Youth Conference 2021

Trek & a group of adult leaders have been patiently planning an incredible 2 day Youth Conference for the youth of our church ages 14-18.  It's been in the planning stages for 2 years, but because of COVID it's bene postponed again & again & again.

This year we FINALLY got to have the conference.  It took place the 3rd weekend in October & the youth were SO VERY excited.

The first day, they all boarded a Rhine River Cruise Ship & spent the day seeing over 25 castles, playing games, dancing, laughing, & having fun together.

After the boat trip, they went back to the church building & had a delicious dinner, some games, a devotional, & then a 3 hour dance (the first church dance in over 2 years!)

The 2nd day was a day of fun games & learning workshops.  Trek & I had the opportunity to teach our Budgeting & Finance Game with all the groups.  They had a blast.  There was also a class on Dating & a class on Life Skills.

As for games, we had human foosball, human hungry hungry hippos, cup stacking, board games, & stick running.  It was so much fun.

The day ended with a delicious dinner & a testimony meeting.  The kids & adults all had a blast.  I'm SO glad we were finally able to do this for these wonderful teens.

 

Taya's Halloween Party Fun

The middle school here planned a really fun Halloween Dance to celebrate Halloween this year.  What they didn't plan on was COVID hitting Germany for the 4th time.  80 students (6th graders) got COVID in one day at the middle school & so they cancelled the dance & sent all the 6th, 7th, & 8th graders to virtual school for 2 weeks.  Poor things.

We decided to have a Halloween party at our house anyway.  So Taya invited her 3 best friends (they were all going to dress up like M&M's together for the dance) & they dressed up & had fun here.  We made Halloween sugar cookies, danced, sang, & watched movies.

They are the cutest girls ever.  We are so glad Taya has such wonderful friends.

 

Bitche, France

On October 9th, we ventured out for the first time in what felt like forever & drove down to Bitche, France.  Bitche is only about 45 minutes from our house so it wasn't very far.

There is an incredible fortress/citadel there on the top of a very steep hill in the middle of a valley.  This fortress has never been conquered EVER.  In fact, in the war between France & Prussia (Germany), the French held this fortress for over 8 months without anyone able to penetrate the walls.  The Germans had thousands of armed men, canons, guns, etc. & they never got in.  It's pretty incredible.

We took the tour inside the citadel & it ended up being kind of a "we'll never forget" moment for our family.  I forget that Europeans (especially the French) don't view certain aspects of cinema as harshly as we do.  We sat through an hour long tour with several videos & wound up having to plug our ears & look at the ground to avoid being exposed to bad language, full on nudity, & violence that gave my boys nightmares for a week afterward.  We couldn't help but laugh after it was all over with, but at the time, my poor littles were crying after seeing a guy get his leg sawed off on a big screen in a dungeon.

But the citadel itself was incredible.  I can see how nobody was able to break through it.  The walls were several meters thick & the tunnel system throughout that hill was insanely cool.  Once we were on top, we could see for miles all around us.  It was beautiful.

The boys of course spent all their allowance money on "weapons."  Canyon got a slingshot & Bladen got a rubber band pistol.

The tunnel system was my favorite part of the tour.  I can't believe how much work it must have taken to dig these tunnels & corridors inside the mountain.

This was definitely worth seeing. . . the tour movies, not so much, but the citadel itself was AWESOME.