Guten Tag Aus Deutschland!!

Hello everyone!! I`m here in Germany! And my oh my it is soo beautiful here! Alot has been happening to me since the New Year! I had an absolutely wonderful time at the New Years festival in Hamar Norway. All of YWAM Norway was gathered for a pretty epic time of teaching prayer and worship :D What I really enjoyed was the 24/7 Worship on New Years day! It was so great to let yourself worship till 4 oclock in the morning until you passed out from exaustion and knowing you could sleep the next day. So yes after the main worship ending at 4, a group of us went to the prayer room where we all continued to worship (either awake or asleep). I remember sitting there looking around the room full of people I didn`t know from all the different bases around Norway and thinking these people are my friends and family. The unity in the room was overwhelming!

So yes, it was an absolutely great time of listening to God`s voice. He has really been prodding me forward and giving me new and fresh ideas about my future. I was really encouraged and prepared to keep prodding forward with my walk with Him. Heart surgery is the best!

So now I`m here in Menzingen Germany! The first week we have visted 4 different schools in the neighboring villages doing programs for 9 different classes. We`ve been doing two different programs. One Anti-Mobbing program which the Germany team did last year, and a new Violence Prevention program for the first school. It`s been so much fun! And we`ve had alot of great discussions with several of the highschool students. I really think we`ve made alot of them think and encouraged them with God`s truths. I`ve met so many young people this week, when we ride the train to and fro from the villages Its almost impossible not to see someone you already met.

We also met with the Mayor of Kraichtal which is a city made of 9 neighboring villages, Menzingen being one of them. He was a nice man! Showed the same program as last year, as I was told :p Free pretzels and apple fritzer was really nice too! So it was very cool to be able to pray for the City Council there and inform him of the youth work we do during the project week.

The weekend was soooor nice! We traveled to Heidelburg which is by far one of my favorite European cities. It`s absolutely beautiful! Wonderful streets and just a great atmosphere! We toured the castle there and also took a walk on the Philosophers Walk. Very icy and steep, but a very beautiful walking path overlooking the Rhine river and the Castle. We also had starbucks!! Coolest starbucks ever with a tower room... ahh that was cool! We don`t have them in Norway, so the Norwegians were very excited to say the least...

And that brings me to this week! This week we will be doing youth workshops with 80 youth from the neighboring villages here at the local state church. It`s an all week program with workshops a meal and fellowship! It`s sooo much fun! Tonight I had the first testimony which went really well and I felt like it broke the ice for God to do some great stuff in their hearts :) And It seems I`ve been recruited for the worship team so that was very fun as well! Haha I`m a little confused about tomorrow however... I`m supposed to be cooking bread with this German fellow that doesn`t know any English. We will see how that goes!! :D It will be an adventure that`s for sure!

The youth here are so much fun to hang out with! And I Can`t wait to see all that God has in store for us this week.

That`s a quick update! I hope you are all doing well! Praying and missing all of you!

Go Under The Mercy
-Sam

Say hello to Sweden :) Mini update of my adventures!

Hello from Strømstad Sverige! (Sweden) :) I have... alot to update! I always seem to be quite late in my updates but alas oh well... Right now I`m sitting in the basement of a local church here in Strømstad watching the rain drizzle outside and drip off a few apples still clinging to their tree. The weather here is in an interesting state, I currently reside in that funny place between Autumn and Winter. I suppose Autumn has come and gone, the colors have left, but Winter is still waiting to pay me a visit.

Strømstad is a little town of 10,000 folks on the coast of Sweden not more than 20 minutes f rom Norway. You would think that there is almost no difference here in Sweden compared to Norway, and you would be correct... almost. The culture is similar, the houses and lifestyles are similar, excpt the language. I can not understand a word of svenske... It`s so crazy. Norwegians and Swedes can communicate pretty well and the languages are similar, but its still crazy...

So I don`t have much to say about this team week so far, as it is only the second day. However I will update next week on the last three weeks and finally get around to uploading my Bergen trip pictures and the pictures that I took when Autumn was here almost a whole month ago back in Skien :p And hopefully some videos I`ve taken here around Norway. This next week, I`m putting a huge chunk of my time away so I can get around to this :) There`s so much to say and show! God has been doing pretty awesome things!

As a rough preview of the upcoming update I will talk about the team week following Bergen. Instead of going out, my team stayed back at the base and did alot of local projects including visiting the local refugee camp where several immigrants are trying to become citizens. Very cool experience :) We also had a crazy teaching week, and God has really been right beside me speaking to my heart. More on that! And ofcourse my adventures that will take place this week here in Sweden. I`m very excited bout friday... We get to take a boat to the island Kester which only has 200 people, a small church, and not a single car. I heard it`s absolutely beautiful, and will be working with the youth there so I`m very excited!

In other news I`m actually coming home for Christmas! So I will be back in town by the 14th of December, and then back again to Norway for New years :) I do hope I`ll get the chance to see all of you! I`m sure plans of a campfire/bible study party will fall together in time hehe, atleast I hope so! And... I recently found out that my mini outreach country here in Europe is Germany! So I will visit Germany for two weeks in mid January! I`m Very, excited to say the least :D.

I do hope you all are well! I`m praying for you guys, especially this week. Hello to Venture people, I`ve especially been praying for you guys! I hope your school year is going incredibly awesome!

Talk to you all soon! :)
Go Under the Mercy
-Sam