The Saga of HBR and Palm

The girls at Palmgarten acquired a organ...what do high school girls choose to do with an organ...paint it pink of course!! For a dorm fellowship we all got some bright pink spray paint. Here "K" and "K", who are roommates paint the organ.

Everyone in the dorm had a chance to decorate the organ. "J" and "K" are working on the details.

"L" makes sure the keyboard stays white, but the rest is pink. Then late one evening the girls took the pink organ to HBR (Haus Bad Riedlingen), a boys dorm. They left it in the senior hall playing loud organ music.

Then HBR was kind enough to invite the Palm girls over to carve some pumpkins.

The guys and girls were very creative and we even had a pumpkin contest. They looked beautiful. But we left all of the pumpkins at HBR so Stephanie, the dorm mom, and a couple of girls sneakily took 4 carved pumpkins to decorate our front door. Then just an hour or two later the HBR boys stormed the Palm front dorm and SMASHED the PUMPKINS and dumped their bio bucket (left over food) all over our front steps! We had rice that week!

Two of our seniors, "J" and "J", jumped up to help clean up the mess.

It was pretty gross! Luke the dorm dad was not too happy...but we got it cleaned up and even some of the HBR guys came back to help clean up. But still the girls were not too happy with the HBR boys.

So, in the words of the boys, they made and "epic apology!" They dressed up and sang "Stand By Me."

Then they gave us a peace offering.... chocolate cake! Yummmm..... THE END.

Palmgarten Dorm Traditions....

Cowboy Cookies are a Palm Favorite. "K" and "E", just two of our seniors have made some yummy cookies similar to monster cookies. They then dress in like crazy people and serve the girls doing their homework during study hours. Here they are ready to enter a couple of the girls rooms with some milk and cookies.

Weekend in Spain

This past weekend I was able to go to Malaga, Spain and enjoy a retreat with Avant missionaries in Spain. It was a wonderful time to bond with fellow missionaries from America, Canada, Spain, Moracco, and Equador.

This is Becky my roomate for the weekend. She is also a single missionary.

I actually made it to Spain.

This is the road to the camp. It was near here where I saw a stag (a 8 point if you are wondering Dad). It ran behind me on a walk and in to a grove of olive trees.

The camp was covered with beautiful grapes and vines. What a lovely form of shade.

This is the spring that the camp is named after: Spring of Life Camp.

Terry and myself enjoy the orange and pink sunset.

The beautiful, rugged Spanish terrian.

Olives are one of the main crops in this region. All of the hills are covered with them.

I was able to climb a small mountain with some new friends. What a beautiful view.

The Spanish terrian is very dry. The lines on the hillside are rows of olive trees.

On my last night at the Spring of Life Camp some of the ladies played "Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle." We would "spin" the bottle and whoever it landed on had to choose a truth or a dare. It is pretty funny seeing grown women act like monkeys, singing "I'm a Little Tea Pot" or hearing really bad date stories.

Gayle and Dan Lippincott and myself all went through Gospel Missionary Union (GMU)'s C.O.P. (Canadaite Orientation Program) together in July 2001. They have been serving at Malaga Media Center for the last 4 years. Previously they served at the Santa Cruz Learning Center in Boliva. It was wonderful to connect with them. It was fun to see how we could just pick up from where we left off in 01.

Here are Phil & Slyvia, our special speakers and the pastor to the Avant missionaries who are based in Kansas City. They have also served at BFA for 5 year.

Gratises

The girls in Palmgarten have a busy evening after school. They will come home around 4:00 and grab a quick snack and then they have a couple hours of freedom. The girls can use this time to check Facebook, do homework (not a favorite activity), go to sports or play practice, or hang out with the guys in Maugenhard dorm.

Here "K" is updating her Facebook with all of her cool pictures for the Junior Normandy Field Trip. Then at 6:15 we eat the wonderful food the chef from Sudexo cooks for us. After dinner we have gratises. This is the German word for free. And since all of the dorm students have a chore that they do for free we call them gratises.

Here "KD" is joyfully washing the pots in pans as she jams to her music on her IPOD.

Right after dinner the girls try to get in as much time on the Internet or shall we say facebook as possible. "E" and "S" want you to think they are doing homework...really they are on facebook!

"D" is cleaning up the dishwasher area. She has already pushed through quite a few loads of dirty dishes. After gratises are done, we have "study hours" from 8:00-10:00. The girls are either in their rooms or working in the computer room on homework. During this time I have a bit of down time.

I need to be available to the girls during study hours if they have homework questions or need something, so I find a comfortable spot and read! What a wonderful way to end the day. Then at 10:00 the girls come out, grab a quick snack or yogurt or toast and at 10:30 they are off to bed.

K and E are the only 2 Students!

Here are "K" the only sophomore and "E" the only freshman in Haus Palmgarten.


This weekend was the weekend of field trips. On Thursday the Seniors left for Rome for 8 days. I know this sounds really rough doesn't it! The Juniors also left for a weekend trip to Normandy. On Friday the sophomores did a day trip to the concentration camp and the freshmen went to the WWI trenches. It was a day of history. This meant that only the freshman and sophomores were in the dorms. Since Palm only had one of each we were down to 2 students and 4 staff!



"K" enjoys her view of the Rhein River is Basel, Switzerland on Saturday. We ate our lunches near the river and then we strolled around the city center.


Stephanie, the dorm mom, "E", and Lizzy, a RA enjoy the beautiful weather.


Three staff and one student, now this is a good ratio!


Here Lizzy helps "E" and "K" celebrate their first Starbucks! What a day to remember!


We also treated our students to fine dining at a lovely Thai restaurant in Lorrach, Germany. It was both girls first time to eat Thai food! Yummmmm....


The dorm parents, Luke and Stephanie Welbourne, and "E" are waiting with great anticipation for the food to come out! What a great weekend to relax with only 2 girls.

Concentration Labor Camp

I chaperoned the sophomore field trip on Friday October 2, 2009. Mrs. Stefan, a history teacher, takes her tenth graders to this place to show them what happened during WWII. Her husband is German and he had family members serve in the Nazi Army. One uncle was even a S.S. Officer. When asked why they served with the Nazi Army, she said that Germany was their country, so they fought for there country. What a good reminder to be aware of what our country is doing and to consider what side we will stand.



The KZ-Gedenkstatte Natzweiler-Struthof in a concentration camp in France that was occupied by Germany during WWII. Many political prisoners were taken here as well as Jewish people. Thousands and thousands of people died here and this was not ever the worst of the camps.

The beauty that surrounds this camp is amazing. From 1900-1936 this was a ski resort that was then turned into a labor camp. The beauty only serves to highlight the ugliness of what was done in this camp to people just like you and me.

The barb wire still stands with a monument to those who died here in the background.

"During the summer, we get up at four o'clock in the morning; during the winter, when days are the shortest, we get up at six. We go to the washrooms where, half naked, we have to wash ourselves with freezing water, we dress, then we receive a pint of infusion or of a beverage they call coffee. Then we go, five abreast, to the roll-call place where the S.S. count the men of each block. The roll-calls often go on four hours, and there we stand still, in the snow during winter, under the rain during summer, without any coat of course.

The roll-call being over, we go to platform I and II for the formation of the work kommandos. This being done, we begin the hard work of the day. At noon, we come back to camp, another roll call is called. Hastily, they give us our miserable two pints of soup in the block. Again we assemble and we leave for our work; at about six o'clock, the work kommandos come back to the camp; at six a roll-call like the morning one, often endless. Then we go to our respective blocks, half naked, we wash ourselves. The poor evening meal is distributed and we have to go to bed in the dormitories."




Here is an example of the bunks. They are 3 across and 2 deep and 2 high. Each bunk usually had between 3-5 people who slept in it. So this set of bunks could have housed up to 60 people.



In the Infirmary, or the place where "doctors" would do horrible experiments on people they would also torcher people. Here Laura, a student teacher from Ceaderville, is demonstrating where they would put people for days on end. The space is so mall that the person could neither sit nor stand. This would eventually cause death. Laura has a small frame. Imagine a large man in this small space.


This is the final resting place for numerous people who died in this place.

Paulene & Elizabeth in Switzerland and Germany

It is wonderful to have family come and see where I live and what I do in Germany. My aunt Paulene (my Dad's sister) and my cousin Elizabeth came to visit. They were on a tour of Switzerland to learn about family heritage and see the beautiful countryside of Switzerland and Germany. I was able to join the tour group as they got a look at BFA. The average of of the tour group was 72, so Paulene, Elizabeth and I were the "spring chickens"!!

We then went to Titisee, Germany. It is a quaint little village that sits on the edge of a large lake.

The German people take great pride in creating beautiful flowers. It is something that I definitely enjoy and I am very joyful that it is not something that I have to do: garden!

We enjoy the beautiful view of the lake as we contemplate taking a boat ride.

The bathroom signs in Europe are a bit more creative than those in the United States!

The Cathedral Dome of St. Blasien was the next stop on the itinerary. Here Paulene is standing next to the door...very impressive.

From the inside of the building the dome itself is very beautiful with windows and a very detailed painting in the very center.
This building is notable from the outside as the second largest dome in Europe.

Here are Leland and Rosalee Flickinger, our tour guides. Leland use to teach music at BFA and Rosalee worked with the finances. The had many wonderful reunions at BFA.

The Rheinfalls! This is the largest waterfall in Europe. Even though it is not high, it is extremely wide and has a huge amount of water constantly flowing through it. I went on a boat to the giant rock in the center of the falls. There I climbed to the top to get a bird's eye view of this magnificent creation.

Paulene, Elizabeth and I had the unexpected surprise of visiting Marthalen, Switzerland. This is the villiage where the Spallinger family originated from. Last year I visited two distant cousin (9 generations) named Manfred and Regula (Bischel) Spalinger. In the church's cemetery we came across the grave of a Paul Spalinger. We all found this very interesting since my grandfather's name was Samuel Paul Spallinger.

We also had lunch at a charming restaurant in Marthalen. There we found the Spalinger family crest!

The beautiful flowers of Marthalen! The Swiss are also wonderful gardeners who love bright colors. I had a wonderful 2 days with Paulene and Elizabeth as we found out a bit more about our heritage.