Arrival

Thanks to all of you who prayed, left comments, and thought of us while we were gone! Since I have some time that I'm back I plan to write a post for each day we were gone. So continue to check the blog for the next few weeks. I believe Melissa will do the same.

In the four hour layover I had some time to journal and rest. Melissa got a little sleep on the plane but I couldn't so I just watched movies and listened to music on the way there. We watched the sunrise coming up, which was amazing! Melissa also got some sleep during the layover. I had to stay up and make sure no one took our stuff. The bathrooms by the way were easy to find and the paper is different haha. CDG airport is huge! It wasn't that had to find were to go, yet I was a little stressed during the part of getting though the airport. We had to take a bus from one terminal to the one we needed to be at. We got on our connecting flight to Strasbourg. We went on a much smaller plane. It actually wasn't attached to the airport, we had to walk outside and walk up steps to get on the plane. It reminded me of the ones you always see the presidents coming out of!

We met up with Jessa from Boston at the airport. My suitcase jammed and I had to carry the heavy thing all the way to the taxi and then to where we were going to sleep. When we got to the location and slept for an hour before they served supper. To drink we drank apfle schorle or as us American girls called it "apple pop". It was fizzy apple juice. We ended up drinking that the whole first week. It was room temperature, not very refreshing!

They had devotions after supper. It was a mini service with two worship songs and a small teaching. It was really hard to stay awake. Jet lag was really kicking in! We were so tired we went to bed as soon as it was over. The first week I slept in a huge building right next to the bathroom. The only bad part is I heard the door open and close all night long. I thought that was bad until the train the week after.

~Lauren

On our way back..so much to tell

After an adventure of trying to find our way with a taxi driver that didn't speak english we are in France tonight and have an early flight out in the morning. We noticed that everything is closed on Sundays, we were in search of food !! We finally managed to communicate to get a pizza at a local restaurant and it was delivered by a man on a motorcycle with a helmet!! Pray we get up, make our flights, connections, and we will be back in Pittsburgh by tommorow. Can't wait to share all about our time and stay tuned to the blog as we will be posting pictures soon.

door to door

Today is door to door ministry in Offenburg and surrounding areas. Pray for saftey, open hearts, and favor.

Update

Lauren and Melissa haven't been able to access the internet, so they wanted me (mom) to give an update on what they have been up to. They are adjusting to the time change. They are sleeping in tents, and apparently theirs is right near a train track, so it's taken a little getting used to sleeping with a train rumbling by frequently. They are doing well and enjoying the experience very much. Their days are full accomplishing alot and the teams are gearing up for the outreach event which begins this Saturday and runs through next Saturday. They did get to go out into the city to get art supplies for the upcoming event and enjoyed seeing buildings and grabbing an ice cream. (see pic)

Here is a post from the OM office:

“We’re taking an entire site and transforming it into a village,” explained Mary Wallace from the logistics team. With around 100 volunteers, TeenStreet is well on it’s way to becoming a community of cooks, artists, writers, and people with many other gifts and talents. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sweeping the floor, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the stage,” said Mary. “Our goal is to glorify Jesus.”

Prayer points:

Pray for the the community, that they will see the love of Christ throughout the entire event.

Pray for the safety of the TeenStreet workers as they continue to set up.

Every evening they have enjoyed a worship service that all the outreach workers participate in.

Here is what they have been talking about.

Each evening this week during set up for TeenStreet, the staff and service team members gather for devotions to worship God and to pray over the events of next week. In coordination with the “Impossible” theme for TeenStreet, and the week’s theme verse, Hebrews 11:6, devotions focus on the faith that Moses, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and others in Hebrews, were commended for. Enoch, in particular, walked with God for 300 years. Josh Walker, who leads devotions, describes how he was commended for his faith, not for what he accomplished during his life. He focuses on how faith allows us to see God and seek Him more.The staff prayer this week is that, in spite of the hurts, fears and failures that can keep teens from embarking on a journey with Jesus, they will see God in a new way during TeenStreet and desire to seek Him daily.

The Teenstreet Event desires to:

* Challenging young people to find and grow their own relationship with Jesus

*Make a lasting impact in the lives of teenagers. This means helping teens to understand and come to their own decisions rather than telling them what they must do.

* Breaking down barriers between cultures, denominations & generations

* Building into the existing local churches

Made it here

We arrived! After a long night and day with nada sleep we are pretty tired. We found ourselves doing silly things due to our sleep deprivation. Lauren's luggage handle decided to jam but things for the most part are going smoothly. We met up with Jessa an American teammember from Boston in Strasbourg at the airport. We traveled together by taxi to Offenburg which is about 20 minutes from the airport. We will start meeting with members of the artzone team who are from different place all over Europe. We've been told the countries represented are are Austria, Germany, England, United States, Holland, Ireland and Finland. Some are still arriving today. Pray for strength and getting through jet lag quickly, unity for the team and creative ideas.

And the journey has begun!

We are off! Here we are at the Pittsburgh International airport and now on to Paris. After a layover at CDG we will be on to Strasbourg, France. Then a short distance over the border to Offenburg, Germany. Continue to pray for our travel and making all our connections. A rainbow was seen on the interstate near the airport.

Guten Tag.

On Sunday we will be flying out to embark on our newest adventure to Germany. Please keep us in your prayers, and use this blog as a way to keep track of our voyage.

Auf Wiedersen!
Lauren and Melissa