Baby its cold outside

But that is quite alright with me.

We woke up this morning with a blanket of snow covering the ground.

And its still coming down!

I can't believe Christmas is only a day and a half away!! My brother and his wife are coming in today, and my sister and her family will all be over here on Christmas day. Its going to be lovely :)

I hope yall all have an amazing Christmas weekend!

much love
-s

Just a little video...

this is my school!!

A chapter closed

I'm still alive people!

Oh my goodness there's a lot to catch up on.

I hate that I fail at blogging... I hate that I didn't update anything about my last couple weeks at school... { I also hate that my blog needs an extreme-blog-makeover but its just not happening }

I never posted pictures of Split.

I never posted pictures from my day trip to Budapest for the Christmas markets.

I never posted pictures from our Christmas party...

And lastly, I never posted about graduation.

-insert slapping of forehead-

I'm going to try and make up for all that, bear with me.

So, I am home now. I made it in last Tuesday...it was supposed to be Monday, but I had a flight re-direction due to fog and ended up staying the night in good ole El Paso TX. I've spent this past week trying to get over a nasty head cold, and jet lag, so that involved a lot of sleeping.

So I'll try to throw everything in this post. Ready?

First, Croatia. I fell in love with Split, its a b.e.a.u.t.i.ful city!








There's all these fun little nooks and crannies. You walk down all these little alley ways and there are countless numbers of shops and little restaurants. At one point I kind of gave up trying to take pictures...I didn't feel like any that I was taking were doing it justice.

After getting back to school from this trip finals hit full blast...but that next weekend I took a day trip to Budapest with some lovely ladies and we visited the Christmas market!

I actually thought this one was so much better than the Vienna one!




The last week was consumed with finals, packing, and getting ready for graduation. Squeezed in there though we had some fun, the CCBCE Christmas party!


Saturday was a busy day of castle cleaning, and then graduation. Yours truly was a graduate of the Mission Training Program.



And just like that, it was over. The crazy thing about that place is that at times it felt like it was just flying by, and other times it seemed to be going so slow.

I don't even know what to say about this semester, or this whole experience in general...its all a bit surreal in a way. Graduating was bittersweet. I'm excited for the next thing, but sad to see that chapter close. Words just don't express...these two semesters were painful, exciting, scary, joyful, humbling, so many things.

I couldn't be more thankful for the Lord taking me to Hungary. I made so many amazing friends, experienced new things, saw new places... I learned so much through the classes, and drew so much closer to Jesus. He broke me, taught me about surrender, gutted me out, refined (and is still) I can rest in that He is continuing to work { Philippians 1:6 }

I don't know what else to say, but there it is. I'm excited to see the next step, whatever that may be.

much love
-s

Just some thankfulness.

Fall has slowly gone away here in Hungary...

with the cold days of winter creeping in behind it...

I’m sad to see the fall go, I love it! But I’m excited for winter and all the things it brings with it.

I got to kick off the Holiday season the weekend before last by going with a small group to Vienna Austria to do some shopping and visit the Christmas market! This is my second time going to Vienna, and I still think it’s so beautiful! The Christmas market was jam packed with people, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

It was a really fun weekend, with lots of laughs, lots of food, and lots of starbucks.. ;)

{I love that you get your drinks there in actual mugs, and they have all the different sizes! it doesn't take much to make me happy people.}

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I'm hoping yall all have a blessed one! I’m going to be spending mine driving to Split Croatia! I'm going with 5 other people on an outreach there for the weekend.

I am missing home a lot tonight, and I'm actually wishing I was driving there to be with my family for the weekend, like most other college students. But just because I'm not there doesn’t mean I can’t be thankful! So today {even though it’s not thanksgiving yet} I'm going to list a few things I'm thankful for.

Here goes.

• I’m very much thankful for my parents.They are pretty awesome, really. I'm thankful they've been so supportive of me coming here-even though I know its hard on them. I'm really just thankful for my family in general. I have a pretty great one :) We have our moments, but what family doesn't.
  
• I’m also pretty thankful for skype {even though its temperamental!} Its allowed me to be able to communicate with my family a lot. Reading missionary biographies makes me even more thankful for these kinds of things. We have pretty amazing technology these days and it makes me 1000 of miles away from home a little easier.
  
• I’m thankful for my family that the Lord has given me here…that is one of the most awesome and unique things about this school, we’re all just one big family.
  
• I’m most of all thankful for Jesus; He is so good to me. I’m thankful His provision, and that He has a plan.
• I'm thankful for being here, this all in itself is such a unique opportunity. We get to spend our days saturated in the Word, and have this time set apart to just get a firmer foundation in Christ.
  
• Lastly {this is kind of along the same lines as technology} I'm thankful I'm getting to go home in two in a half weeks and that I'll be on a plane and it'll only be a matter of hours to get there...instead of a matter of months.
  

These definitely aren't the only things I'm thankful for, but they are some of the biggest things at the moment.

I wish yall all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Eat some pumpkin pie for me to, would ya?

much love
-s.

7 plastic spoons....

Here we are two weeks later and I’m finally getting to this post.
I’ve got a pretty legit reason though…that first week I was completely swamped with a week of IBS (Inductive Bible Study) classes, and this past week I was completely swamped with a week of Biblical Missions class. I didn’t feel like I even had time to breath during those two weeks…but they were so good! In IBS I learned so much, we learned how to really study the text, like parables, prophecy, Hebrew poetry, etc. We also had to lead a couple of bible studies, and even a full out teaching. This past week in Biblical Missions we had a lot of awesome mission’s principles that we studied a lot of just really practical.
But now it is over and I’m happy to have a ‘normal’ week of classes.

So, Oradea Romania…
I’m not going to pretend that I can describe this week fully. I’m still at a loss for words.

I’ve honestly just been sitting here for 30 minutes trying to figure out how to tell ya’ll about it.
But I guess I can try, yeah?

First, God is awesome. I feel like that is a big understatement, but I’m a lack for a better word. How about abundantly awesome?

So many things I’ve grown up learning about God, I got to see, and experience and I was just utterly blown away. I learned more about prayer, really being led by the Holy Spirit, and was tested on my own faithfulness…my faithfulness to God, and being faithful to what He has for me.
It was 12 of us that went, 11 girls, 1 guy. To be completely honest I was a little apprehensive about being on all girl (and one guy) team. Maybe that sounds bad, but it was true. I love them all, but I also know how girls are. But this ended up being one of the best teams I’ve ever been on. I think we all worked so good together and I know it was by the grace of the Lord, we prayed for team unity continually, and He did that.

The first day we were there we visited a state run orphanage and just kind of hung out with the kids.

Sunday we went to the gypsy village. The guys we met up with go out there every day, and they do church on Sunday’s. So we did a VBS with the kids and the adults had their study. I remember that first day walking into the village, and all the kids came running…. I was in love instantly. They were dirty, and rambunctious, but I loved them.

Monday we did street evangelism in the morning-we went to a mall first, and later to a park to do skits, and that afternoon we visited a baby hospital. The baby hospital is for babies who have abandoned, some of them have parents but they just can’t afford to keep them. So we just went in to hold them for a few hours, because they hardly ever get held. They were all so precious, I wanted to bring them with me.

Tuesday they did the same thing, but another girl and I were sick so we had to stay back. I hated it at first, but it ended up being cool just having the day to pray for the team. When the team came back they told us how it was a blessing to have us stay back and pray because they really needed it that day.

Wednesday and Thursday was street evangelism and the gypsy village.

Friday we did the gypsy village and that afternoon we had chapel with the orphanage kids.
And our last day, Saturday we met up with some families that had foster kids and just hung out with them, and heard some of their testimonies.

That was our week, compacted into a nutshell. I loved everything we did, but the gypsy village was definitely my favorite. I loved those kids so much, and I think I would have been fine to just stay there with them.

For the street evangelism we pretty much just did skits, which I loved. It opened the door up so much more to go out and talk to people. We went to parks, city square, bus stops, and the walking streets.

God worked every. single. day. There wasn’t just that one good day, it was every day. I saw Him working in every member of my team, individually and as a whole.

There is just too much from everyday. There is no way I could tell it all…well I could, but you’d be reading a book, and I doubt yall want to do that.

So, now I’ll just share some pictures. (we weren't allowed to take them at the orphanage, or the baby hospital, so I just have some from the streets and the village)

These are from the gypsy village.

on the streets....

So that was our trip...I kind feel like I said a lot, but didn't really say anything at all. But all I can say is you're more than welcome to email me if you want to hear more. I love talking about it, I just think there is too much for one blog post.

Just pray for Romania- We met a lot of people on the streets, and many claimed that "everyone in Romania is a Christian!" but really, its a very spiritually dark place. I think a lot of people have the knowledge, they just ignore it.

I'll end with explaining the title...

So the first day we left, it was early Saturday morning. We brought breakfast stuff with us to eat on the train (cereal, yogurt, etc) while we were at the train station our leader told us how the school didn't have any plastic spoons for us to bring... but one of the other girls on the team has 7 plastic spoons. Spoons that her mom had given her right before she came to Hungary, telling her she'd need those spoons sometime during this semester. So guess what, we had plastic spoons for our food. That was just the beginning of the little (and big) things God did on this trip. I know it seems kind of silly, but God is just awesome, and He is involved in every part of our lives, even in the little details.

much love
-s