Saturday Excursions

Having a day off the last couple of weeks, I was able to explore a little more of the surrounding areas. Did you know that Duisburg is only about 20 minutes from the Netherlands? Or 2 hours from France? I was extremely excited to be able to go on a couple day trips and wanted to share them with you.

A friend hooked me up with Graf's Reisen a small travel agency that does Tagesfahrten which means day trips. Basically you show up at the central station at the designated time and they pick you up, drive you to the city you want to explore, then that same bus picks you up and takes you back home. .

It takes all the worry out of the day trying to figure out public buses or trains, plus the cost of taking this bus is a fraction of the cost of a train. 

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

I have always loved reading biographies and autobiographies so when I was about 13 my mom gave me the book "Anne Frank- The Diary of a Young Girl" and she quickly became one of my childhood heroes and led to many other books about human rights.  When i saw how close I was to Amsterdam, I was excited that I might be able to fulfill a childhood dream of going to the Anne Frank Museum and seeing the Secret Annex that I had read so much about as a kid. The entire experience was heartrending, as history came to life.

We were only in Amsterdam for 7 hours and stood in-line at the Anne Frank house for 3 hours but it was well worth it. 

Pictures are not allowed inside the house out of respect for others, being a very emotional experience for many people. But this is a paper model of the home and Otto's jam business underneath

PARIS FRANCE

 Silvia and I took a whirlwind day trip to Paris this past Saturday. We left the bus station at 12:50 in the morning drove through the night and ended up in Paris around 7:30. We were able to spend 13 hours in Paris before getting back on the bus and heading back to Duisburg, getting back just before 3 am Sunday morning.

Unlike Amsterdam there wasn't anything that we absolutely had to see but that didn't stop us from making a very ambitious plan for the day. Our plan was to try and hit all of the typical "must see" places we could, because honestly, I'm from southwest Missouri, when will I ever get a chance to go back to Paris...  

I am pleased to say that we were able to go to them all! a trek that without the metro would have taken over 4 hours just to get to each spot! 

 We started where most do, The Eiffel Tower

Next up was the Montmarte -the cool art district- and to see the Sacre Coeur

The "I love you wall" is something I thought would be cool to see but with only 13 hours and a long list of stops it didn't make it into the "must sees", but we just stumbled upon it!" I love you" written in every known language, it was really cool seeing all the different languages and the reactions of the people when they find the words in their native tongue. 

And lunch at an outdoor Cafe

We got lost inside the Bastille Metro station, once we finally realized where the exit was we were able to see the Bastille. Then took a quick walk to the Notre Dame, which was breathtaking with all of the flowering trees in bloom. 

There was a 90% chance of rain that day but thankfully the only rain we had happened on our walk to the Musee d'orsay. We got there to late to go inside the museum but just walking around and seeing some of the beautiful sculptures was amazing. I even met a french man who I was able to talk with for a while about my mission trip in Europe and what God has done/ is doing in my life, it was one of those really great unexpected God moments where you look back and think "that was so cool, My God is awesome."

We walked over to the Place de la Concord then walked up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe 

It's still hard for me to believe I was able to visit both of these amazing cities. Even though I was only in them for a few hours, the lack of sleep was well worth it :) And some of the connections I made with people along the way still blows me away!

As for my work in Duisburg, this week we are finishing up painting the youth room -hopeful we don't need any more coats of red-  and hopefully we will soon be putting the room back together. Tonight we had the church vision meeting, and the over all conclusion is, it's a great start and heading in the right direction! Thanks for all your prayers over the meeting.

Prayer Requests

• Please continue to pray over the vision and changes the church is in the midst of making
• Please pray for the prayer night I will be putting on Monday- just had a meeting going over the plans and I'm getting really excited for it!
• Please pray that the church members continue to see the importance in going deeper and getting out of their comfort zone.