Hey Ya'llllllll

Hellooooo,

Life has been crazy here in Berlin for the past four days. The last three, of which, we have not even stopped for lunch, we've been so on the go! Things are not quite what I expected life in Berlin to be but then again they are not quite as different as I expected, either. We have spend every day on the same campus handing out free Georgia Iced Tea, passing out SFC fliers and making conversation with students who are interested. Every day has been so different! Most of the students are mostly interested in why we are here in Berlin and what we are REALLY up to on campus. It's so interesting because they are very curious people. Most have never been presented with christianity and it is simply not an important part of life. They are subconsciensly searching for the same comfort and acceptance but have never heard of God, much less having a relationship with him. I've been given opportunities to express that this is the reason why we are here. To literally hang out with students, show them that we are happy and fun people, and that we have love and happiness from a source that they have not heard about. We want them to know that this source is available for them!

The students are pretty open with asking questions and I am so thankful that I have never felt more prepared for a mission trip. One of the things I was most concerned out of the trip was to be drilled with questions that I would not know how to answer. The Lord has truly provided in my confidence and ability to talk. Another thing is that I've realized what a blessing it is to be able to do things that you enjoy doing and have fun and still be working for the Kingdom! I have been all over serving at the free iced tea stand and you better believe that I've been playing up my sweet southern accent and practically ready to serve a nice peach cobbler on a silver platter at any moment. I must say, I am learning the benefits of being a sweet southern girl in non christian European countries. The Lord provides and my grandma's taught me right is all i've got to say.

On tuesday night we had our first event The Living Room, which is the equivalent to our tuesday night PLUG service in Georgia. I had a great time preparing southern style food which included ribs, green beans, potato salad, and banana pudding. There was enough to serve two or three helpings to everyone and there were no leftovers so that seems to be a sure sign that we did something right. There are about 40   regular attenders and there were six new visitors from all the people we spoke to on campus. One of them was this guy Egor, a guy that I spoke to for a while who was interested in hanging out with Americans and getting to know our culture. He was very skeptical about Christianity and was mostly interested in the banana pudding during worship but he was not scared away or weirded out.. well.. atleast not until Mark showed him his dance moves after Egor told him that one of his hobbies are hip hop dancing. One of the hardest things about short term missions is that it's our job to gain their attention and strike up conversation but we can only invest in these people so much until we have to follow through with our next job, which is to help them get more connected with the other German Christian students. I'm really excited, however, to see if Egor and some of the other new students will still be interested enough to come back to our other events this week.

I'm starting to get a little fatigued from being on the go so much so if you could pray for me to have unstoppable energy and for great conversations and attitudes that would be great.

With love!
Bay