Teach Me to Love

      

I have been very busy this week with Sr. High camp! But it has been a great week! I look forward to updating you more hopefully tomorrow with a recap of the week, but today I wanted to share with you about some things I was reflecting upon this morning during stille ziet (German for quiet time). 

I have been reading through 1 Corinithians since I have been in Austria and today I was meditating on the love passage in 1 Corinthians 13. That passage is often read at weddings and referred to by Christians. But I have not actually spent a lot of time really digging deep into it. As I read line by line and reflected upon it, I composed this prayer, that I will leave with you today. 

Lord, help me to love patiently;

To love with kindness. 

Lord, help me to love without envy;

To not boast in my love.

Lord, help me to not be arrogant in my love;

Nor rude when I love. 

Lord, help me to put others first, 

And my desires second.

Lord help me to love even when I don't feel like it, 

Or when I don't want to let things go.

Lord, help me to sing your praise,

at the knowledge of your truth and promise.

Lord, help me to love and care for others selflessly. 

Lord, help me to love your promises 

And your word. 

Lord, help me in loving you,

And my persecutors in the times of trials. 

Lord, help me to love like you love me,

And for my love to be endless like your promises. 

Amen. 

Until Next Time, 

Mikayla 

His Name is to Be Praised!

       

   

It has been an incredibly busy week! It has flown by so quickly! Today is the last day of Jr. high camp and I am feeling that exhaustion set in! But it has been a really great week focused on building relationships, showing the campers that God loves them, and creating positive memories. 

Throughout this week we have been getting to know the campers through English lessons (which I am loving!), camp games, and Bible Studies. We did a variety of amazing activities such as bridge jumping, hiking to castle ruins, counselor hunt in Ruette, and jumping from waterfalls. The most difficult aspect of it all is bridging the language gap. For the most part it has not been too difficult as you are almost always with another camper who has great English and can help translate if needed, but I am deffinently more aware of how fast I speak and that I need to simplify my words when talking to campers. 

                      

 

Although there has been a language barrier, I have been able to get really close to my campers! They were so fun to be with and one of the best cabins I have ever had in all my years of counseling.  It was very cool to see how God worked in their lives over the week and see the change in them, particularly in my camper, Katarina. Katarina had never been to camp before and knew the least amount of English in the cabin (although she was still at a low intermediate level). I was nervous about her the first day because I had seen campers like her be negative about camp activities and really closed off. But throughout the week she opened up more and more and was so much fun to be around. I could sense there was a change in her too. On Wednesday night I gave my testimony in chapel before the speaker came up and spoke, and she really connected with it. The speaker encouraged the campers to talk to their counselors afterwards if they had any questions about God. Katerina approached me a little bit before bed and asked if I wanted to talk. We went for a walk and through broken English she opened up and asked a lot of questions and I tried to respond in the best simplified English that I could. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit was at work in bridging the language gap and she was able to get a sense of what I was saying and wanted to start a personal relationship with Christ. In a moment that almost brought me to tears, I was able to pray with her in English and she accepted Christ in German. It was one of the most moving moments of my life, to see how God's love knows no bounds, even through different languages. 

I am praising God for moving not only in Katarina's life this week, but also in the lives of all the campers here this past week. 

                     

      

Pray for my team as we rest, re-cooperate, and gear up for a batch of sr. high campers tomorrow afternoon. Please be praying especially for the sickness that has been going around in the staff this week! 

Until Next Time, 

Mikayla 

First Full Day of Camp

                                             

Today was our first full day of e-camp! Yesterday all of the campers arrived by car, but mostly by train! Some had a seven hour train ride to get here! My campers happen to know quite a bit of English. I was pretty impressed. There were a few who do know quite as much, but the girls who do know a lot are super great at helping translate. I have seven campers, who are all 12-14 and have very Austrian names- Klara, Karina, Katarina, Helena, Teresa, Christina, and Anna. If you notice, they all end with an -a, which is a trait of Austrian and German names. There are hardly any girl names that end with something other than -a. Learning how to pronounce them with the correct Austrian pronunciation is a whole another thing! 

       

I have already learned so much about teaching English just from the last 24 hrs. You do not realize how many idioms or phrases you say during the day until you have a group of seven girls staring at you confused by what you said! For example, I walked into my cabin and asked the girls what trouble they were causing and one of them immediately was explaining very sincerely that they were not getting into trouble. I tried to explain to them that it is just a say and that I did not think they were causing any trouble. 

The part of e-camp that I was most nervous about-teaching English lessons- ended up turning out the best and the part I was least nervous about-doing the Bible study (Bible Ex)- ended up being the most challenging. I am teamed up with two other awesome staff members, Ryan, an American, and Priska, an Austrian, to teach the Beginner level English class. Together as a team, we worked great with one another and complimented one another very well while teaching. Our students responded really well and were very engaged! Praise the Lord! I was very nervous about the English lessons and afraid that I would not be an effective and clear teacher, please continue to pray that my team would be able to continue to effectively communicate and meet the language needs of our students. 

In contrast, Bible study did not go very well today. The language barrier proved to be much more difficult when it came to talking about spiritual things. Christian vocabulary/message, no matter how simplified, is very hard to teach to others when using a language students are not completely familiar or fluent in. In addition, I learned, very quickly, today that the German Bible has many different names for the books of the Bible. For example, the first five books of the Bible are called Moses 1, Moses 2...3,4,5 and that is only the first five books! Unfortunately, I do not think I was unable to get very much of the gospel or any spiritual conversation going. None of my campers come from a consistent Christian background, they all go to church occassionally, but I am assuming mostly for holidays. Be in prayer that I would be able to meet them on their linguistical and spiritual level this week! 

      

A highlight of today though was our afternoon activity! We drove all the campers about 10 minutes away to this beautiful river that widens into a bay, then narrows back down on the other side. This river was surrounded on all sides by gigantic, majestic mountains! It was THE most beautiful place I have ever been! When we got there, we hiked  10-15 minutes to a bridge on one end of the river and went bridge jumping! The bridge was about 7.5-10 meters high! But we were jumping into the most crystal blue water I have ever seen! The water is so clear from running off the mountains that you can see pretty far down into the river! Unfortunately all my pictures are on my camera and not my phone so you will have to wait for pictures until I get back! 

It has been so cool to see how God is meeting the needs of our team and working in the lives of the Austrians. Since being here, I have grown to love this country deeply and the people here. They are such sweet, hard working, and giving people who are in desperate need to know about the love of Jesus Christ. I am so appreciative of all your prayers and look forward to being able to share more with you! 

Until next time, 

Mikayla 

P.s. I apologize for any incorrect grammar or misspellings in my blog posts. I have been writing them on my iPad, which is rather difficult to write well formatted posts! 

Hallo!

Hallo Aus Ruette (pronounced Roy-ta)! 

It has been a whirlwind of activities and events! We arrived in Munich on early Tuesday morning. After spending about five hours at the airport, we headed to Dachau Concentration Camp, which is located just outside of Austria. 

My experience at Dachau was not the typical experience that most people talk about. We only had a little over an hour to spend at Dachau, which is not nearly enough time to go through everything thoroughly, therefore we could not read all the information that was available. Thankfully, I have done so much reading and research on the holocaust that I already knew the majority of then information. The entire experience was still very moving. It was heartbreaking to actually see one of the places I have spent so much time reading about. 

Following the concentration camp, we drove to the Lighthouse in Innsbruck, Austria and checked into our hostel. The Lighthouse is the youth center that the local missionaries run. The English camp is partnered with the Lighthouse and its ministry there. Many of the kids and Austrian workers that are at English camp are associated with the Lighthouse. The hostel we stayed at was close to the center of Innsbruck and was very nice. There were three of us to a room and we had our own bathroom. From there we were able to walk to the altstatt (old town in German) in Innsbruck, which is, as the name implies, the old town area that has the classic shops, cafes, and tourist attractions. 

The gelato that we got in altstatt was enough to make me want to move to Austria! The next couple of days were spent in training at the Lighthouse, exploring altstatt, and experiencing the local cuisine which includes wiener schnitzel, späezle, knödel, gelato, and almdudler. Thursday we headed up through the alps to Reutte, Austria where we were staying at the Alphoff, which is a large Austrian house that is rented out every year for the English camps. It is a beautiful old house with lots of rooms and a traditional Austrian Frau that takes care of the house. 

After becoming familiar with the house and going out to eat at another traditional Austrian restaurant, we spent time bonding as a team, doing some training, and playing some games. Today we spent the majority of the morning training and getting our English lessons ready. But this afternoon we went on a real adventure! We hiked to these ancient castle ruins that date back to the 1200s. After climbing and exploring the ruins we were able to cross the Highline 179, which is the longest footbridge in the world! It currently holds the Guinness World Record. The sights from our hike, the castle ruins, and from the bridge were indescribable. 

As our team gets ready for campers to come tomorrow be in prayer for my team that we would be confident and effective communicators, that the hearts of the Austrians would be open to hearing the gospel, and that everything would go smoothly with the start of camp! 

Since it is after midnight here I better say guten nacht! 

Until Next Time, 

Miss Sass A Frass 

Back story

As I type these words I am sitting in seat 29A (a window seat mind you) flying over the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Europe, specifically Munich, Germany then Austria. In Austria, I will be working as a camp counselor at an English language camp in Reutte, Austria through Shamineau Missions. 

I can't believe that in two hours I will be walking the streets of Munich. I have been preparing and prepping for this trip since I was 16. Four years later, I am finally on my way. Here is a little back story. 

I grew up going to Camp Shamineau and when I got older, working there. My summers at Shamineau were the best summers of my life. Shamineau is really where my relationship with Jesus Christ became real, personal, and applicable. Every summer, Shamineau had an Austrian or two come over and counsel for a summer, as I got to know them and hear them talk about this ESL camp they had gone to in Austria, I knew I wanted to go. I did a lot of research about the camps online, met with Herb, the director of Camp Shamineau, and spent a lot of time praying about it. But, nothing really happened about it. In the following summers I had to work to pay for college and was unable to work at Shamineau. Thoughts of Austria and the ESL camp that layed across the ocean were never too far from my mind, but the opportunity never arose. This past fall I felt God tugging on my heart to do some sort of missions trip, in addition, I need to find a way to get 60 hours of ESL experience. I ended up applying for a missions trip through Olivet Nazarene University, where I go to school, but did not feel very passionate about it. I figured if I got accepted to go on the trip that it must mean that God wanted me to go. As I was contemplating my application, Austria came to mind. I had not thought of Austria in a long time, but the minute I did I felt a strong tug on my heart that I can only attribute to the Holy Spirit. In the next couple of weeks I sent a lot of emails, did a lot of research, and spent a lot of time praying about it. I knew that if given the opportunity to go to Austria through Shamineau or go on a missions trip through school, I would choose Austria, no hesitation. Although I was accepted on the missions trip at school, I quickly withdrew my application and focused all my efforts on Austria. 

After a month or two of not hearing anything about Austria, I was finally accepted, but had a little leg work to do making sure I could get credit from school for it, convincing others it was a good idea, and making sure I could financially afford school the next year. Oddly, I was at peace throughout the entire process. Not once was I anxious or stressed about it, which if you know me well, you know is extremely odd for me. I had surrendered it over to God and completely trusted Him. If He wanted me to go, God would open the doors and make it work. God did not just open the doors, but he flung them open. Slowly, but surely (definitely not on my time schedule) all the details came into place. Although it was not without its own share of bumps along the way, God showed me that I had to be completely willing to give up anything to follow his call. 

Now as I am sitting here, flying over England, which is where I always thought I would make my European debut, I have a perfect peace that surpasses all understanding that I am right where I am suppose to be. God's plans are so much better than I could have ever imagined for myself and I am excited to see where this plane ride takes me!