Hi all!

We have made it back from our fabulous European outreach! Thank you all so much for your prayers and support! The trip turned out to be one of the best outreaches I have ever been on!

One thing that stood out more than anything was God’s provision! As you know, God multiplied the loaves and fishes, so to speak, with our finances to be able to go on the trip! When I told my loving mother about our financial miracle, she told me that that would be just the beginning and that many things like that would be echoed during the trip! And she spoke correctly! The entire trip, people were blessing us with food and money left and right and each week we ended up with extra money! It was a huge blessing!

Ok so now, we will give you a fun overview of each week of our outreach with all sorts of fun pics! Hooray!!!!

The Team

Our team leader was Deb! Deb is the head of the Foundations of Theatre Production School and is fluent in Pigeon!

Team leader #2 is Erin! Erin is the head of the theatre dept at YWAM, MT and auditioned for the part of Gandalf in LOTR before Ian McKellan scored the role!

Leader #3 is Wells, Erin’s husband! He was the leader of the band and he glows in the dark!

Then we have Josh and me! Josh was the super cute djimbe player for our band and I was theatre school staff extraordinaire! We worked really hard as you can tell!

Next we have Matt and Becky! Matt was a guitarist/theatre school staffer and Becky was the amazing team violinist! Everyone’s got to have a team violinist!

Student #1 is Jenna! She was our crazy sound tech when she wasn’t studying her brains out!

Student #2 is Laura! She sang lots of songs in the band as well as going crazy keeping up on her studies!

Finally we have our team mascot Kristingle the Gnome! This was his first trip outside of the country and as far as I know, he thoroughly enjoyed it!

Traveling to Europe

Our journey to get to Ukraine was interesting to say the least! We left Kalispell around noonish and connected in Minneapolis! Our next flight was to London and this is where it gets interesting! We were circling Gatwick getting ready to land when an announcement came over the speakers that we couldn’t land there because of a plane that was broken down on the runway! So we were rerouted to Wales! We were just about to arrive in Wales when we were yet again rerouted to Heathrow in London instead! The plan was to stop there for a minute, get refueled and then head back to Gatwick! We land and then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . 3 hours later, the gas truck comes, we get refueled and fly back to Gatwick! By this time, we had, obviously missed our connecting flight to Ukraine!

So we head inside to hopefully get another flight to Kiev only to find out Gatwick has but one flight to Kiev a day! This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that Deb had to teach in the School of Biblical Studies the next morning, so we had to get there ASAP! So, they arrange for us to drive back to Heathrow to take a flight to Kiev via Lisbon, Portugal? So funny!!!!!!

So we take a bus back to Heathrow and catch our flight! At this point, I have become very ill! I started to come down with a cold and was having really weird vertigo! It was only God that I didn’t puke all over our plane! So we fly to Lisbon, and as soon as we arrive, we try to get our boarding passes for our Kiev flight . . . yeah . . . the Heathrow lady never entered our info into the computer so we had no boarding passes . . . So, a very sweet man worked like crazy trying to contact Heathrow so we could get on our plane! 5MINUTES before our plane was scheduled to leave, we get our passes, run through security and safely make it onto the plane! 38 sleepless hours later, we arrived in Kiev! HOORAY!!!!

Week 1 = Kiev, Ukraine

Kiev was fabulous, I have been told! I remember maybe a day of it all because I was so sick and stayed in bed for almost our entire stay!

The YWAM base in Kiev is on a house boat so we rocked fabulously all day and night! Deb taught the book of Leviticus while we were at the base and did wonderfully well! Other than that we helped out by cleaning around the base and doing other random jobs that looked like they needed to be done!

Our contact Tim also took the team (minus myself) on a fun outing/tour of the city! I was not too sad to miss it though as I had been on the same tour about 4 years prior! Josh was so sweet! He snuck Kristingle and the camera to take a cute photo tour for me! Below is a birds-eye view of the city!

They ran into a NATO protest while out and about!

Then Kristingle played in the park . . .

and met his good friend, the chicken!

They also got to tour some amazingly beautiful Russian Orthodox churches! The blue one, Erin calls the Faberge egg church!

The Kiev base was very cool! The SBS dept. was doing a great job! They were so amazingly hospitable and truly blessed us during our stay! It was really cool to be a part of their ministry even if it was only for a couple of days!

Week 2 = Hamburg, Germany

We flew out of Kiev to Hamburg, Germany! I LOVE GERMANY!!! It is so amazingly beautiful there!!!

Our contacts in Hamburg were Steve and Leslie! They, their two cute kids, Josh and Hannah and another family pioneered the YWAM base in Hamburg! We were able to stay in their staff housing and have the building all to ourselves with only one other person Henrich! Henrich was great, and Josh and I adopted him as our son! What a good kid!!!

Below is a picture of Steve!

The train system in Hamburg was great! We took trains everywhere and they were amazingly cheap! This is Josh looking down on me!

Our time in Hamburg was amazingly full of a of street evangelism! One of the main things we were able to do was ministry in the Red light district! This part of Hamburg was definitely on the sketchy side of things! Every shop on the street advertised sex! At night, the main square was lined with young prostitutes as far as the eye can see! One street we walked by had a huge gate up and our contact explained to us that women were not allowed to go down that street! Husbands would go, and pick a girl out of a window while their wives stood on the other side of the gate waiting for them!!!!

We spent a bunch of time walking around and praying throughout the area! Some of the team were able to go and talk with the prostitutes and bring them hot chocolate and invite them to a local soup kitchen/ministry we were also able to serve with! Very cool!

A lot of the young girls who worked in this area were from Romania! They had families and children back home but couldn’t afford to support them! They would come to Germany for a few months because they could make more money in that few months, selling themselves than they could in a year back home! CRAZY! So that is a huge prayer point you guys can keep in mind!

One of the funny ministries we were a part of was called the Love Club! The Love Club is a gentlemen’s club but one of the owners recently became a Christian! While during the week, the gentlemen’s club is still fully functioning, on Sundays, the club is a church and soup kitchen! So our band was able to play a concert and talk about God to a bunch of street people while they ate good food!

Here are a couple of pictures of the Love Club

While in Hamburg, I also gave 3 fun lectures on American Theatre History for our students! It was oodles of fun!

At the end of our stay in Hamburg, we were able to go sightseeing with Steve! Here are some of the fun things we were able to see! First we have a weird norbly tree!

Then we have a cool door!

And one of the thousands of amazing churches!

Here is Kristingle taking a stroll down the street!

Here he is in his yacht!

And here is the beautiful castle he bought while we were there! He is planning to summer there every other year!

One last fun thing was that our team leaders surprised Josh and I with a date night! It was really cute and they even bought us a heart shaped pizza!

Week 3 = Hurlach, Germany

Our next destination was Hurlach Germany! We flew out of Hamburg to Munich and from there took a train to the small town of Hurlach! On the way, we were able to go to Dachau for about half an hour before it closed! We weren’t able to see a lot of it but what we were able to see was humbling to say the least! Here are a couple of pics!

This is the gate into the camp!

This is the amazingly disturbing sculpture outside of the museum!

And the bunks prisoners slept in!

After our time in Dachau, we arrived in beautiful Hurlach!

And we stayed at the castle . . . yes, YWAM Hurlach is in its own castle!

When we arrived, we were greeted by my dear friend Lilli! Oh, I love her! Lilli staffed my Summer of Dance the very first time I cam to YWAM Montana, 6 years ago! She recently moved back to Germany to get engaged! I don’t know what that’s all about! But it was so good to see her! I would have a picture of her but sometimes my sweet friends are not the easiest to photograph!

So, while in Hurlach, our main ministry was helping the base out logistically! So, they put us to work cleaning up the grounds and refinishing their amazing staircases! The entire week, our team stripped, sanded and refinished to our hearts content!

Here is a before pic of one of the staircases!

This is me all beautified in my work overalls!

And Josh working hard!

And here is the finished product! Amazing eh?

We were also able to play some music as well as perform a couple small readers theatre pieces! One of our pieces that I sadly don’t have pictures of was the book of Kings! We performed the book of kings in the fashion of a football game! We had teams Judah and Israel and instead of yard lines, we had year lines! It was hilarious! I got to be a cheerleader! Oh boy!

Ok so here is Erin, me and Deb performing!

And here is the band playing! Isn’t the drummer cute?

After our week of hard work, we got to go to the castle Neuschwanstein! It was an amazingly, gorgeously, beautiful fairy tale castle!!!

Kristingle really loved it here but the people at the castle kept looking at him weird!

Inside was amazingly beautiful!!!!

From the window, we were able to see another castle nearby! Josh took this amazing picture!

After our castle tour, Josh and I ate some tasty food! Here is me with my currywurst and pommes frites! Mmmm tasty!

Kristingle was also able to hook up with his long lost friend the happy snowman!

Our last day in Hurlach, our hosts made us a delicious Bavarian meal to show their appreciation of the work we were able to do! It was so tasty I almost died! They made us porkloin, potato croquetts, and spaetzel which are funny noodly things which I really like! Kristingle enjoyed it as well!

Here, Kristingle is posing with Toby and Bethany who were our bosses on the base!

Week 4 = Heidebeek, Holland

Our final week we spent in Holland! Oodles of fun! We took a fun train ride to the Heidebeek base! When we got there, Josh and I were surprised with our own little cottage on base! Each of the cottages were named after the fruits of the spirit and I am pleased to announce ours was the Love shack! Hahahahahahaha!!!!

Another fun thing about Holland is that everyone bikes everywhere so the YWAM base provided us with great bikes to get us from one place to the other! Mine was purple and it had a bell!

Here is the gorgeous fiets pad or foot path that we cycled down every day!

And the cute miniature horses that were everywhere!!!!!!

Our time with the base was spent mainly doing a bunch of small theatre pieces! We have a piece on the book of Thessalonians which is meshed with the story of Corrie Ten Boom and the book the hiding place! We performed it one night for the staff and there was not a dry eye in the building!

While in Holland, we got to tour around a lot! This is Kristingle with a windmill! He thought it was cool so we had to take his picture with it!

This is a Jewish graveyard in the center of town!

And this is a beautiful Dutch town that Josh took a picture of!

This is Josh hugging the cow because he has become a vegetarian! Don’t tell him I said that . . .

This is a fun Dutch food item called a croquette! It is deep fried meat paste you eat with mustard! We ate these everywhere!

While in Heidebeek we were able to see some old friends who used to work at our bas in MT! Dennis and Rebekah and their 3 beautiful children! Rebekah is Indonesian and her food has haunted me for years since they moved to Holland! She was so incredibly hospitable to us all and created an Asian feast for our team that should tide me over till they come back to Monatana!!! Hee hee!

The last days of our trip were a bit hard! There was a flu bug going around the base as well as a cold that got shared with our team! Oh the joy of it all! I managed to catch the cold and the stomach flu all at the same time! Yeah, my last days in Holland were not my favorite but that is ok!!!!

Outreaches always have their ups and downs but I am very thankful for how well this one went! Our team was so hard working and our students had such good attitudes not only serving the bases and performing but keeping up on their school work and studying! I am exceptionally proud of how well they did!!! This team also had some amazing leaders!!! They set the example for us! They went out of their way to serve each base, each other and us as well! They were always the first ones out there working hard with a smile on their faces! I was so challenged and encouraged by their beautiful attitudes and selflessness!

So there! That was our outreach! God is good! Thank you for all of your prayers and support! I hope you enjoyed the update!!!

Josh and Emily