Let’s start at the very beginning...a very good place to start

:: So much has happened and I don’t really know what to say but here is my best attempt at an update.

:: After hours of traveling on a plane I met up with a group of exhausted artists in the Dresden airport. From there we had our first lesson in Team Building 101. We got lost…on the bus route…without any German language skills…with 7 months worth of luggage, instruments and art supplies. Trying to keep your best face on to make a good first impression when you’re that exhausted and gross from traveling is difficult to say the least…our conversation was quite entertaining I’m sure.

:: Fast forward one week… I think this may be the best thing ever. Everyday, I get to walk through a forest to a castle full of artists and create beautiful things. The rooms of our apartment are laced with paintings of each other’s visions, songs that have been written for each other and new choreography ideas. I love this life!

::We love each other! We have limited internet time and no phones so all of our down time is spent together exploring our tiny little village playing on giant swings in the forest and creating art. I am so thankful to have these girls beside me. We are each so different from each other but we are united in the most important ways. We are artists and we love Jesus and we all have a passion to see those two things work together. People ask us how art and missions work together and we all have the same response…how do they NOT work together?!

Art speaks when words can’t. We can create and communicate regardless of any language barrier.

:: There are only 16 boys out of the 124 of us. Apparently it’s the craziest ratio they’ve ever seen. I keep getting mistaken for a local, which I love…until they start speaking to me in German and I quickly have to remind them that I am fully American when it comes to my vocabulary. Hopefully that will change soon. My roommates Evelyn and Nina are slowly helping us girls how to learn although most of lesson time is full of laughter and correction. My phrase of the day today is “Ich möchte eine Tasse Tee.” I would like a cup of tea please.

:: Just so I don’t bore you to death with details you may not care about here are some highlights in pictures which don’t come close to showing the beauty of this Narnian place. There will be many more to come I’m sure. I’m so full of stories and it’s only been one week.

Our first night...we went to the grocery store and then took our treats to the train tracks overlooking the village. It was beautiful! and then it started raining so we climbed down and hid under them telling stories like little girls. Of course my fellow Floridan and I had to do the gator chomp :)

Spontaneous apartment worship just tends to happen...a lot. I'm a fan. There's 8 different countries represented right there and that's not even all of us. My favorite is singing the same song in our first language all at once. beauty!

 The red pants club and a little taste of wardrobe around base. You totally wouldn't know we were artists, right?!

Life around the castle. 

Just a few snapshots from our walk through the forest everyday. Oh, I wish you could experience it for real. It's so wonderful in person.