HUNGARY

So I think mini-outreach is a super secret that the staff must keep from the students - it's an incredilbly joyful experience. Soooo fun. My mini-outreach team consisted of twelve disciples. My teammates names are Aaron, Cory, Corban, Doris, Mindy, Natalie, Tamara, Thomas, Ulla, Willy, and Zoltan. Here's what we did:

Nov 15-18 Budapest Lots of prayer and talking to people
Nov 18-20 Gyor Working with kids and teachers in schools and cleaning up dirty area in town
Nov 20-22 Budapest Team bonding :) and working with YWAM Budapest



That's the basic breakdown. The reality was that our team almost never stopped laughing. Doris, who is from Germany and Hungary bought these famous tasty treats for us called "Pottyos" and the Americans couldn't stop laughing. This may be my favorite photo of all time:

Jesus for President!

First, a quick history lesson. America was NOT founded on the principals of the bible. If you learned this, it is a lie that can easily be learned with very little time and research. The founding fathers of the United States were NOT christian. They were deists, but most rejected the bible, Jesus, and the church. Most of the Americans here in germany with me had learned that the founding fathers were christian and most of the laws we have are because of our christian foundation as a nation. I had never even heard this theory until last week and I was shocked that most people here believed this and that America has been a successful nation because of its christian foundations. However, the nations foundations were built on the ideologies of the time and most of those came from France and were in no way biblically based. And the USA has been largely successful by exploiting other people (native american indians, chinese, immigrants, slaves) which is really not a very christian thing to do. Go ahead and do your own research if you don't believe me. Please. Research your beliefs people! God gave us a brain for a reason.

I finally finished reading "Jesus for President" by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. I loved this book. The Introduction states that it is "a book to provoke the christian polital imagination." It's divided into four sections with the first section discussing the politics of the Hebrew people and how God set them apart from the world they lived. The next section talks about Jesus and how he came and set them even more apart from the worldly politics all humans were stuck living in. The third section talks about how the church went from being persecuted to persecuting others and the current politics of the United States. And the fourth section discusses some practical ways to work with politics as a christian.

This book has confirmed my pacifist stance. Violence begets violence. Jesus would not be proud of America going to war in Iraq. Jesus would not drive tanks into Baghdad. Jesus would not assasinate Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, or any Islamist extreme terrorist. Nor would he have done nothing. Jesus is love. Jesus loves his enemies and asks God to forgive them. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus says, "Love your enemies. Return good for evil." Jesus didn't fight against Rome or against his enemies. When he was being arrested, Jesus disarmed Peter and healed the soldier's ear. If ever there was a time for violence against authorities, it was at that time. But when Jesus disarms Peter, he is disarming all christians. We are to lead a non-violent life. Being Christian means we act like little Christs. And Christ didn't have a flame thrower.

So here's where people might get even more upset with me. Another issue that has been upsetting me lately is the issue of gay marriage. Last week voters chose to change the California constitution to ban gay marriages. This breaks my heart. The bible never talks about Jesus taking away the rights of sinners. And if God is love, and I know He is, then how are we loving gay people by taking away their rights? Won't christians reach more gay people by treating them equally and with love rather than creating laws that make them hate the church? What about divorce? Maybe we should make divorce illegal for christians. It's clearly a sin in the bible, right? So why is the divorce rate among evangelical christians higher than the rest of the population of the United States? Evangelicals are getting divorced and gays want to get married and "christians" are saying that gays are destroying the families of america. Wake up America.

OK, back to Jesus for President. This book filled me with hope and new creative ideas for the life Jesus wanted us to live. New ideas on saving energy like hooking up a stationary bike to the washing machine and letting it run off the power gathered by the bicycle as I excercise. Ultimately, this book filled me with the hope that giving is more contagious than hoarding, love converts hatred, light overcomes darkness, and there are loving solutions to all problems. I'm very hopeful for my outreaches and the effects we will have as we fight extreme poverty in the slums of India and in the remote villages of Ethiopia and Nepal. I leave Saturday for Budapest, Hungary and I will also be traveling around the town of Győr in Hungary. I'll try to post more photos next time. Love you all! If you hate my opinions and even if you don't, pray for me.

More good things

Oh yeah, frost on the ground in the mornings. Snow is not far behind. I think I'll enjoy it.

Dierk came this weekend and brought me a HUGE pumpkin! It's around 30 pounds I think. Ooooohhhh I'm excited to dive into those guts and toast some seeds. Whooo hooo! Thanks Dierk! In return I gave him many apples from our garden. :)



So our speaker Rogerio was really awesome if I didn't say that already and our speaker this past week couldn't get her VISA and our speaker this week had an emergency so the poor staff has been having an interesting time here. I think I'll have a lot more to say starting this week since I think we'll be finding out more information on Monday and Tuesday.

DTS Week 2

Pretty much more Youth Without Any Management. But lots of meetings. It's ok.

So I'm really enjoying my time here. I absolutly love Germany and I love experiencing a real Fall. Leaves crunching under my feet everyday is sweet. I'm super bad at speaking German still, but I'm having a great time trying. We have different speakers each week. Here is our list of speakers:

Rogerio Santos (Brazil)
Colleen Milstein (S. Africa)
Edwin Filles (S. Africa)
Lisa Cuellar (USA)
Wilson (S. Africa)
Dan Baumann (USA)
Susanne Merz (Germany)
Mike Oman (Zimbabwe)
David Gave (USA)

So maybe Jamie (my cousin) has heard of some of these people, but I haven't. I'm sure I'll learn all about them soon.

But yeah, things are great. I don't see how they can be bad when you are fed and have a bed and live with nice people and work in a castle in a forest taking photos.

I had another interesting thought. So my mom has a child in asia right now (Brock is in China for the next 2 weeks) and a child in Europe (me!). Way to go Mom!

Blessings,
Bryn

DTS starts

YWAM - Youth without any management.

So I know Jamie can appreciate that acronym. I moved into town which I'm grateful for and I'm very excited about my roommate who is a sweet 31 year old German chick from Saxony. Nice. I think we will learn a lot from each other.

Not really much to say except I've been really busy moving and preparing for the 50 more students who arrived this weekend and I've been busy avoiding them as much as possible - there's just too many people and too much excitement for an old person like me.

So I spent some time with my pinhole camera this weekend. I made it from the beautiful package of glowsticks Chris sent me. And I got some exciting results so I think I'll do more of that tomorrow.

Alrighty, love all you guys!

<3 and peace to you

A good week

Hello again, dear readers.

This week I had my first night time Ultimate Frisbee game thanks to my amazing boyfriend, Chris Bishop, who sent me three pounds of glowsticks in the mail (You need glow-necklaces and bracelets so you can see the other players at night). It went really well. There were 15 people that came and everyone had a good time.

Thursday was also interesting because a tree fell over right as we were quitting work duties.



We still need to finish cleaning that up. It rotted from the inside.

Thursday we also got our first major assigment: 3 perfect portraits. At first, Jan, the main photographer guy training us, told us it was due Monday. That was totally unrealistic since 20 people were going to be on a field trip to Cologne this past weekend and wouldn't have time. So they gave us Monday off too and it's now due Wednesday morning, but it's been a little stressful with too many people in the darkroom and not enough time/space/training.

But it's fun and I learned a lot. My roommate Mindy asked me to be a model for her and this is the photo she took:




I really like it. Also, I made a new pinhole camera, but I haven't gotten any good shots out of it yet.

Alrighty, the regular DTS students come by the end of the week and our school is short 25 beds. So if you want to pray for that, please do. Mom, I'm praying that you get your passport and that you are working on your house and not doing so many errands all the time. Everyone reading this should pray for my mom too. Thanks!

If we don't, who will?

We watched a documentary today on James Natchwey, the most respected war photographer. Besides being one of the best photographers in all of history, he also has deep, affecting words. I recommend you look up some of his quotes and photographs. One of the quotes that particularly got me this evening was these:

We must look at it. We're required to look at it. We're required to do what we can about it. If we don't, who will?

And it seems to me to be so easy to look away and not let us be affected by the injustices surrounding us. It's far less work to be apathetic and focus attention on celebrities and style and TV shows instead of our neighbors. And it's amazing to me that James Natchwey can continue being surrounded by horrors and injustice and disgusting, disturbing events with the hope that he carries - that he is making a difference. That one day good will prevail over evil. That one day violence and extreme poverty and war will end. Is it too much to hope for?

My opinion is that it is not too much to hope for and I pray that I will never be unaffected by injustice in the world. But no, I do not wish to be a war photographer, so don't worry about that.

Love

My friend told me something wonderful last Sunday. Even though we are people and we screw up, God still uses us. He uses us even when we fall and make mistakes. Not only did my friend tell me this, but God made it very known to me today. So yes, I'm human and I screw up, but I can still be used for God's purposes and make the world a better place. Even when I'm ridiculously stupid. Even when I'm physically, mentally, and spiritually ill. So that's good because only one human has ever been perfect and try as I might, I'll never live up to that.

So we're not even to the Discipleship Training portion of this school - all we've been doing is photography. Photography is awesome so far. I developed my first roll of film in probably 10 years and next week we start out on the enlargers. This weekend I'm getting together 2 presentations. 1 on the photographer Eadweard Muybridge, and the other on the History of CCD and CMOS. Too bad I left my physics notes at home. Oh wait, no, I'm glad I left them at home. Speaking of home, Mom - get your passport.

Photos uploaded

I've uploaded some photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/brynann

There aren't very many and they are all unedited.

Why I'm Here

Hello people,

I'm taking this time to grow closer to God. These next four months are going to be a lot more difficult than I expected because I will be really looking at myself and how I'm living my life and already I'm seeing everything differently. I have not lived up to even my own expectations. I have a lot to work on and to work through. So I'm asking for your prayers that those I've hurt can forgive me. And I just need prayers that I do the right things always from now on. Yeah, it's difficult.

I like my roommates, I like everyone here, and I'm so happy to be in this atmosphere where I can confront my own behavior and actions and I can move on from here... wherever that leads me.

Today we learned about camera aperture. The larger the aperature, the more light can get into the camera. And it reminded me of my life. Just like me, the more I open up, the more God´s light can come into my life. So maybe I´ve got some crap blocking the light from getting through. I just have to unblock that crap and get it out of my life permanently. I can´t bury it deeper or try to hide it. It has to be taken out so the light of Jesus can shine in and through me so God can use me as the person He wants me to be.

So this week I will be learning more about photography, grace, and prayer. Thanks for reading.

Blessed Weekend

We have weekends off and so I´m spending Saturday (today) relaxing and not-procrastinating. I´ll take this time to kind of explain our schedule for the weekdays.

I wake up between 5 and 5:45am so I am outside of the castle by 6am for a quick workout. I am usually joined by two of my roommates and 1-2 others may come. There is usually only four of us. The workout now consists of situps to warm up the core before our short jog. The jog to town is 2km but the last part of it is a monster hill. Some people call it slow death, but it´s more of a quick death to me. Both Wednesday and Friday I was able to make it all the way up the hill without walking. And after the hill, we walk and jog back. I tend to walk the downhill parts since I worry about my knees (I don´t want to have to go through the same thing gma has gone through!).

So after the workout, we stretch and most people shower, but I wait till night to do that so I just change my clothes and wash my face and then there is breakfast from 7-7:30. It consists of bread and cereal and there is butter, nutella, honey, jelly, and milk, tea, and coffee. On the weekends, they have hard boiled eggs and fruit as well, but only on the weekends.

Mondays at 8am we have an all-base worship service. It will be different every week since someone different will lead it each week. Wednesday at 8am we have an all-base intercession - prayer for one particular international country. This week, we prayed for Nepal and heard from a missionary who lived in Nepal and has future plans to do outreach there.

Tuesday, Thursdays, and Fridays, we start at 8:30am with a worship/devotion led by the our base leader Lucy. Lucy is from Brazil so it can be fun trying to figure out what she is saying. Oh and everything is translated so if someone speaks in English, it is translated to German and same with German into English. It doesn´t quite make things twice as long and I really like it. The natural pauses that people take when speaking are filled with the translation. This part of the day is kind of like a mini, interactive sermon. So far, Lucy has encouraged everyone to think and I think that´s so cool. A lot of Christians don´t think and just follow and are ignorant, but here at this base, thinking and science and problem solving are encouraged.

Everyday at about 9:15am we start our photography lessons for the day and that goes till about lunch at 1PM with a half hour coffee break at 11am. I feel so spoiled for having a coffee break. It´s wonderful. I´m actually not allowing myself to have coffee more than once a week so I often have rooibos tea. They usually have fruit at the coffee break as well. It´s quite lovely.

Lunch is from 1-2. It has been a hot meal everyday and it´s very different everyday. One day we had chili and tortilla chips, and we had pasta another day, and potatoes one day, and we had breaded fish hamburger type stuff on friday. Sometimes there is a little salad. And there is always bread.

2-4pm is Work duty. we got to pick work duties and I chose to be on the garten team. I did not spell that wrong since garten is the german word for backyard. And the castle has a very large backyard! So for 2 hours a day I get more exercise (YAY!) shoveling compost, pulling weeds, raking leaves, mowing, whatever needs to get done. Our garten group is really awesome and we all pitch in a lot. Pretty cool.

4-6pm is reserved for special activities, announcements, dark room time or field time. Or in my case, frisbee time.

6PM Dinner. Usually bread and meat and cheese and maybe some small salad.

7PM there will be days with mandatory activities, but most evenings we are free and I take that time to read, and write and study german. I´m not as social as many people here bc a lot of these kids have never been away from home. It´s sometimes feels like being back in the dorms again with everyone getting to know each other and staying up till 2 am hanging out and on one of the 5 computers that the 40 of us have to share and the one phone that 40 of us share. It was so noisy last night at 10pm that I just put in earplugs and went to bed. I think I´ve been going to sleep between 10 and 11:30pm everynight. I usually shower around 9PM and then read till I go to sleep.

That´s my daily schedule. weekends are much more relaxed especially since a lot of kids left for Dresden or Herrnhut to take photos and eat out. I don´t want to spend any money and I just wanted to rest and get some stuff done today so I´m chillin in the Castle all day. We have journals and journal questions to give to our one-on-one and I started and finished my journal this morning and finished Loren Cunningham´s book, `Is that You, God?´ I liked it. It was cheesy, but I liked it. And now I want to work on a powerpoint presentation I will give on the History of the CCD, but my computer needs to charge so I´m charging it and using one of the common computers to write this blog.

This week in photography we´ve been making pinhole cameras. They are really cool. You basically make a camera out of garbage. I don´t like the two pinholes I´ve made so far, so I´m going to make a new one when I find the right materials. It´s easy to make and so this is pretty fun and it´s fun to see how they come out!

Alright I love you guys! Thanks for reading.

Herrnhut

Herrnhut is super small and I love it. Townsfolk are even friendly which I wasn´t expecting. It´s very much like a small town in California, with people saying gute morgen to you as you walk by.

Nadia had told me that the graveyard here is her favorite and it´s my favorite now too. After church (very charismatic), I walked around town a little and went and found the cemetery. As I walked onto the grounds I just had a wonderful feeling that´s difficult to describe. It was very welcoming and beautiful. I think I found my favorite place for chillin. It´s on top of a hill and so you look down at all the surrounding towns. Very nice.

I´m about to go play fussball (soccer). The castle is the place to be since most YWAMers use it for a meeting place. Thus fussball and frisbee will be in my backyard.

Ciao for now.

The Castle

OK, I stole this photo from facebook and added it here. This is where I live. My window is the 3rd floor all the way on the right.

Hallo! Last night I had a lovely evening with Dierk & Nadia, where Nadia prayed the best prayer for me have ever received, and then I had a wonderful bath, and a deep sleep. Today, Dierk drove me all the way to Herrnhut and to "The Castle" which is Wassershloss (translated to water castle). There are mosquitos. I have five female roommates and a closet. That´s a HUGE improvement from how I lived on the Lynx. I get 3 small drawers. I´ll send photos at some point but my laptop does not have a 2 prong power cord so Iäm unable to charge it atm. I may not be able to charge it period so that means no photos for ya´ll at home till I´m back in the USA.

What I know of the program so far: there are 36 girls and 5 guys in the photography program. Next month, there will be 43 more students coming for the regular DTS program. The guys do not live at the castle. The live on the side of the castle. I´m one of the oldest in the program, but there is another 25 year old who is one of my roommates. Another one of our roommates is going to be 18 next week. She was homeschooled and you can tell. Most of the students are from USA and Canada, but I am already practicing much german in town where no one speaks english. Dierk also MADE ME ask a shop clerk in german for a bag for our groceries. This was before my brain was working - less than 3 hours after he picked me up at the airport. But it was super good for me.

And from what I`ve seen so far, I have brought less stuff than most people and I´ve packed better. So that makes me feel pretty good considering I felt like I brought too much stuff.

I love you all! Thanks for checking my blog. I especially love Chris. AWWWWWW!

Updates

Hello, Hallo! I have about a year worth of updates to do. Here's the quickie:

Right now I'm about to start a wonderful adventure in Germany. After a marvelous three week vacation here that ended one month ago, I applied for and was accepted to YWAM's Photography Discipleship Training School which I start tomorrow.

What have I been doing since last year? I hopped on board the Tall Ship Lynx in January 2008. It's a very pretty boat. I jumped off of Lynx in Oakland, CA on May 26th, two days after we won the Master Mariner's Race in San Fransisco Bay and jumped right onto Dauntless, another beautiful schooner. I sailed with Dauntless back down to San Diego. I figured if I left San Diego on a schooner, I should also return by one. What I've taken away from this sailing experience is that I love boats and sailing, and I loved the huge muscles I grew from being a deckhand with all of the climbing, furling, hauling, scraping, slushing, tarring, rust-busting, sanding, painting, coiling, cleaning, and other various tasks that fill our twelve hour days with grueling labor. I do not miss the tar and brasso under my nails nor do I miss the callusses like I thought I would. I am proud to have feminine hands again and I'm happy I'm not looked down on for showering. Some sailors can be very dirty, grumpy people... The Dauntless crew was neither dirty nor grumpy and I am so happy I had the opportunity to sail with such a fine crew. I may write more on this later since it was a very interesting six months of my life and I should probably write a little more on my last vacation. But for right now, I'm going to visit more with the most beautiful newly-weds Dierk und Nadia.