Castle life...

I have some time to write now and wanted to update you guys on what a typical day is like for me (irish) here in herrnhut.

First a little about the town, we are about 20 min from the borders of Czech Republic and Poland. The city we live in is called Herrnhut (pronounced HAIRNHOOT) there are about maybe a thousand people who live here…and I think that’s an exaggeration. There are 2 small markets, a german bookstore, a post office, a bank, a toy store and well that’s pretty much it. The stores close at 6 on week days, noon on Saturday and everything in the town is closed Sunday except the one restuarnt we have…the Turkish Doner (sorry I cant spell that word) Herrnhut was the place where the first moravian church was that sent out missionaries back in the day. So its fitting that there would be a YWAM base here. We live in an old castle. Its called the Water Castle for in spring time there is a lake around it. Right now its all frozen and covered in snow. We are in the middle of a forest and to walk to town it’s a twenty-minuet walk thru the woods up a hill called Slow Death. It sometimes feels like that on the way up, so there is definitely a reason for the name. Keith lives in town and has to do that walk many times a day. I live at the castle and do it maybe every other day.

A typical day for the girls here at the castle is getting up around 7 for breakfast, I’m usually woken up by my friend Satori crawling in my bed saying “woman wake up, its breakfast” I love it. Breakfast is usually cereals with nuts, seeds, raisins, cornflakes, and oats…we have a huge basket of bread that is commonly used to spread massive amounts of Nutella on. This is my favorite part of the day. The cereal is amazing and most of the time I wish I could have it for dinner too. I sit with a group of girls in the dining hall and stare up at the wall-sized map we have. We all sit and talk and talk mostly about countries we have never heard of. God has challenged me while here to research a country a day to be more globally aware. Its nice I feel like I’m being prepared for something in it. Who knows but I feel good learning about different nations. After breakfast we have an hour til 830 when we have prayer time. This is usually spent getting ready…showers and such. We are all still in that phase of wanting to look presentable, but I have a feeling that will change soon. Hah. After that there is usually time to read the bible or hang out in the prayer room and just kinda prepare for the day. At 830 we start with some sort of prayer thing for the day, it differs for everyday of the week. At 930 we start with lecture that is lead by a guest speaker for the week. We have been blessed so far with 2 amazing speakers who have really been leading us in hearing Gods voice and The nature and Character of God. I’m learning so much about God and even myself and am already seeing a vast change in who I am. At 11 we have a half hour break for teatime. This is usually spent hanging out in the main hallway drinking tea and eating LOTS of fruit. It’s a nice little fellowship break. We then go back to more lectures til 1 when we go to lunch. Lunch is a nice hot lunch prepared by the amazing kitchen staff. We have had some pretty amazing meals here so far!! That time is used for more fellowship of students and staff and brings time for your one on one meeting with the staff member you’ve been assigned to. They are kinda like your big brother or sister you can confide in and just talk with about stuff that’s going on. 2pm bring work duty time. Everyone is assigned a job to do for 2 hours to help maintain the castle and its appearance. It’s a nice time to kinda just clean and zone out and talk with God. I am assigned the basement and darkroom for 3 days a week, then the other 2 is snow shoveling or gardening ( which there isn’t much of a garden considering all the snow) At 430 we go back for either bible study, small groups, quiet time or art days this goes on til about 6 and differs everyday in the week as well. At 6 we have dinner which are usually sandwiches, which is nice because its doesn’t leave you super stuffed before bed. After dinner we have free time, its usually used for fellowship, darkroom work, alone time and such. I have started to take guitar lessons on Wednesday nights! Usually go to bed around 10 and start the whole thing over again til Friday. Weekends are free days but the town closes early so sometimes we go to the next city over or just hang out. This weekend we went to Prague, Czech Republic for the day. It was amazing. It was one of them trips ill never forget. So much went wrong but we had a blast. Sundays are such peaceful days. There is a church that has a small service that translates into English ( but its still no South Coast ) and after that its just free time. So not what im used to after Sundays in SB always being so busy!!! That’s probably been the hardest part to adjust to. Haha

Today we found out that in March when the last group comes back from their outreach trip, we will be leaving for a 2-week mini outreach. We will all be going to Budapest, Hungary for a week to stay at a YWAM base there and listen to a guest speaker. Then the following week there will be 3 groups and one will stay in Budapest, one will go to Turkey and one to Romania. I know where I want to go but I have to wait for God to tell me. More on that after Thursday. We will be in these places for a week just kinda helping out. Then in May we leave for our real outreach, which we don’t know the locations of yet.

We have been having a great time. Making new friends and starting to develop real friendships that I know are meant to last a long time. The staff is amazing too. Lots of the girls have invited me over for tea and getting to know you time. Its pretty cool.

Don’t really know what else to say. I think Ive said enough for one day.

Xoxo
Irish