Not long left :(

This could be the last blog! I just wanted to write a quick note because we're leaving for our youth week in a few minutes.

It's been a little busy this week doing last jobs for the church, eg replacing photos in the foyer or stamping hundreds of bibles for Sunday services, as well as thinking about sifting through my stuff for leaving the country and preparing for youth week. I'm quite pleased though because my room is looking quite bare already and I have sorted through a lot of junk. This will make it much easier and quicker to pack!
It's Nash's birthday the day I get back so allowing time to celebrate that and spend some time together I think (hope!) packing won't take an age. Still waiting to hear about the visa, please keep praying for that!

Please pray for me as I wrap up life here. It's a strange feeling and I have started not sleeping too well at nigh, lying awake and thinking about my life! Pray for me with the transition. I have already said goodbye to a lot of people which has been ok because it hasn't really hit me that I won't see them for a long time. I spent a lovely evening with my friend Steffi this week and saying goodbye I realised how valuable she is to me as a real friend.

We're flying on the 26th in the evening from Hanover- so as long as the visa comes before then everything is good :)

Loads of love, maybe for the last time from the German end x

And the farewells start :(

These are some of my select favourites of pictures which filled a homemade bag from every child at kids group(It should be pointed out that in the bottom right picture is a cat with a cup and a heart on his back... open to interpretation!!). They hung on my every word (rare!) as I said a few last words about us how big God is and how he helps us, his children. Last week with the kiddies we did a sleepover. Was so exhausting but it was very special for them. Keep praying for all those we have been and are in contact with.

It's very very weird that people are starting to say goodbye to me and the 'last' times of everything are happening. I had my official farewell in church not long ago. It was moving for me, though I am not sad yet about going because it hasn't really hit me yet. That happened on the same day as our church summer celebration which was a fun service and I had my last round of sharing with the church from the front.

I went on a camp with our youth 2 weeks ago- that was good fun even if it did rain everyday. The summer is slowly creeping back again after a long time now!

Rome was beautiful!! I was so exhausted before I went so it was a great time for me to relax and enjoy. The sunshine and sights and smells did me so good. I loved it! Such an atmosphere of joy, laughter, music and life. We saw lots of sights and enjoyed amazing food. My favourite thing though was just wandering around the idyllic streets just taking in my surroundings. I found out how little I know about Roman history:


And I took in many amazing views:


Lately I've been spending a lot of time with Nash which has been so wonderful.


We have really enjoyed this special time together, laughed a lot, talked a lot, sung a lot, had fun... We're approaching my leaving Kassel full of trust and excitement for the future rather than fear or sadness or something like that. Pray for us :) We're waiting to hear at the moment if he will receive his visa to fly back with me to visit me in England for a short time. It's a horrible system which has been quite stressful but we're thankful to God for being amazing and trusting it will work out. We had to go to Düsseldorf to sort it out on Monday. It was a horrible city, don't go there! We could only laugh at the end.

In the next week I'm busy preparing for our youth camp and gradually sifting through my stuff. Today I've been exerting myself the most I have in a while painting a fence so I'm exhausted now and my back is killing. Hopefully will have a good night's sleep before getting on and hopefully finishing it tomorrow!

Please pray for me in this transition process. Love to you all.

33˚c... who said Germany wasn't exotic?!

Absolutely roasting on Sunday! Walking outside was like walking into a sauna. Crazy! Later on it rained lots and there was so much thunder and lightning, which I properly saw from my bedroom window! It was and is still 23c or something.

You'll be glad to know- the project is officially complete and sent off to England. YES!! Praise the Lord! It is over finally. It was really really stressful, not pleasant at all. I stayed up til 5 this morning to finish it. Not good when I needed to get up at 7.30am!:s Need to get to bed actually, since I am just popping to Rome for the week tomorrow!!

God has been so good though, I have had literal miracles happen with my project. At the start of a week I had absolutely no contact with Turkish people to interview and in the space of the week I had 6 great interviews. I feel like God had mercy on me through the people that helped me! The whole story is cool but too long for here. One time, I found myself last Monday sitting in a Turkish/German advice/translation office on my own, answering the phone while important documents lie around and the Turkish radio plays. Pretty surreal! The guy needed to go out and left me in charge. In return I was allowed to speak with anyone. I prayed God might send me people to speak to, and 5 minutes in a lady came, and didn't want to go home and come back, so had all the time in the world to speak to me :) It was pretty embarrassing/awkward on the phone trying to tell people who were blabbering Turkish at me that the guy was coming back. Did result in a few hanging ups- woops! Thankfully the lady was there to help me with those that came into the office. When the guy got back (with cake, I might add) we had a great long interview.

I'll tell the rest sometime. Meanwhile it has been really stressful to write the whole thing in less than a week. I'm so glad that God came through for me and opened doors.

In other news thanks for your prayers, it was a wonderful Sunday that I wrote about in my last blog, where we led worship at a youth sports event in the morning, and Erleuchtet in the evening.





We taught an African song and dance which was so good. Amazing to see the smiles on peoples faces!



The last few weeks have been really really full and tiring. I just need to hold on a bit longer. I know that day by day only God is giving me the strength to do what I need to.

It was my second to last time at the kiddie group today. The kids were so cool, I realised in a new way. They were sad that I'm going soon and picked me flowers and drew me pictures, was sweet.

Thanks for the continuing messages, mail and love. See you when I get back from Rome!

Love to you all.

Still alive!

Think this is a record time of the length of lack of blogging. Sorry! I have so much to tell, where to start?!
By the way, I made it through the Facebook fast, woohoo! It really was fine in the end. I'm grateful now for the better and more instant contact with people, but I'm not wasting my days sitting around on Facebook anymore. April was a busy month and I spent time with lots of people! I enjoyed celebrating Easter here. We had a special Easter breakfast at church and the service was really good, talking about the earth shattering, history shaking effect of the resurrection when the real meaning is considered.
I led worship for the first time at Erleuchtet (the student service)- it went really well! I was reminded of the absolute privilege of being able to do this, and I was blessed with a big band of humble, talented people. I felt like God really led us together. People responded to God's call to worship.
After Easter I went to Hamburg for a few days with Nash.. what an amazing city! Below are a couple of pictures. Such a fascinating city. So that's another piece of news too which some of you might not know- Nash and I are really excited and happy to be a couple! You can ask me if you want to know more :)



Times with the kids are still exciting. We have seen lots of new kids coming to the Wed group which is great. It's a new challenge though because of a large age span. I still wonder sometimes what is happening inside the kids, during moments when they act so confusingly or so vulnerable and wanting love. In the Thursday group it was pretty cool last week talking with the kids about prayer. They reckoned you may not pray for simple things in life, and they were really amazed to hear some of our stories of us doing just that and God hearing.
I have read lots for my uni project but I really need to start writing. I find it really hard to concentrate though because of lots of other tasks that need doing. However I have to give it in in June so I'd better hurry up!
I'm leading worship with Nash again at Erleuchtet on Sunday night so please pray for us. We want to do it with God's energy and leading, and for his glory not ours. Also on Sunday morning we are leading at a youth congress- pray for us and the young people.
Lots of things have made me remember that I'm leaving this place, and this has caused me to think lots about my future. Pray for me to listen well to what God wants to do with me and let him lead me each step.
Load of love to you,
Ruth

'Wud', I like you

Such a sweet gesture from a child this week in kids club who drew a picture of all the helpers and had written our names and 'I like you'... only she didn't quite get the spelling of 'Ruth'. So funny. I should have taken a photo! Had a great time with the kids on Tuesday. A child who came for the first time with his friend a few weeks back turned up on his own, and behaved relatively well and was well into the story. We relived the Last Supper and Jesus saying he would soon be going to his father. The little boy chipped in 'But Jesus died a long time ago!' I'm looking forward to telling him the Easter story and seeing what he thinks about Jesus not being some figure who died a long time ago.
In the Thurs kids group we also had a new little girl which was great.
I got back this afternoon from a sunny church weekend away. It was different being a worker compared to a guest but it was still good. I enjoyed getting to know families and couples who I always say hello to but have never really spoken to properly. The whole thing was quite a relaxed atmosphere, and most of all a family atmosphere. There's normally a kids programme but everyone was together today and it was so cool. We sang an awesome kids song, which the majority of adults joined in with. Highlights were seeing old ladies playing air guitar and seeing German men jumping and clapping. So cool to see everyone laughing and smiling and celebrating together.
It was still really sunny and warm when we got back so I got my shorts on and went down to the park, lay in the sun and went to sleep! It was quite tiring organising little things for the weekend.
My main plan for tomorrow is to get studying. Please pray for me, this project is so hazy and although I've started reading it's the beginning and feels like a big mountain.
Not too long until I've made it through 40 days without Facebook. I still enjoy getting your emails and letters though, thankyou!
Love

Are you living?

First ever 'sermon'/talk accomplished! I'm really happy to have achieved it. I hadn't had loads of time to prepare, but I felt like God really inspired me and I got in the flow when I asked him to help me and speak through me. In the end I was feeling really nervous and not looking forward to it that much but when I got up there (with my Britney style headset!) I felt really at ease and could talk quite relaxed with all my usual big hand gestures! It went really really quickly and I know I can definitely improve in different ways but I'm pleased with what I did, and it was really cool that people encouraged me afterwards. I talked about the freeing ability of saying 'I'm living' as in living life to the full right now because of Jesus in me, as opposed to I can start living later on when certain things are out of the way or whatever.

That was such a good weekend. Sunday 27th was a really special day when a load of teens celebrated their saying yes to living with Jesus. It was a massive celebration and a really moving service. It was lovely to see old interns back for the weekend too. We had fun eating Walkers and watching football in an Irish pub!

I'm doing ok with the Facebook fast. I have had lots more time to do good things, like meeting new people and spending time with older friends. It's surprisingly harder to keep in touch though without Facebook!

Some of you long haul blog readers will remember right in my first week in Germany I helped out at a youth event called Jesus House. Well this week was round 2 but it's on a huge national scale, with a big chunk being broadcasted by satellite from the centre in Stuttgart every night. I found it cool to think how far I've come in many ways since back then in September! I've experienced and grown so much since then, and so thankful for that. It was a good week. I had my first visit from a friend in England so I enjoyed doing a bit of translation for him!

This weekend has been generally very social which has been so fun! I've met lots of new people and had fun spending time with people I know a bit more. I need to really concentrate now though, and work hard.

Keep praying for me, I value it! Let's keep in touch.
Love

Losing my Englishness!

Are you French? Do you come from Spain? Questions from 2 different people I've had in the last couple of days! Either I am losing my English accent a bit which would be amazing.. or maybe I just look really European now or something?! Has my fashion sense changed?!

I love it that I can converse with people in the street or in the shop and they treat me like a normal German, not immediately asking 'Oh where are you from?'. Sometimes I lack specialist vocab, like with lots of painting/deco I've been doing recently and not knowing what 'skirting board' is in German. It's quite fun though seeing how hard tenses that we used to spend ages on in class throughout college and uni are just a part of my normal speech now. I love understanding a joke and laughing at the same time as everyone else! And I love contributing to discussions and being taken seriously, not just nodded at for a sentence from the person with not very good German. I do notice though at the end of a really long day, my words just do not come out properly!

It has continued to be really exciting with the Wednesday kids. The 2 brothers who have come really far took part well and at the end their mother asked how they are getting on. She wanted to ask because apparently the kids ask every single day if today is kids club day. How cool! The Thursday kids I find a little harder work in that they secretly love coming, but they don't join in and are always wound up- quite hard to work with.

My good friend Irina came to visit me this week and we had a lovely time. Days involved eating lots of Turkish food, drinking coffee in the sunshine, and chatting lots about just about everything!

So Facebook update- I am still alive after one and a half weeks clean! I am doing fine! I'm getting over not knowing everything that is going on and who is talking to who. I have had loads to do so it has helped me not to waste precious time. However I am missing sending lots of people little hello messages. It's a bit more effort with email! But thankyou to everyone for the lovely emails- I have got quite excited as if they're real letters! (Obviously still love actual post though :p )

Tomorrow morning I'm helping in Sunday school with the little ones, age 4-6 angels! I'm looking forward to a break tomorrow after working really hard and long days this week. Also looking forward to Erleuchtet (Illuminate- student service) in the evening.

Remember me this week as I look for time to be inspired for my talk on Saturday.
Keep me updated on your news!
Sending lots of love.