Romania...Day 1

On Saturday March 28 the BFA Romania Team set out. We consisted of two leaders, myself and Cathy a math teacher and 8 students (2 guys and 6 girls). We left school in 2 vans filled a lot of luggage to the Zurich airport, which is an hour and 15 minutes away. There was some chaos as we all checked into the airport…but soon we were at our gate.

Here we are waiting in Zurich and eating our packed lunch.

We then arrived in Bucharest, Romania the capitol city. Here we have five long hours in the airport before we could continue on to Suceava. We had plenty of time to read and even find some yummy pizza to eat.

We arrived in the very small airport of Suceava at 10pm. Here Mihilea, our contact and an English teacher, met us with some other faculty from Filadelphia Christian School to take us back to the school. There we found our rooms and went to sleep…after we anciently woke up the girls on our floor. Oppps...

Candle Light Dinner

The weekend after Fashching, the BFA community put on Candle Light Dinner. This is an outreach to the Germans. This year the theme was "Sing Freedom!" Both a BFA adult choir and student choir sang Gospel Songs and told the story of Harriet Tubman. It was a wonderful presentation of Christ's love in both German and English.

Here are both the BFA choirs practicing for the big performance. There was a performance on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Needless to say, everyone was very worn out after this!

When the students were not preforming during practice they found many ways to entertain themselves. Dutch Blitz is a favorite game!

Here "B" and "E" pose for the camera. These seniors enjoy their last Candle Light Dinner performance.

This is "R", she is one of the girls at Palmgarten Dorm. She had a solo and did an excellent job using the gifts God has given her for His glory. Many German people commented that this was the best performance they have seen of the Candle Light Dinner.

Romania Team

Here are some of the female students going to Romania to serve the Lord there over spring break.

There are the two token guys on the trip. They have 7 female students and 2 adult female leaders. Way to go GUYS!

This spring break I have the opportunity to co-lead a team of 9 BFA students to Romania. We are going to Fildelphia Christian School. This is a Christian school for Romanian children. They have about 500 students there, so it is much bigger than BFA. They have about 90 boarding students. This is the group of people we are going to focus on. They have much less space than BFA boarding students an do not have the activities that the average BFA student can participate in. As a group we hope to encourage the boarding students with evening activities of games. We will also be helping out in the English classes for all of the students. It will be a huge learning experience for us all.

At one of our meetings I had the team do a team building activity called the "Birthday Rope." They had to stay on the rope at all times and get into the correct order of their birthdays. It was a great time!

Two of my Palmgarten girls get to go on the trip with me: "K" & "N". I am so happy to have them with us. They are both seniors and will add a lot of leadership to the team!

Fasching

Downtown Kandern-Hauptstrasse

On Feb. 21 the town of Kandern celebrated Fasching. This is the holiday before Lent where everyone can do whatever they want to do without having to feel any guilt. As I understand it, sometime people switch partners or participate in whatever activity they would like too over this holiday. There was a large parade here in Kandern where people dressed up in scary costumes and act out various activities. We did not allow the girls in our dorm to attend. Then at Lent everyone gives up something. The also have large bond fires after the Fasching celebration to get rid of the evil spirits. As you can imagine, it was a good time for the BFA community to be in prayer for the Kandern community and for the staff and students of BFA.

As a way of decoration, the people will string up undergarments or flags across the street to celebrate Fasching.

Tea Time!

The girls in Palmgarten dorm invited the girls in Blauen dorm over for a Tea Party! It was a grand time of remembering their own childhood tea parties with their friends.

These two ladies created these lovely hats for the occasion. Their creativity was put to good use!

These girls enjoyed dressing up like they would have if they were five or six and attending a tea party with friends.

The girls and RAs dressed in many different styles! Look at that pink dress! Doesn't it remind you of proms of the past!

Tea time is not something to be taken lightly and these girls dressed in their best!

The girls enjoyed tea and cupcakes as they sat at the beautifully decorated tables.

The RAs also enjoyed tea time. Here are Ellie, Vangie, Lizzy, and myself having tea!

When tea time was over we all enjoyed a couple of episodes of Full House! Oh the wonders of childhood!

The Palm girls dressed to the nines for the tea party! We had a great time and really enjoyed having Blauen dorm over for tea!

Goodybe Ann, Bob, Eli, Mom, & Dad

Ann and Bob and Eli took me out to say goodbye. They also took Mom and Dad out for their 38th Anniversary that they celebrated on January 1, 2009. That is pretty impressive in this day and age to stay married to the same person for 38 year. Way to go Mom and Dad!

Bob and Ann enjoy the tasty meal. Check out Ann's sweet new doo and a new outfit to boot!

Here is Mom, the ever proud Grammy! She loves her grandsons, Eli (above) and Julian.

Eli says goodbye to Auntie Bonnie. He is so sweet. Look at those big gloves on his little hands. I had such a wonderful time with my family.

Goodbye Steve, Amy, & Julian!

Steve, Amy, and Julian were able to come and stay at Mom and Dad's house until January 2nd. It was wonderful to have them stay around for most of my time in the States.

One of my favorite things to do was tickle Julian. It became quite a game of chasing him around and sending him into fits of giggling while I tickled him. He would often as me, "Bonnie, you want to tickle me?!?!" So the rest of the family would roll there eyes as I loudly chased him down.

We did enjoy some calmer time of coloring here and there as well.

Amy sports here new doo! Ann, Amy, and I all got hair cuts as presents from Mom. What an awesome gift!

Steve and Julian say good bye to Auntie Bonnie. Julian hopes to travel to Germany with Auntie Bonnie in her suitcase. That would be an interesting time!

2009 Echo Ranch New Years Party

This year for the Annual ERBC Reunion we were again in Findlay, Ohio at Denise Pritt's house. It was a smaller group this year, but we had a great time. Part of the ERBC Reunion tradition is to have a gift exchange....which usually means inter sting and entertaining gifts.

Jon-Michel got a pair of Myles' boxers. How lucky is he?!??!?!? I think the rumor on the street is that these delicate undergarments were given back to the original owner!

Erin got an armadillo! I mean she got a stuffed armadillo that once roamed the earth! Too crazy. Actually her brother Josh got if for her when he was in Texas in the Air Force and then Courtney and Natalie re-gifted it to her!

Myles received the Pritt Families prized singing trophy fish. Love that! Can you believe he opted not to take it back to Sudan! I mean that is a great way to use some of your precious luggage pounds on! Just kidding!

As for me...I received this lovely piece of artwork. It is of Denise when were were in Hawaii last year. What a treasure! I have it here in Germany with me! Hopefully Denise will get to see the world as I travel around! I am pretty sure she was ready to KILL Erin, Brynden and Leah for this schanigians!

Here are the Brown House Girls. All of us at one point or another have lived in the brown building at Echo Ranch also refereed to as the "Nurses' Station" or the "Office." From left to right: Erin Clegg, Bonnie Spallinger, Denise Pritt, Brynden Wiens, Leah Boeschling. We all also fit into the "Old School" category at ERBC!

Here is Mama Denise and her baby Roxy! Yikes she really treats this little dogie like her child...well except she leaves her alone during the day.

Here is the whole crew of us:

Back row from L to R: Denise, Bonnie, Leah, Courtney, Paul (?08 Counselor), Erin, Myles, Jon-Michael

Front row from L to R: Caleb, Amber (?08 Counselor), Kathy, Tara

It was a wonderful time to see friends from Alaska!

Christmas Break!!!

It was so WONDERFUL to be in Ohio for Christmas. I left Germany on Dec. 22 and got to stay with the family until January 9, 2009. What an amazing blessing!!! My highlight would have to be my nephews! Julian and Eli are just the cutest little guys ever....I might be slightly bias, but you know that is the privilege of being an Auntie! LOVE IT!!

Here Julian and I are having a good time hanging out. This is before Christmas and he was very impressed that I got to fly in an airplane! Whoohoo!

Grampy reads to Eli. Aw www, how cute is that! It has been so fun for me to see Dad interact with the boys!

PRESENTS!!! At 1 1/2 Eli is slightly overwhelmed with the gifts, but he figured it out and had a great time.

Julian proudly shows his gift from Grammy and Grampy. He got his own special hand held thing for the Wii. Now he won't mess up his parent's Wii controls.

Amy is possibly the silliest sister-in-law I have....oh yeah she is my only sister-in-law. What a great thing to love the girl your brother marries!

Look! I caught Bob smiling for me. This is a rare moment...well at least in front of a camera. He does have his faithful cup of coffee with him.

Julian poses with the trash after Christmas. Notice that the bag of trash is actually bigger than he is! Yikes!

Christmas wore Caleb out. He was the greatest and willingly slept on the couch when he was at Mom & Dad's house so I could have a room.

But sleep is always hard to come by at our house. Julian enjoys waking up uncle Caleb! I asked Caleb if he had a sleep disorder. He said "Yes...it is called DAD!" Every morning at 7am my Dad would announce the current temperature of the house! "Look, today it is 70 degrees in here!" This is what we all woke up to...even Ann and Bob who got to stay in the basement!

Bath time! You know it is the end of the day when the kids take their baths. Here Ann is with a clean little Eli! What a wonderful Christmas day!