We're getting a lot of mileage out of this picture (thanks Heather Shuman)

Exams are underway at BFA. This is a good time for teachers and students alike. For both, the hard work of the semester is evaluated and then put to rest for a few weeks. Many students from past years drift through at this time - connecting with friends and siblings and/or just using their break from college to "process" the transitions from BFA to university/work. I interview every alumni I see and ask, "What do you wish you were told before making the transition?" I get some pretty good information to incorporate into what I do in the class.

Diane has been working, if not too much, then darn close to it with her new responsibilities as Director of Language Services for TeachBeyond ( the organization formerly known as Janz Team). All sorts of interesting opportunities are cropping up that allow simple English instruction to open the doors for the Gospel.

Christmas break also means a drastic change of pace for everyone. You go from hectic, full, and fast to almost dead stop. The town loses a few hundred students and many staff and Christmas in Germany is no where near as fast paced as in the U.S. Imagine the quiet you might hear walking through your town at 2PM on Christmas day. The cars have all found their destinations, the Super Sales are suspended for a few hours, the big meal is on the table, and it's quiet. Well, in Germany that goes on for a few days in a row - unnerving at first for the American mind but then quite pleasant.

In order to let our students travel the great distances most must go to see their families, break is fairly long. We will take a week of down time in the mountains with some other families - our first real vacation since the same time last year.

I continue to be amazed at the absolutely cosmic scale of the Christmas story. The Creator and King of the universe who dwells in unimaginable dimensions of splendor and spirit casts His lot with us - forever!- to redeem and reclaim and restore - forever! - and invites us to the celebration - forever!

Merry Christmas to all!

November stuff

November in Kandern. A mix of gray drizzly days interspersed with glorious sunshine and warmth. And then there's plague or at least it seemed so. Days where ten to fifteen of the school population was out sick with swine flu. BFA held a long "break the swine flu chain" weekend (4 days) followed by isolation of the population to the campus, keeping the kids out of the local grocery stores. It seems to have helped, attendence is back up and Carl survived his bout with it and the community saw that we were doing our bit. One of the more interesting moments was attending the high school play with the entire audience masked.

We've got about four weeks to go before Christmas break. Hannah's on the basketball team (playing guard and serving as co-captain). Carl has landed the lead role of Maxwell Smart in the middle school production of the theatrical version of "Get Smart". This will be a step up from his Weepy the Dwarf role in last year's (rave reviews, by the way) production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves of the Black Forest". We are quite excited for Carl - he does seem genuinely gifted towards this stuff. If you're in the neighborhood March 12, 13 of 2010 we can reserve you a ticket.

Last we we got to go to one of the dorms (we fill in there on a regular basis) for dorm Thanksgiving (a week earlier than you guys celebrate). This Saturday is BFA's annual Christmas Banquet, a semi-formal excuse to dress up and have some fun. Kids perform, Christmas wishes are granted, the kids look great. This year Carl gets to be a server - an eighth grade privilege - Hannah and Diane get to look georgeous and I get to co-emcee (could be awkward!).

Rome trip w/Seniors

Here's a sampling of shots from the recent senior trip Diane and I helped lead. The kids were amazingly well behaved and bonded so well as a class. The bus rides were long but the sights were amazing. Georgeous weather all week with lots of swim time.

Nothing like the fried potatoeds in Florence!

I loved hearing my students discuss what we had covered in class
regarding the School of Athens.

Love the photo stance!

Esther amazed at St. Peter's.

I didn't realize this was so vivid until I saw what the flash brought out.

St. Peter's at night.

Three Hannahs

One Hannah and one Anna.

Quintessential Rome.

Diane scoping out decorations for her office.

Diane catching Hannah and her buddy in front of Constantine's Arch.

We kept running into this guy all over Rome - he was amazing - jazz accordion!

The beach across from our one star hotel.

Ostia Antica - very cool place - once >100,000 lived here - recently excavated

Wandering the alleyways of Venice while Diane tended a sick student.

Venice's Rialto at night.

Back in High School

Well, Diane and I have come full circle. Thirty-seven years ago we met in a high school Social Studies class after the teacher moved my seat for reasons we won't discuss here. We became friends, then more than friends, attended separate colleges (successfully), married, raised four children, held jobs, bought and sold houses, became missionaries, became grandparents, all the usual and some of the unusual things - but now, as we said, we've come full circle. We're back sitting next to each other in a high school classroom and studying German. It's no longer col to be the oldest kids in class.

German, we hear, is a logical language - so far the logic escapes us. We're hearing terms like "dative" and "accusative" - can you even remember what that stuff refers to from your days in English class? People say English is quirky - and it is - but it's also oftentimes economical. Take the article "the" for instance. In English we say, "the boy, the girl, the boys, the girls, the cow, the herd, the watermelon, the crop, the cell, the cells, the organ, the limb, the body, the family, the community, the state, the country, the continent, the hemisphere, the planet, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, the mind of God". What a useful word "the" is. German is logical so this language says, " der Junge, die Jungen, das Mädchen, die Mädchen, die Kuh, die Herde, die Wassermelone, die Ernte, die Zelle, die Zellen, die Orgel, das Bein, des Körpers, der Familie, der Gemeinschaft, des Staates, das Land, dem Kontinent, die Halbkugel der Erde (literally - half scoop of earth!), des Sonnensystems, der Galaxie, das Universum, der Geist Gottes. Der, die, das - and we're not even talking about the prepositional variations as yet!

But - it is good to begin to formerly work on this language because it is not one that just gets absorbed by hanging around German speakers and there is progress. It's just hard for the half century plus brain to exercise cells that have lain domant for so long. The great motivtion, besides better understanding this place and culture we live in and besides making life all around a bit easier, is Diane and I get to compete on test and quiz scores.

Well, gotta study now!

BFA's back in action

The Senior Parade!
Hear no evil, speak no evil - or is it just amazement that they're seniors?
You can only carry off the white belt look if your family works in Italy.
BFA is a strange and wonderful place - look at the smiles because school is starting!



BFA held its opening day last week. Traditions run hard here so it began with the procession of Seniors carrying the flags of many nations followed by the less colorful (but with way more straight lines) teaching, support and dorm staffs. As the roster of forty plus nations currently hosting the families of our student was read, cheering of various volumes rose up, largely dependent on the number of students directly involved. The United States rang loudest as most of our kids hold US passports. My seventy-six seniors have families working in twenty-eight countries. I polled my students and had them list the countries that they had personally lived in for a period of greater than six months. Fifty-seven different nations were tallied. By most accounts, there are currently 195 nations in the world. How big is the impact of Black Forest Academy? You do the math!

School now means for me (Russ) the dance of developing classroom climates and relationships that will allow my Worldviews classes to transcend the sharing of information and arrive at the place of spiritual and life in general growth. Pray for the tone and spirit to be conducive to real sharing and challenge and maturity. Pray for insight and wisdom as each class develops. Pray for kids to have the courage to examine their own faith worlds and recognize the beauty of Christ for themselves.

It feels great to have classes back I front of me! I love teaching these guys and Diane and I love being involved in other aspects of their lives. The big deal, coming up one month from now, is the fulfillment of our duties as Senior Class sponsors – we “have to” go with them to Rome for Senior trip!

This weekend is filled with a conference for classroom teachers to be held in the beautiful Alpine town of Adelboden. Two full weeks of classes connected by a weekend conference doesn’t really sound very conducive to rest. I say this because for the first time in about six months, Diane and I had a relaxing (not a whole lot on the gotta do right now list) weekend and it was fabulous! We didn’t do much of anything really special (well, we showed our friends the Shumans around the local hot baths) – we mostly just relaxed. I guess that’s why I’m a little less than eager to go away and "do" this weekend – we need more down time. God is good, it will come.

All over

All Camp
These guys kept us fed - who will next year?
Our counselors.
Our translators
Our funniest camper - X

All Staff photo
Our graduates - next year they'll be too old. One asked, "How come no English Camp for 18-year-olds?" That is a very good question!
The now annual traditional auction of "stuff" paid for by "Teekets" earned all week long.
Here I got to share the story of one of my Iraqi refugee contacts in Jordan who once believedGod could not exist and who now knows that He does - the topic, "What is real?"

Well, I've not updated in a few days. This is largely due to the sheer busyness and fatigue of the last few days of any given English Camp. There's the basics of camp itself - all the closing activities (talent shows, banquets, bonfires, etc) midst the point of greatest community (meaning campers and staff alike have lost all ability to refrain from acting crazy! and valuable spiritual milestones are often reached). Then there are the practical bits - paperwork, pick-ups and drop-offs, cleaning, lots more cleaning, then some cleaning, the staff trip to Freiburg (dinner at Martin's Brau - if you're ever in Freiburg, it's a great place), materials and linens returned to base, some more cleaning. The emotional toll of balancing relief that camp is over with saying goodbye to those staff and campers who have been part of your life for the past 216-314 hours during an intensive time is also exhausting.

Then you have the episodes that come from nowhere - the camper mentioned earlier returned to camp after one ambulance ride and day in the hospital only to repeat the trip the following day (camp's last full day). Pray that God would use this in his life. The drama of it all did help focus camp in important and healthy ways.

But is is so worth it. Staff and campers alike leave changed. God has been at work. The gospel was delivered over nine nights and days to 100 campers. One of our third year campers - a guy who has got it rough family wise, who came to camp 3 years ago hating the idea of a "religious" camp, who fell in love with the love he felt at camp (he gave testimony before this next fact for longer than the evening message took), finally professed to giving his life to Christ (as did others). Pray for this "J" and for another "J" who thought she wasn't good enough for God and the others who came to faith - pray that God would make it so real in their lives and that churches could be found for them and so many of our other campers without good church homes.

Like I said - It is so worth all the time and money and hard work. Pray for us that we could recover to face the school year ready. We're weekending near Grenoble, France to attend a wedding and staff conferences start next week (well, actually they started this week but for self-preservation and with permission, I'm missing most of those).

Thanks to all who've read these and prayed for, given to, or served at (Did I mention the incredible staff we had?) English Camp Wittlingen (or any of the other camps) this year.

The top photo shows two young "drop-ins" to our evening meeting time. They were drawn in by the strength of the talent exhibited in the next photo (third year in a row that "Tell Me Why" was performed just to show you the enduring legacy of the Back Street Boys). The next two shot are from pool day - a perfect afternoon for it - but then the morning was a different story.

Gloria, one of our very your but very dedicated and talented translators spent the morning with myself and one of the campers at the local hospital after the camper was wisked off in an ambulance due to some sort of attack that involved severe abdominal pains and hyper-ventilation. He's ok - we actually brought him back to camp about 10PM and the boys gave him a big welcome. The first words he said at the hospital after regaining responsiveness were, "Will I be able to go back to English Camp" and, "Why would God allow let this sort of thing happen to me?" So that leaves us with the encouragement of how much the campers love camp and a classic difficulty of the faith.

Well, that's about all I'm good for writing tonight.

Adventure Day

Here are scenes of this morning performances of Bible stories - can you guess which ones?

We spent the afternoon at BFA going games along with the other 2 camps, followed by a joint worship/teaching time. I got to play the role of the visiting philosopher discussing the question of "What is real?" as I did two weeks ago during the previous EC sessions. The kids are pretty wired tonight so we hope they'll settle down for room time with their counselors.

Tomorrow we're off to the pool after morning classes. There's talk of a talent show but very few signed up as yet.

Pray that the "breakthrough" moments will continue.

Well, I have had easier days at English Camp. Today, for the first time in seven camps, I had to send someone home. After days of breaking virtually every rule of the camp and repeated interventions by multiple staff members, I was convinced it was time. Pray that the climate of the camp would not suffer for this - there are some good things happening - real progress with both repeat and new campers.

As you can see from today's pictures, we've had some worship time (we do that every evening) and we've had some "visitors". There was a brief appearance by Heidi (one of our counselors who brought along her dirndl) and the return of the legendary Ricki - a veteran of 3 previous camps (that's him in the mullet wig). His former campers that are attending are thrilled to see him - he's spending the night- and we are too (both thrilled and sending the night).

Tomorrow is a break in the "routine" (nothing is routine at EC) for "Adventure Day".

Superbowl

As you can guess from the title and the photo, today's theme was American football. For this we had a very special guest - Robbie Shuman, who's on leave from his football coaching (oh yeah, he's a guidance counselor too) in Narragansett, RI and here in the Kandern area to serve at Black Forest Academy for a year - to put the kids through their paces. How many teams can boast a wide reciever who speaks French with a German accent wearing a green shirt, blue shorts and bright yellow sneakers.

It is a bit surreal to see a number of folks in the area with First Baptist Narragansett connections. There's us, three additional team members (well four if you count Jason Hodges who "attended" FBC till he was about six months old, the Shumans - now our neighbors, and Jay, Haley, and Zoe Ashcraft working at a sister English Camp. Way to go FBCN - never lose your knack for sending directly or indirectly!

Many conversations are growing deeper between staff and campers. Please pray that nothing would impede this process as it progresses. We're seeing some kids with a deep desire to experience God in a deep way.

Sunday

Today was a change in the schedule for Sunday. We take the whole camp to Black Forest Christian Fellowship for the morning service. Picture 6 rickety vans in formation descending on your church bearing 30 or so kids and 15 of so people who are living for a time in a strange land. Oh, then multiply that by 3 (te number of camps running in this area). What kind of an impact would that have on your Sunday morning service? What kind of an impact would your Sunday morning service have on such a group? BFCF has been very intentional this summer about making the service a good fit for these peculiar circumstances - we really appreciate the good efforts of all involved.

The weather was not good enough for the pool so we made a switch. Instead of taking the afternoon off of English classes we ran them so that on the first clear hot day we could skip it and spend the time at the pool. Flexibility on the part of staff is so beneficial to making this run - we've got a great team. After classes Hannah organized an Ultimate Frisbee tournament among our four sub-teams of campers. We had to cut it only a tad short due to another of the local menacing thunderstorms loomed over the field.

Tonight's message was on the Truth part of John 14:6 - good stuff. Pray that truth would be easily approached and understood by our campers. Pray also for the ones who are in the "testing" phase - resistant to the rules and basic trust necessary to run camp well - as ever we know we're in a battle so help us out with your prayers.

Long Day

At the close of the second full day, you start to feel the length of a day of camp. The spirit is good but the kids are busy and comfortable enough to stretch you. Bed time drags on and we want to be serious, they, sometimes, want to be silly. This is a real short post because I need some sleep - pray for sunshine tomorrow - it would mean a long afternoon at the pool - a good thing. Pray also for the focus of the campers - that they would begin to get more spiritually tuned in to God, to the staff, and to each other.

First Full Day

Here are our campers for this year - 16 girls ⇑ and 15 guys ⇓.


Our first day ran very smoothly. There seems to be a healthy spirit among staff and campers alike. All the phases of the day seemed to run without much of a hitch - three meals prepared, eaten, and cleaned up afterwards, classes in the morning and afternoon taught and attended, the first set of crazy activities, good singing and Bible teaching rounded out by Rice Krispie Treats and a demonstration of the sounds that farm animals make (practice for tomorrow's Country Fair Day) - all in all a typical day at camp.

I found a local pool that is willing to have the campers come and NOT force them to wear only the Speedo type of trunks - lots of people happy about that news! The weather continues to be sweet - pray that Sunday it would be as well because that is a good day to spend the afternoon at the pool.

Pray that community would continue to develop. Pray for safety and protection. Pray for a camper at a sister camp who is spending the night in the hospital due to complications of a previous surgery. Pray that Many in all these camps would come to better recognize Jesus as the "one way".

Well, after a year's thinking, praying, and planning - especially on Diane's part, the campers have arrived at our new site for this year - no more Maugenhard, now we're at a dorm in Wittlingen. We'll just call it Witt and, if you want to sound "Cherman" you'd pronounce it "Vitt". Thirty-one kids have arrived and settled in. Well over a third are new to English Camp this year and then we've got some one to three year veterans. The same ratio applies to our staff - and, as usual, God seems to .

After the afternoon and evening together the spirit seems relatively positive. The evening walk following our evening meeting was spectacular - half moon bright in the sky as we walked the farm roads at dusk between fields of just harvested grains and yet to be harvested tall cornstalks. I'm not doing th Bible speaking this year - one of our new staff wanted to give it a go and convinced me he had the passion for it so we're giving him a go. One of my counselors is a former student of mine from BFA that I had back in 2001-2002 as a freshman, one is a recent BFA grad, and another staff is a student I had in Narragansett just a few years ago. We've got two young translators - not much older than the campers - and they're great.

Diane has worked so hard all this past year to see these camps come to fruition - very neat to se the kids stream in. Some are glad to be here because they've been here before and remember what a good time it was for them on many levels. Some are new and nervous. Some are new and thrilled with the opportunities that await.

Pray for us as we face our first full day together. Pray that our theme of "One Way - Jesus" based on John 14:6 would become absolutely real to each and every camper.