Travel Weekend

For travel weekend, my friend Kristen and I went to visit my German relatives in Aalen a town near Ulm (still in Germany). It was totally awesome! The whole time we could see God working everything out smoothly. I'm not sure if ya'll have ever experienced traveling in Europe before in an area where they don't speak much English or not, but it's kinda difficult at times...hehe, especially when you're not used to it. Well, Kristen and I had planned everything out to a T, and everything was running smoothly until we didn't see my relatives waiting for us at the train station. Kristen and I both had to go to the bathroom pretty bad, but were afraid that if they weren't there yet, we didn't want to miss them when they got there...but if they didn't know do come pick us up, we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. We were praying, calling my relatives daugther who speaks a little bit more English than she does and couldn't figure out why she wasn't there. I couldn't get a hold of everyone and finally thought to call my mom! She speaks more German than I can and thought maybe if there was a confusion, she straighten things out. As I kept looking around wondering what I was going to do if they never showed up, I saw Irene walking toward me. She hugged me and told me that I was supposed to wait by the track and not leave the station...which I didn't really realized I did. Anyway, long story short, we went back to their house and she made us lunch. She's such a sweetheart! Kristen stayed upstairs in like our own little guest house with everything we could ever need! Irene and her friend Rolf showed us around many places. They took us to see 3 churches, a castle, and to Rothenburg which is one of the main tourist attractions in Germany. It was so great! They totally spoiled us with food, desserts, little gifts, and a whole lot of chocolate! I say we saw God working in our travel weekend because of the whole language barrier. They speak a little English and I speak barely any German. It was practically a miracle we got anywhere and did anything! :) They are so sweet though and very loving! They made us extremely great meals, and treated us like their grandchildren. We also got to spend some time with Irene's daughter, Barbara and her family. It was so awesome, we had a fondu dinner, I got to call my family and talk to them for almost an hour, watch a German gameshow, and eat candy! At the end of our stay, we were really nervous about making it to the train station and actually got on the train with a minute to spare! That right there was a God thing as well, because we didn't have enough money to buy a new ticket.

Love and miss you all!

Love in Christ,
Jill<><