Christmas and Beyond!

We had an incredible time on Christmas with 16 international students from Jim's and my German Language classes, plus Emily, Alpha and us to make 20!  We baked 3 turkeys, had mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, homemade stuffing (no Stovetop here!), green bean casserole, broccoli salad, homemade rolls and, of course, Jim's famous pies (pumpkin, chocolate cream and coconut cream).  A true American dinner!  Afterwards we sang Christmas carols, watched a cool video about the birth of Jesus and played Bonco!  The students were from China, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Cyprus, Japan, Yemen, and with one teacher and her family from Germany, us from the US and Emily and Alpha from Bangladesh, we were truly an international group!!  It was SO much fun and everyone fit nicely into our living room!  What a blessing our apartment is!!! 

2 borrowed tables from church and a bit of furniture moved around and we are ready for our guests!

Pass the turkey, please!

Get out the dice, it's time for a rousing game of Bonco!

It was wonderful to have Emily and Alpha with us for Christmas.  We even got to lead worship in church on Sunday morning.  Yes...4 German songs and 2 English songs!  Alpha played the piano and guitar, a German friend, Gudrun, played guitar and the rest of us sang!

Singing a German Christmas carol during worship.  Emily is hidden behind the pillar.

We couldn't ask for a better daughter and son-in-law!  We had a wonderful time!

 Christmas day we were able to skype with Nate, Raine and Jared as they all enjoyed Christmas together at Nate and Raine's house along with Raine's parents.  Almost as good as being together!

Thanks so much for praying for us.  Here are a few things to pray for as we enter the new year:

• Jim talks to the local high school tomorrow about starting to help out in the English classes.  None of the kids from this school come to our youth group.  It is the school that came for the Fusion concert this summer (see story here) and the principle is excited to have Jim help out!  Pray for many relationships to be built with the students.
• I will be continuing intensive language course starting tomorrow (Jan. 4).  Pray that I will get a good grasp of the language soon!
• We will be starting to look for a venue for English Camp this summer.  Pray that all the details will come together.  We have one girl intern already accepted and another girl applying.  We still need a guy intern and a church team to come over to help us out.  The camp will be the first or second week in July.  Let us know if you have any ideas!!!!
• Pray for our team mates, Reg and Kim Frank, as they finish raising support.  Pray that they will be here in time to settle in and help out with English camp!

Thank you so much for your prayers!  We are so thankful God has called us here!  We love it!!!

After the Long Silence...

Thanksgiving dessert table.

 The last month has been an incredible time of seeing people, studying German and even some finishing.  That right, yesterday I finished my LAST paper for my Masters Course...well, almost my last, it's on to starting my Thesis which is due April of 2017.  I have learned so much and am so thankful for this opportunity!

Thanksgiving at the JV conference center in Czech!

Thanksgiving we were able to go to Malenovice in Czech and hang out with about 120 other Americans!  It was a great time with lots of conversations and LOTS of eating!  You may notice a few of Jim's famous pies on the dessert table!

 On Friday after Thanksgiving I had the incredible priviledge of leading a prayer retreat with these beautiful Josiah Venture ladies!  What a sweet time of praying and sharing.  We were able to work through some of the Spiritual Disciplines of prayer in the beautiful and peaceful Selah cabin.  It is a place set aside for Josiah Venture missionaries to get away and spend time with God, family and friends.  We had a fire and even watched the snow fall!

 Jim and I are still in our intensive German courses.  This is my class last Thursday at our Christmas party.  We are inviting all of my class and Jim's class over to our house to celebrate Christmas with us on December 25.  Not everyone can come, but we are expecting around 20 of us!  For some of the students, this will be the first time they ever celebrated Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, we are so excite that Emily and Alpha will be able to come from Bangladesh to join us!  They arrive on Tuesday, December 15 and will leave on December 30!  I just finished decorating the apartment for Christmas and we are SO ready for them to come.  We will miss Nate, Raine and Jared, but are excited that they will be able to spend Chirstmas together in Lafayette, Colorado, where Nate and Raine now live and also to spend time with my family in Loveland, CO.

We are so blessed to be part of a House Group from our Church. This was two weeks ago when we met at our place and were able to celebrate Hagan's birthday.  There are 10 of us in the group and it is all in German.  I don't always catch everything (actually, I usually only catch a very small amount), but the bond between all of us is incredible!  I love these people.  

Jim is doing 2 Bible read-through groups with high school boys and doing it all in German!  He also has become the "Bible Answer Man" for the teens in the youth group.  Today after church, two of the girls spent time seperately asking him some great questions. Please, especially pray for one of the girls, as she is having a very hard time believing in Jesus, but she keeps asking questions!  I also meet with her weekly to help her with her English class.  She is originally from China and I am amazed how she has learned German enough to be in German highschool in the past four years and now she is also having to learn English!

Well, I still need to finish setting up Emily and Alpha's room and finish my German homework, so I best be off!

Youth Retreat Pictures

Thought I would show you a few pictures from our youth retreat!  What great teens!!!!

Here's the whole group!

Jim in deep discussion

Breakfast is ready!

Everyone gets a chance to wash up!

Our youngest attender!

We stayed in the coach house of this castle

Frisbee!

Getting ready for Capture the Flag

Run, Jo-Jo!

Always ready to play card games!

Time to eat again!

How do we get out of this?

Time to talk and enjoy the sun.

Thanks for praying!

Grab Your PJ's! We're Heading to Narnia!

Tomorrow starts the "Herbst Ferien" (Fall Break) here is Leipzig.   We leave tomorrow for a youth retreat with about 16 high school students!  But that's not all...

Grab your PJ's and open the Wardrobe!


That's right!  It's an ALL GIRLS, ALL NIGHTER at the Millers with ALL the NARNIA MOVIES!!!

The invitations

It should be lots of fun and lots of practice for my German, as we will be watching the movies in German!  Good thing I know the story line!

So, over the next few days, please pray for us.

Ministry:

• Pray that God will use the retreat to bring the young people closer to Him
• Pray for me as I do a seminar on Homosexuality
• Continue to pray for Jim's and my German language

Family:

•  There have been some shootings in Bangladesh, one of them close to where Emily and Alpha live.  Emily is pretty stressed out.  We are praying that they would be able to spend Christmas with us.  Pray that if it is God's will, that He will provide Alpha's visa and the finances for them to come.
• Pray for Nate's job, as he has had a few problems there.
• Thank God that Jared is doing so well in school!  Pray that some of the scholarships he applied for this summer will come through for him.

We love being here and are so excited to be part of what God is doing!

So, tonight as you put on your PJ's or open your Wardrobe, remember to pray for us!

Looking for Summer Interns!

We are so excited that our ministry is ramping up!  We just returned from our Fall Conference for Josiah Venture.  It was a great time of fellowship, teaching and looking toward the future.  Jim and I went two days early for him to attend the JV Counsel meeting and I attended the Summer Camps planning meeting along with Steffen (from the Owl Glass story), our German friend, who was able to go with us.

Can you find Jim and me?  We're on the right hand side, three rows from the back.  Jim is on the end and I am about 4 people in.

Now we are starting to plan our Summer 2016!  We are planning to have an English Camp next summer as an outreach for our youth group.  We are praying for 3 interns and one church short-term team to come over and help us.  Let us know if you or anyone you know is interested.  Just think, being a part of the launching of JV Leipzig!!!!!

Here is a great video from a Summer Intern this summer.  A Summer Intern Story from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.

Just Finished A.1.!

No, I'm not talking about that "bold, savory sauce that makes any food better".  Our A.1. did not include raisin paste or orange purée. (Wow!  Did you even know those things are in A.1.?  I've liked it all these years and I don't even like raisins!  Good thing I didn't know...)

Our A.1. included vocabulary, grammar and those irritating little articles!  Come to think of it, I don't really like those either, but I guess you sometimes have to add previously scorned ingredients to make a "bold and savory" end product! 

So, we finished our A1 German course and, according to my German friends, "A good horse doesn't jump too high".  I think they were trying to encourage me about my "skin of the teeth" pass, but then again...

Jim's German class on A1 graduation day!

Jim is now in A2 and I am taking a 2-month study break to finish two papers I have due for my Masters courses.

Last Friday we had a "Grill and Chill" in the park with our youth group.  Although it was a beautiful day, I'm not sure any of us were taking the shorter days into account.  We ended up finishing our grilling by all of us huddled around the grill, shining our smartphone lights on the meat to make sure it was done!  It was a great time!  (And we didn't even have any A.1.!)  Jim shared his testimony ALL IN GERMAN, with smartphones shining on him like spotlights on a splendid stage!  He did an incredible job, worthy of the smartphones!

Selfie with some of the youth group girls!

We leave tomorrow morning for our Fall Conference where we will, among other things, start thinking about our English Camps for next summer!  We would LOVE to have some of you come join us for this!  We'll be getting out more information as soon as we can.

As you think of us, please pray that we will continue to grasp more and more of the German language so that our lives will be "bold and savory" to those we come into contact with here!

Stand By for the Blitz!

"OK, Mom and Dad, Alpha got his visa, we're leaving in 4 hours!"  That's how it happened.  Four minutes and three months earlier, the visa had just been an application that had been denied and looked out of reach, but now, they had Alpha's visa in hand and, with school starting in less than 2 weeks, they needed to fly to Germany that night!  Funny thing about visas, they're really hard to get, but if you get one and don't use it, they figure you never really wanted it in the first place and there is less of a chance that you will ever get one again!

Needless to say, we had a great time!!  It was Alpha's first time out of Bangladesh and his two main observations were that no one honked their horn and that there were SOOOO many incredible cars and motorcycles!

Saying goodby at the airport

Since Jared is still with us, it was a great time of "brother bonding".  They are very similar in so many ways!  Bike riding, computer games, hours in the local computer stores...they couldn't have gotten along better.  AND, I got my "mommy time" with Emily!!!  We love seeing them as a married couple and are excited to see all that God has in store for them!  They are back in Bangladesh now with Emily teaching and Alpha having three job interviews this past and next week!

First day of School

Speaking of school, Jim and I started our intensive German course the first week of July!  We are in class 8am-1:15pm Monday - Friday and have about 2 hours of homework each night.  It is VERY intense!  We are very encouraged by the progress we are making.  We will continue through this A1 level, then on to A2 and B1.  Each level is 8 weeks long and those who finish B1 should have the language capability to get a German speaking job!  We are excited that we have finally gotten into this course, as we have been trying to get in since we arrived in November!

Our classes are very international.  Jim has fellow-students from China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Columbia, Romania, Yemen and the US and mine are from Saudi Arabia, Palestine, China, Syria, Canada, Venezuela and Italy.

Some of Lina's classmates

God continues to open doors relationally and we are excited to become more fluent in German.  Please pray for us:

• Praise God for the time we have had to spend with our youngest son, Jared here this summer.  We have enjoyed a number of heart to heart talks and we have seen God at work in his life.  He has worked on many scholarship applications to be able to return to John Brown University on August 24.
• Pray for some of those scholarships to come to fruition.
• Praise the Lord for allowing Emily and our son-in-law, Alpha to visit us here for 10 days.  Pray that God will continue to knit them together as a married couple and that He will provide a visa for them to come to the States next year for Alpha to work on his Masters.
• Pray for Alpha as he continues the job application process, that God will provide a job.
• Pray for Nate and Raine.  We really miss them!  They seem to be doing well in Colorado with Nathan's new job and a new dog!  Pray that God will also continue to knit them together as a married couple.
• Pray for Jim and me as we will be taking our German language A1 comprehensive exam on Friday, August 21 and Monday, August 24.  This is the culmination of the first two months of intensive instruction and study.  Passing with a 70% or better will allow us to move onto the A2 level course in September.  The test covers five areas: Listening and reading comprehension, writing, grammar and a speaking interview.

 Thank you for your love, prayers and support.  We are so thankful for all of you!

Nate and Raine's dog, Odin.