'Hi honey'

I used to be really scared of speaking on the phone in German, but have actually got a lot more confident lately. I had to call a lady called Heidi yesterday. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but instead of 'Oh hi Heidi', I said 'Hey honey'. Oh the shame! I'm not sure whether she realised what I said, but I did not dwell on it!
Thankyou for all the lovely birthday messages and cards etc. I've probably shaken hands with more people in the last week than in my whole life put together- that's what you do here when it is someone's birthday! I had a lovely weekend. During a film night on Friday the youth surprised me with an amazing cake:


On Saturday I went to a gorgeous town called Marburg with my house group.





It was really cold! But we had a nice time wandering around- really quaint. We ate well too of course.





Last week was pretty tough again at Rothenditmold. Just at the start for example, I was playing a game with a couple of children but was constantly having to interrupt it by pulling apart kids being really violent to each other. Then the one child ran out and wouldn't come back in because the other one had hit her earlier too. To me though she wasn't scared, she fully wanted all the attention. It's hard to spend quality time with the children, and deal with other difficult children at the same time. We're meeting up early tomorrow to pray before the kids come. In our own power we can't do anything really. We need God. We believe that he'll give us the strength to do what he has put us there to do.

On Thursday at Mattenberg we had a really vivid discussion about Jesus being light in our lives which are dark and messy without him; we ate and played in complete darkness. The kids were pretty glad for the candlelight afterwards!

By the way, I survived my first visit to the dentist here! It was quite fun actually. However, I have to get all 4 wisdom teeth out, oh dear!

Today I was back to school for a day! We visited a really nice village primary school a little way away, to get a feeling for what it is like there. We want to start up a new club there for the kids. The kids were really sweet and I enjoyed taking part in their lessons! We are probably going to start something up in the New Year. They are quite keen for some native English, so I will probably incorporate that in by telling a bible story in English, or sing songs with them or play games that encourage a bit of English vocab. That will be a new challenge but it is quite exciting.

Well I'm going to get to bed- I'm really tired after getting up at 6.15am to get to school on time. The poor children!

SNOW

The snow started in Kassel yesterday! The Christmas markets looked so beautiful! The markets were bustling with people, and such a good atmosphere. Yesterday evening with the snow we couldn't resist a hot Gluehwein (similar to mulled wine) to warm up.



The markets opened on Monday, so I was down there Monday morning of course! It was really dreary weather but the first wafts coming towards me of caramelised nuts, waffles, spiced warm drinks and other delicious things brought a big grin to my face. It's really exciting. I live basically one minute away but I cannot imagine getting bored of it!



It's been a really busy time lately, but I won't describe everything here! One of the highlights was the 'erleuchtet' meeting (for young adults across Kassel) on Sunday evening- there was a huge number there which was great. I sang again which was fun and for the first time played piano as well. I really enjoyed being a part of it. I should hopefully be getting more involved in music in church too. We had a meeting on Tuesday and I found it crazy (in a good way) that there are so many great musicians, that there isn't enough space to have everyone often!

Last week Rothenditmold was great- thanks for praying. We split the kids up for the story, and the 3 older girls I had behaved really well and we had a good time, and could even discuss the theme a bit instead of running after the little ones. This week was quite hard going. Some of the kids are so self absorbed/crave so much attention. I find it particularly hard with those who thrive on negative attention, because it's not like I can just let them be violent towards others/steal others toys etc. I get discouraged quite fast with this group. Pray for me to keep the bigger picture in mind and to have the wisdom to know how to deal with individuals with love.

Tonight it was my turn to lead the youth. They are such a good bunch! And man are they patient with me! I felt it was slightly bitty but overall I think what I wanted to come out, did. We had a good laugh together too, which is just great. I prayed beforehand that God would help me to have good conversations, and he did totally.

On Saturday it's my birthday! I'm looking forward to a day out in Marburg and then eating out in the evening. Apparently it's going to snow. On my birthday!

Good to hear from you still. Can't wait to see lots of you when I come home for Christmas.

'Oh you're the Englander'!

Somehow a week has already gone by!
I had a really really good evening at housegroup yesterday evening. It had been a while since we were all there.
Yesterday I slept in, which was wonderful. So good after, let's say, minimal sleep on the camp. It was really good but pretty hectic! The teens are quite a handful. We had fun but the hardest thing was a lot of the time battling to be heard/listened to. We played a lot of fun games. Some of our fun was on the theme of our image of God- considering what he is like and what he has to do with us. Hopefully spending this time with them will help our weekly sessions.



This is my best elephant impression :)


Here I am taking part in leaders 'chubby bunnies' trying not to laugh with a mouth full of marshmallows!

I had a really nice day on Sunday. After church there was a sort of church meeting about various news and things. I had to report about the kids group in Mattenberg. I was somehow really really nervous! But I feel like my words came out ok. After time hanging with the 20+s, I went for coffee at an old lady's house, with the 'guess who' idea again. That's where the blog title comes from. More than a couple of the other guests said hello with 'oh yes you're the englander'. Famous! It was a really nice afternoon. These things help me talk with people that I wouldn't do usually! Then in the evening my friend Steffi came over and we watched a dvd, and ate Cadburys Dairy Milk- oh yes. Special mention to my good friends Emily and Daniel Smith who sent me the greatest 'survival' package!! Complete with a load of PG Tips too- my first cup was such a good feeling- like a mug of contentment!

Last Wednesday the kids at Rothenditmold were a massive handful! It was a a huge battle the whole way through. They crave attention, don't listen, behave really badly and have little social awareness. At times we felt really helpless. Tomorrow it is my turn to lead, and I'm not exactly filled with confidence right now! It's just really frustrating.

I have yet to learn some more Turkish, but for the moment I have quite a lot to be doing, including my research proposal for uni which I haven't started yet.

In town the Christmas market huts and the Christmas tree have been set up already and starting to take shape... I'm so excited! The markets begin in about a week.
Great to keep in touch with you, keep the emails, letters and messages coming :)
Love Ruth

Lost

So last Monday I got on the wrong bus to housegroup...after a while the scenery seemed a little unfamiliar! Thankfully I had my phone with me and got picked up :) I also managed to get on the wrong tram the other day too- thankfully it did not take me miles away!

Speaking of lost, (wahey cheesy link!) I told the story of the lost sheep at Rothenditmold on Wednesday. I had some really great pictures to help me, and they listened relatively well! It was great that we had a lot of children again.. even if it was mental! Some of the children were really really difficult. On the other hand, there were also a handful of really good one to one moments.

On Thursday at Mattenberg I taught one of the songs with actions that we performed at Hallo Luther- they got into it after a while! Like in Rothenditmold we have also had a surge of kids, including some who had not been for a while coming back. I'm sure they all turn hyper as soon as they arrive! They were all really loud and hard to lead.

I had a really nice day yesterday. At church I met a girl called Steffi, who was really friendly. After church lunch she invited me for a coffee in town and we really clicked. I feel like she 'gets' me, if you know what I mean! Somehow I felt at ease and we chatted non awkwardly about all sorts of stuff, and laughed about funny cultural differences! It was just a genuinely really nice time :)
In the evening I had tea at an old lady's house with another family from church. There is a new idea at church called 'Guess who', where guests and hosts get matched up, to help people get to know each other. It was fun!

I ventured to the library with Annemarie on Saturday and got a big stack of books to help me get thinking about my investigate project for uni. I'm going to be doing something about the integration of the Turkish in Germany. I can't remember if I mentioned before, but I sort of started learning Turkish as well! I have a little book with a CD, which is helping me learn the basics. I just need to stick at it. It can be pretty mind boggling learning grammar points of Turkish, in German!

Today I went for the first time into this little tiny Turkish pastry place really close by. I reckoned I could get chatting to the person, and maybe ask where I could learn Turkish properly etc. However I think I was slightly ambitious with my getting to know subjects for my project... either she couldn't understand my German, or did not want to chat to me, because when I started to talk, she said 'what did you want? Goezleme?' Ha fail! My plan alongside chatting away was to buy something little and sweet... however I didn't realise until this moment that it was more of a food bar than a bakery.. with proper savoury food. So even though I wasn't hungry I bought Goezleme, this tasty spinach and cheese filled pastry thing!

I still go swimming now and then but I really should do it more often. I have been fed pretty well by lots of lovely people in the last few weeks!

On Thursday I'm off for a couple of days on our camp with the confirmation teens. It should be fun! We have to keep it very snappy, full and fun for them because they are generally pretty hyper too.

Kassel is getting ready for Christmas- As well as the mass of Christmas stuff in the shops, I saw the first lights being put up today. These trees have little lights wrapped around them. Can imagine how lovely it's going to look!

Ruth appears on German TV!

Paste this into your address bar for my 2 seconds of fame!
http://www.hr-online.de/website/rubriken/nachrichten/indexhessen34938.jsp?rubrik=34954&key=standard_document_40080929&mediakey=fs/allgemein/20101031_news_reformationstag&type=v

It's really good that Sunday's 'Hallo Luther' was covered well by the media. There was a good article and lots of pictures in the paper too. For those of you who aren't quite up to scratch on your German, the event was celebrating Luther and the Reformation. There was a lot on the whole day.
There were loads of people around! It happened to be a special weekend in Kassel anyway which meant pretty much everyone was out shopping. It was cool that the church was out in the open. A lot of people were interested in the history but a huge load of Bibles were also taken away, including around 700 kids bibles. I'm quite excited because God speaks through the bible. It was less about the conversations at the time but more about people's desire for God's word which they now have. It was pretty cool that I saw a family there from Thurs kids group who asked for bibles. The mum hasn't had one before. Cool! I showed her where she could begin reading. Exciting!
So as I mentioned before I was really involved in the afternoon kids programme. I have to say I quite enjoyed wearing the headset (!), except when it came off when I jumped off the stage with too much enthusiasm. It was really so much fun! We did a couple of songs every so often and at some points the tent was really full and I could see people waiting for the tram looking to see what on earth we were doing. I really couldn't help smiling. It was a joy! Even some serious people cracked out a smile and some of the older ones joined in with the actions, which was funny to watch. The kids participated really well. We just had a load of fun praising God. It was actually quite strenous. I had really bad pulled muscles in my legs for literally 3 days!

The last couple of times at Rothenditmold (the particularly challenging kids group) have been pretty strenous. Last week we were exhausted. We had 12 kids which is really great but they are the hardest kids I have ever met. It was quite a battle last week. It is frustrating because the kids would have such a great time if they behaved. They make it difficult for each other. They are really complex though and I think it will take a long time before they learn for example that each one is utterly loved and valued by God. That said though, there have been some really good moments amongst the craziness. Today I told the story of the lost sheep and they listened relatively well. There were some good one to one moments with the craft too. Pray for energy, and that God gives us a massive compassion for the kids.

I had a great time at housegroup again this week, and enjoyed a lovely afternoon again with a lady from church. We went for a lovely walk after lunch in the proper countryside. It was beautiful!

I read a verse yesterday about valuing others more important that myself.. pray for me that I might be able to do that a bit more. I've also found myself taking things possibly a bit too personally. Pray that I don't get discouraged, instead get encouraged by truth.

Still love hearing your news. I appreciate all emails/letters/messages/random facebook comments/visits!

Love,
Ruth x