Hey everyone!!
I want to start off by saying thank you to all of you! I love you all so much and Im so thankful to have support from such good friends and family. I'm so sorry I haven't been updating! I've been pretty busy lately and for awhile this thing was in German and I couldn't figure out how to switch it to English. But I figured it out! So I'll try to give a quick recap of the past two months and what I've been doing..
So I left Michigan on Sept. 4. and arrived in Germany at the castle around 2 pm on Friday the 5th I think. So I put my suitcases down in my room and got a tour of the castle. After that I walked to town with some girls and took some pictures and looked around and stuff. Then for dinner we went to some of the staff's house and had grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was so delicious because I hadn't really eaten since I left home. So we ate and then played some games and it was so much fun! Everyone was amazing right away.
The next couple days were like welcome days for all the students arriving. We had a barbecue on Saturday night and played some games afterwards and then on Sunday there was coffee and cake and just some time to hang out and get to know everyone.
Then 'classes' started. The first few days was just introduction to different things.. rules, workduties, trash separation, etc. and then photo stuff started about the second week. We started every day with devotions from Lucy, which were always amazing. And then had photo stuff for a couple hours, a 'coffee' break, a couple more hours of photo stuff, lunch, workduties, and then most of the time we had class in the afternoon too.
I learned SO much during the photography part. I made a pinhole camera, a solagraphy camera, learned how to develop pictures in the darkroom and enlarge them, and learned how to work a studio! along with a bunch of detailed things about cameras and the history behind it and all that. We had a photo scavenger hunt and I also gave a presentation about one of the first photographers and watched a documentary about a war photographer James Nachtwey which I suggest to anyone who is interested in photography. It was the most inspiring movie I have ever seen. So we got a lot done in a month. It's hard to write about everything we did but I really learned so much and I'm so thankful that I get to be here. And I love the photo DTS. It was such a great month getting to know so much about cameras and getting to know so many new people!
So photo DTS came to an end and new students started arriving for the regular DTS that was about to start on oct. 6. It was kind of sad to end the photo part but really exciting to meet all the new people and start to get ready for DTS. We had to switch around rooms, people moved to town, new dressers were put in and all of our stuff was on our beds for awhile, we had to put in a huge tent outside where lectures are going to be because the lecture hall isn't big enough for everyone, clean everything, put a big welcome sign on the castle and tons of different things to get ready for everyone. But we got it all together and people started coming on Friday which was pretty cool and exciting to meet them! And then Saturday was chaos. Basically 50 students arrived and there were people everywhere! It was overwhelming and hard to meet everyone. Saturday night we had another barbecue that was really good and then Sunday we went to church and then had coffee and cake again to just hang out and talk to people. We also gave tours of the town and basically just hung out after that..
Then the first week of DTS started.
Heres the basic daily schedule..
7-7:30 Breakfast
8:30-9:30 This is worship or prayer time.
9:30-11 Lecture (We have a different speaker come every week)
11-11:30 Coffee Break (coffee, tea and fruit. I love this part of the day)
11:30-1 Lecture
1-2 Lunch
2-4 Workduties (I clean the attic)
4-4:30 Free
4:30-6 Outreach prep on Mondays, small groups on Tuesdays, Bible readings on Wednesdays, photo stuff on Thursdays, and Fridays are usually free.
6-6:30 Dinner
After 6:30 is usually free time.
So we are pretty busy with stuff to do most of the time. Weekends are free and sometimes we travel to different places in the area.
The first week was a mixture of speakers. Lucy mostly spoke but Jan the base leader and professional photographer spoke too and a couple others. It was a good week and I learned a lot about myself and what I believe. I was stretched so much this week. The second week we had a speaker named Rogerio. He's from Brasil and he talked to us about prayer and spiritual warfare. It was pretty cool. The third week we were suppose to have a speaker from South Africa but she couldn't make it so a lady on staff here spoke about Joshua. And then this week we have a speaker from Austria, Craig Anderson and he's been giving us personality tests and different things. I think it's been pretty cool to see my gifts and things I'm good at that I can use to serve God and fulfill my dreams. It's really exciting and encouraging to see all the possibilities opening up.
During these weeks we've had a couple photo projects. The first one was 1. To take a picture of apple and be creative. 2. To take a picture of an old person. We could take it digital or analog but it just had to black and white. So we did critique on that last Thursday which went really well and we got a new project which is to 1. Take a picture of an old door. 2. Take a picture of a Muslim in their environment and interview them. So this is going to be more challenging with the Muslim person. I'm going to a mosque this weekend I think so that should be a pretty cool experience. But overall I love having these assignments and critiques and things. It's a good challenge and it's fun.
A couple other things we have been doing are different outreaches. We have different local outreaches that we can be a part of and there's different things like worship teams, art teams, teams that go reach out to Muslims, a team that goes to the Czech. Republic border and works with the red light district. and different things like this. I'm involved in the worship one and the art one which are both right here in Herrnhut. I'm a part of a worship team and there's different teams every week but every Sunday night we have a community worship time here at the castle and it's an hour and a half worship time that people from the community can join us to worship. And then I'm also a part of the art outreach that is trying to bring more art into Herrnhut and also help other ministries that might need advertising things done or stuff like that. So right now we are actually working on making a brochure thing of pictures about how to preserve food in Afghanistan because there are widows there and different people that don't know how to preserve food so they starve during the winters. It's pretty sad but it's so cool that we get to be a part of this. So we are doing research now to find out what kind of foods they grow and cook so we can figure out what they need to preserve them and also take pictures to put in these pamphlets. Most of them can't read or write so it has to be all pictures and pretty easy to understand. It seems like a pretty simple thing but it's going to make such a difference for those people to have and know how to keep their food through the winter.
We also have a week in November that is mini outreach. And there were different choices to choose from but I'm going to Cheb, Czech. Republic and we are going to be working with the red light district, the ghettos and the kids there, and also having time to work in the churches there and have worship times where people from the community can come in and hopefully bring more people in. So I'm pretty excited about having all these amazing opportunities.
I'm sorry that this is so much at one time. There's just so much to share! : ) Another thing we found out the other day was the big outreach locations! So I need some prayer about what decision to make. I think I know pretty good where I need to go but it's so difficult when there's so many amazing choices. But I'm SO excited about wherever I end up going! They sound amazing and I can't believe I get the opportunity to work in these areas.
Ok so as you can see, I'm pretty excited about everything that has been happening and God's been showing me so much. He's so amazing and it just feels so unreal that I'm here and doing photography, especially combined with missions. I'm living my dream. : )
So thank you again for all your prayers and support!!! Every little bit counts and I wouldn't be here without all the prayers. I love you and miss you all and I'll try to be better at updating this thing more. : )
<3 Nicca
