater
- one euro


With everyone done packing we headed out for... we didn't know. Before leaving town we stopped to pray again. We wanted to know if there was somewhere God wanted us to go, someone for us to help, something for us to do. We wanted to know His plan. No bien. We didn't get anything. So we found the sign post telling us which towns were which way and how far. We could go right and walk/hitch hike the 14 km to a town called Zittau (pronounced  ZIT - HOW) or we could go left and walk/hitch hick the 10 km to a town called Lobau ( pronounced LUE - BOW). We decided to head for Lobau, as we walked out of town our group merged with another group, there were now a  group of 10. Together we walked the entire way to Lobau. We made the trip in a little over 3 hours. Along the way we found an apple tree where we were able to pick apples for dinner.

The group walking to Lobau.    

Emily working her camera and Alisa playing her ukulele while we take a short break.

Some of the apples I picked from the glorious tree we found. 

 

 Lobau. We have finally made it. The tall green tower you see is the Lobau Catholic Church. 

When we arrived in Lobau (around 5:30, 6 o'clock pm) we stumbled right into the town center. Thankfully there were still a few people milling around outside so we could ask people for a local church or a homeless shelter for somewhere to stay. One of the girls in the other group with us felt like she was supposed to go and talk to this boy she saw riding on his bicycle. After they chatted for a while she came back to the groups and said that he and a few of his friends would take us to the local youth club, and we could ask to stay there. As a whole the groups decided we would be less intimidating if only a couple people went with the boys to ask for a place to stay. The rest of us plunked down on the street out of the way to wait. With light fading most everyone was inside for the rest of the evening so the streets were empty.

The street we hunkered down on and Kate and Alisa played music. 

This didn't stop Kate from pulling out her violin and playing some music while Alisa accompanied her with her ukulele. 20 minutes later they were back with the boys. No one was at the youth center so we wouldn't be able to stay there. There was however a club we could try going to were we could play music for people. The only problem with this was that it was a heavy metal club... so our music didn't really fit. After debating it back and forth for a few minutes our groups decided to split. The other group would be going to the club to see if they could play music, we were going to walk the streets and try a local church. Going our separate ways we found out about a pastor from a shop owner that was only a few blocks away that would surely take in a handful of missionaries for the night. We took down directions and headed off again, this time with renewed hope of finding a place to sleep. The man we were looking for was the pastor of the Lobau Catholic Church and he lived in an apartment right across the ally from the church. We found him easily enough, but talking to him was another issue. When Sebastian buzzed up to his floor so we could talk to him he barely listened to us. Sebastian told him were missionaries looking for shelter for the night and asked if we could stay with him, or if he knew of a place we could go. He told us to leave. We shouldn't be here. We had a home in Herrnhut and we needed to go back there. Needless to say we left. We found a music school not far down the road, and stopped in there to see if maybe Kate (who plays violin) or Sebastian (who plays guitar) could maybe play music for some of the students. No bien. Since it was almost 9pm there were no students there. There was on the other hand a nice man whom Sebastian had a long conversation with. To sum up their conversation the man is not a believer, but was very happy to hear about what we were trying to do, and wanted to help us. He said we could stay at his house that night. The only problem was he had driven his small car to the school so there wasn't room for us in it. We were going to walk to his house. No problem! We had a place to stay! Only there was a problem, his house was 14km away. We debated it for a long time, we could walk to his house and make it there by midnight, but walking the highway at night is not safe and in the end thats what we decided. We weren't going to risk getting hurt when we could sleep in a public park or something. After saying good bye we headed off again. With no were in particular to go we wondered the streets of Lobau until we came across an all girls secondary school, and outside on the steps was another group from the castle. We sat and chatted with them for awhile hearing about their experiences so far. Inside the school the lights were on and people were in side so the other group had decided to wait and talk to some of the teachers about a place to stay and if there was anything they could do to help out. Kate decided to pull out her violin and play while we talked with the other group. A boy in the other group named Jan (pronounced YAWN) pulled out his violin as well and the two played for us. We shared what food we had with each other and talked some more. Finally my group decided we were going to see if we could sleep at the train station, and the other group decided to join us. When we got to the station we were astounded to see that there were 5 group already there, and they were all sleeping under a tree. With our two groups added there was about 35 people sleeping under the tree. Girls were sleeping on one side of the tree boys on the other and a select few chose to stay up all night and stand guard. When we finally crawled into our sleeping bags it was about 11pm. Sleep was awful. A group of the girls decided to try and zip their sleeping bags together and create one big one so that we could use more of our body heat. While that worked to a point it was still freezing. Around 1am in the morning I heard another group from the castle join us under the tree. I assumed that those that were taking watch explained the sleeping arrangements to the new group. I thought wrong. I heard someone start adding a sleeping bag to our massive pile, and heard "Guys move over so i can crawl in. I'm going to sleep here too." After that had processed in my head for a few seconds I looked up, because that was definitely NOT a female voice. I see one of the guy staff members (named Taylor Pool) from the castle trying to work his sleeping bag into our pile. He looks up at me and goes "Wait, are you dudes? You're not dudes! You're girls!" He jumped up pulled out his sleeping bag, moved a few feet away and starts muttering about how he is going to sleep by himself. All of a sudden  he looks up at me and says "IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" At this point Kate and I are cracking up from lack of sleep and the weirdness of the situation. I responded saying "I'm Taylor." He looked really confused and said "NO, I'm Taylor." The wheels turned in his head for a few seconds and I hear "Ooooohhh, You're the girl Taylor. Ok" and nothing more. Kate and I weren't able to fall asleep for a good hour after that because we kept laughing. Around 3am the police came and asked for our passports. (I found out later from Sebastian that it is illegal to sleep outside in cities and towns in Germany). Did they ask us to move though? Nope. They said they had breakfast for us in the morning and we could stay here again the following night if we needed. How awesome is that?

Following days to be posted later :)

After 4 days of flying standby we finally bought a round trip ticket from Seattle to Berlin! 

It didn't seem like this would really be the last time we went through security!

But it was! We finally got to get on a plane!!

10 hours later we landed in Frakfurt, Germany

Almost there! After going through customs we ran to our connecting flight to Berlin

Train ticket from Berlin to Dresden

After a 4.5 hour train ride we made it to Dresden.

Stuck at an Airport...

One week ago yesterday this adventure started. Last Wednesday was like ripping off a band aid. The plan (the original plan...) was for Julia and I to catch the 7:10AM flight out of Seattle to New York and then catch another flight four hours later from New York to Berlin. In Berlin we were supposed to meet up with a few other students from the school and take a train together to Lobau(sachs). I have since learned that my plans don't work so well and things like God and hurricanes can changes these plans drastically. Wednesday morning my Mom came into my bedroom and told me not to freak out and that I needed to be flexible. I had one hour to finish packing because Julia and I were going to take a different flight out of Seattle and it left at 6PM that night. The flight was a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. All I could say in response to this whole adventure was "Are you kidding me?" and "Holy Cow!" Rachel Dailey, (a good friend of mine from down the street) who has been on a missions trip before, helped me finish packing... or unpacking. She kept throwing things out of my suitcase saying, "you wont need this," or "you don't NEED that," or "do you really need to take this?" My answer was yes.... my answer didn't really matter. She kept slimming down my suitcase. There are/were pros and cons to this. For example, I only had to lug around one suitcase and my backpack at the airport (pro), but there are a lot of things like a rain jacket and winter-boots that didn't come with me that I do need here (con). After the suitcase was packed and my bags were put in the truck it was time to start on the hard good-byes.

That was not fun at all. I cried for a majority of the way to the airport. After more tears at the airport Julia and I made our way through security and to our gate.

Waiting to board the flight seemed to take forever. Watching our names on the list seemed to take forever as well. Julia was number 13 and I was 14. Our names didn't budge at all. Needless to say we didn't get on the flight. We did find out however that our names were 1rst and 2nd on the list, and if there had been two more seats on the plane we would have gotten on. And since its closing in on 10pm and I'm exhausted I will add to this later. Thank you all for the prayers!

"Junior Pictures" - Allison Stavig

As many of you know yesterday was the midnight release for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (if you didn't know that, shame on you!) My friend Allison and I decided to keep an eye on the line for the movie at our local theater that way we didn't have to sit there for a ridiculous amount of time, but would still get good spots. We decided to pass the time by doing Allison's "Junior Pictures" instead of her senior pictures. We adventured all over our small town of Anacortes snapping pictures everywhere we went. The shoot started at the amphitheater at Cap Sante, such a beautiful location! From there we headed to Causeland Park (although we didn't take pictures there because Allison didn't want do pictures infront of all of the little kids there). We crossed the street from Causeland and got some shots of Alli on the steps of the Croation Club and then we went to a wonderful brick wall on the back side of ally behind Wellsfargo. By that time we were hungry and headed to Safeway and Little Ceasars for movie snacks and lunch. We got in line for the midnight showing of Harry Potter at 2 o'clock pm. Hahaha still had a long wait ahead of us, but it was well worth it. The movie was awesome! Here's a few of my selects, to see the entire shoot you can go to: http://www.facebook.com/thouartphoto

 

Sorry Its Been So Long!

New Pictures! Sorry, the last few months have been crazy busy with high school finishing up and graduation. So much to do, I definitely didn't have enough time. So here's a rough overview of the last six months! ENJOY!