Paderborn - Noah Folk

My time has finally come. You see, I've been trying to be not too significant but also not too insignificant, so that Dan wouldn't have any reason to choose me until the end. But I slipped up today.

We were to start our day with a tour of Paderborn and we were all to meet at this one fountain at 10 a.m. Jakob and got there half an hour before Dan, so when I saw him I wanted to brag about how early I was. But to Dan it was just, "Yes, I would like to blog today."

Well then, on with the tour. We were guided by Lene's father, Wolfgang, and given the history of some of the major churches in the area and how it tied into the history of the city. We saw some of the many springs that provided water for the city and got a live performance of Amazing Grace by Dan.

After our tour we thanked Wolfgang and split up for an hour to shop and stuff before we went to have lunch together. Jakob, Isaac, and I wandered around mostly and had some pizza, before lunch. (Which was totally worth it!)

After lunch we went to PaderKletter Park to go tree climbing and zip lining. We were there for a few hours and it was exhausting, hot, and a bit uncomfortable. But the experience of it all and getting to hang out (literally) with Isaac and Jakob and talk was totally worth it.

It was one of the best days ever and I'm looking forward to more good times in Germany.

~Noah

Last Day at Kirchberghof - Sydney Rexroad

Packed items to go home

Today was our last day in Kirchberghof. We had breakfast at 8:30 and had cereal, meats, bread, cheese, and fruit.  We had to be packed up to leave by 9:30. We swept out our rooms and all of the places we met at. We carried all of our bags outside and loaded them into the vans or in the cars of people we were leaving with. We went back to the outside picnic tables of the camp and talked about what we were doing next.

Walk to Jewish graveyard

At Jewish graveyard

We then went to a small church, close to the camp, to see what it looked like inside. We left the church and stared our walk to the Jewish graveyard. Along the way we picked up stones to lay on the graves. There were many theories why they did that. For example in the desert animals would dig up the graves so they put many stones on them to protect them. Also flowers die but stones don't.   It took us about 25 minute to all walk to the graveyard,it was on a hill. When we all got there we were very tired but we layed our stones down and looked around. Then we had a prayer and headed back down to the camp. 

We said goodbye to Elise because she was going to England with her orchestra. Then we said goodbye to the camp and left to go to our host families. 

   

After I left with my host family we went home and rested. Then we went to a pizza place for pizza. At the restaurant there was a guy dressed like a pirate. We sat by the river, talked, and ate our pizza. Then we walked through the graveyard on the way back to our house.

Sunday, July 10

Hello to our friends and family back home! I'd thought I'd interject a few thoughts today and let our Young Ambassadors have a break from blogging! 

Today was Sunday and the Young Ambassadors led the worship service at the Martin-Luther-Kirche in Borgentreich. This church was without a pastor this morning so Steven (one of the German leaders) offered to have us plan and lead the service! (It is also Steven's home church!)

The youth spent time in small groups on Saturday afternoon creating prayers and other liturgy for the service. They also created some skits to help portray the scripture lesson and sermon. The youth also worked hard at learning how to present the service in both English and German. 

The service went very well and was well received by the congregation. I was so proud of the work that they all did! They represented themselves, their families and their home congregations with a great deal of confidence and maturity. 

The church then hosted a lunch of soup and bread. The soup was a spicy pizza soup and the bread, as always, was incredible!!! To finish it all off there was a delightful assortment of cakes served with coffee! 

We came back to the Kirchberghof for a more relaxed afternoon. After a short quiet time we assembled to play a "game." This game consisted of one group learning the attributes of a fictitious culture they were going to portray. The other, smaller group was supposed to come in and help the "cultured" group build a bridge. Social, cultural "quirks"were to be acted if things were perceived as being different. This was a very interesting exercise and all the youth got a sense of what it means to be a stranger in a different culture.

The evening was completed with dinner and an evening devotion created and led by one of the German youth. Oh - and there was the watching of the finals of the European Football Championships!!!

 

2nd Day at Kirchberghof (July 9) - Olivia Young

Saturday, July 9

This morning we woke up around 7:30 and had to be down to breakfast by 8:30. It was a bit of a struggle to get up, for both the americans in the room and the germans. This was probably caused by the late night we had playing games and talking. Breakfast was like a normal german breakfast which included breads, meats, cheeses, and fruits. 

After breakfast we had some time to rest while the hoppers cleaned up the dining area. When we all met back up two of the germans had presentations prepared for us. The first presentation, which was given by Jakob, was about the second world war and mostly the history and ideas behind the events that happened during the war.

  The second presentation, given by Elise, was about political views in church and whether they should or should not be part of the church. This was a much more interactive presentation because she was always asking our opinions and soon the whole room was debating on the topic. 

We had about an hour of free time before lunch. For lunch we had sausage, potato salad, bread, eggs, fruits, After everyone was done we had  a quiet hour where everyone was in their rooms’ either sleeping or doing something quietly.

When were got back together we split up into groups and got prepared for the service that we are going to had tomorrow at on of the german’s church. There was a group for sermon, prayer, announcements/ benediction, and lecture. I was in the group that had the announcements/ benediction. 

Most of our time was spent on making up the things that we wanted the people of the congregation to pray for. Some included: Pray for those who are ill and alone, for those who are coming to the country in seek of peace and a safe home, and those who are dealing with political conflicts. After we were finished writing the sentences, the germans had to translate it into german because not all of the people in the congregation will speak english. This part was time consuming because you cannot translate the exact words from english into german, so they had to find a way to have the same meaning but sound okay. 

We decided that Sydney and I would also be reading german during the service and they were trying to help us pronounce the words correctly so that we didn’t sound stupid the next day. We were having quite a bit of trouble with this so Syd and I wrote down our own way of pronouncing it so we could read it. The germans thought that it was really funny to watch us struggle and they also thought our “cheat sheet” was funny.

For dinner we had pretzels, bread, fruit, and meat. After we were done we had some free time where you could play games, talk, or just go to your room and sleep.

After everyone met up in the gym for some activities that were planned. As we walked though the room, a number was written on our hand indicating which team we were on. My team was Eliza, Annette, Isaac, Matthew, Steven, and I. The game was a series of different challenges that you had to do and you would bet how many you could do. If you could do the challenge then you got 20 points and if you failed your team got minus 10 and all of the other teams got 5 points each. 

Some of the challenges included: wall-sits, holding bottles of water straight out beside us, how many paper airplanes you could make in a minute, how many Jenga blocks you could pull out, making and holding a human table, pushups, how many marshmallows you could put in your mouth at the same time, how many things you can put on someone in your group, and how many time you could kick a soccer ball in a row without it hitting the ground. It was all really fun to both watch and to play. My team ended up winning because we did almost every challenge and only failed once.

  When all of the games were done we had about a half and hour of free time and then we met in the ship building. We talked about what we thought the germans wanted to come to America and the germans thought of reasons that we wanted to come to Germany. There were quite a few things that each group came up with. When we were all finished with this we had nations time. This was a time were we talked about things that maybe we were uncomforted with or things that we didn’t like. After this we went to bed.

Luke's Typical Day By: Luke Zimmerman

 Today was a free day for me and my host Simon. We woke up late as usual. I think I'm definitely over the jet-lag and the time difference so sleeping in does not matter. I had two pieces of toast with Nutella and tea for breakfast. Then went to play soccer at a nearby field with Simon and his dog Yetta. Yetta is a chocolate labrador that is very energetic and would always try to bite the ball and chase it around as we kicked it. After 90 minutes or so, we biked back to Simon's house and had lunch. Sauerkraut, sausage, and mashed potatoes. Simon told me that they normally don't have that "typical" German meal in the summer. Only in the winter.

We then packed for the weekend get-away and left late because we had to wait for a package for Simon lol. We arrived and played some games. Then ate dinner which was pasta, then played a really long scavenger hunt. The rules of it was you started at a number, rolled the dice. Count to the corresponding number from zero and find that number in the place we are staying, which is very big. Also there were over 50 numbers and by the time we all got around 40, it was dark.

After the long scavenger hunt, the entire group talked about noticeable differences between Germany and the U.S.A., such as the light switches are bigger and outside of the rooms instead of inside. A difference for the Germans who have been to the U.S.A. are the speed limits on the highways. Now it is almost midnight and I haven't even showered yet, so I bid ye farewell and until next time.

Off to Kirchberghof

For our followers...Young Ambassadors Ohio is headed to Kirchberghof. It's kind of like a retreat center or a camp at an old farm. Unfortunately we won't have internet here, but we will continue to blog.  They will be posted once we return to civilization (or a place that has internet). We want to share this experience with you, so keep an eye out for our return.

Free Day with Host Family (July 7) - Nina Zimmerman

Bowling

Today was a free day with our hosts. My host, Elli, had sports day at her school. It's the equivalent of field day in the US. She was signed up for a very long bike ride, which would have been a bit much. So, Annette and Lene picked me up. I met up with Oliva, Ann, Eli, and Beate. We went bowling, and I lost by a lot. I still had a lot of fun though, even though I had many gutter balls.

Shopping for gummy bears

   After 2 rounds of bowling, we went to a gummy bear shop. The whole store had different types of gummy bears. Olivia even tried a spicy one. She didn't like it at all. 

The gummy bear store

The Park

     We all walked around a bit until we decided to go to the Paderquellgebiet park. Of course we had to get ice cream first. I have no idea how to pronounce the park, but it was peaceful and very beautiful. 

Isaac at BBQ

    

BBQ

 I sadly had to say goodbye to Olivia, Eli, and Beate. Ann took me back to Elli's house. Elli and I had plans to go to a barbecue and watch the soccer match (Germany vs France). We met Isaac and his host, Johannes at Elli's church. There was many more kids, and we even had a water fight. 

Soccer game

     After dinner, we went inside to start watching the game. France scored one in the first half while Germany scored none. 

Elli

Matthew at ER

Elli and I left after the first half because we had walked there, and we didn't want to walk home in the dark. Sadly, Matt was in the hospital last night because he hurt his knee playing soccer, so shout out to him. Hopefully everything is okay and he can have a good time at Kirchberghof.