In Bosnia with Operation Christmas Child

Over Energy Break I was selected to be a sponsor for the VCS mission trip to Bosnia.  I was quite surprised that I was chosen as I teach elementary school and all of the students going were high schoolers.  Well, I prayed and packed my bags.  While we were in Bosnia we handed out over 2,200 Operation Christmas Child boxes.  It was amazing!  I have now been involved in all areas of this program and I can say that it has definitely blessed me! 

Here are some things I've learned while on the trip to Bosnia:

• High School students are not scary!!  I truly enjoyed myself while ministering with this group of High School students.  They blew me away with their deep desire to allow God to work within their lives.  Their continual faith amazed me from praying for a simple thing like a fire to start to praying for the OM Bosnia team to encourage them.  It was amazing to me that these kids gave up their break to minister to the hurting.  They are quite talented and have a heart to impact the world and see God move!
  
• Due to the war the Bosnians are hurting emotionally and physically.  We were able to light a match for Jesus in this area.  We were giving hope and trust back to these people. Hopefully this fire will grow and many lives will be changed as a result.
  
•  It was amazing to hear and see the shrieks of joy from children who received the packages.  We were definitely able to give them joy for the moment.  Every child in Krupa, Bosnia received a package.  That is amazing!  Lives were touched.  The joy and sparkle returned to many of these children's eyes.  The laughter that bubbled from their hearts helped us all to realize that we were truly impacting lives!  Some kids were so excited to receive their package they unloaded all of the boxes from the truck themselves! 
  

I am so proud of these students!

So, every year I bite off more than I can chew when it comes to having my kiddos memorize Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12).  Every year we barely make it but we eventually make it!  This year we seemed to slide into it.  It was great!  My kids did so well and they learned it so fast.  I joke with them and tell them that they have incredibly large brains.  We put the motions to the verse on Monday and presented it on Thursday!  They are amazing.  Enjoy the video and know I am smiling with happiness for my Kinder!

A cute kid with a big brain....

This is one of the two students I tutor.  He showed up to tutoring the other day with this cute hat.  I just had to take a picture.  He is a great kid!  He always makes me smile and he always tries his hardest for me.

The things I overhear!

So, today when I was picking up my kiddos from music one of them was telling another student, "This room smells good. It smells like music." When this was said the entire class sniffed to try and figure out what a music smelling room smells like!! I thought this was hilarious so I had to tell you about it! Cute!

While my students were writing their pen pal letters I overheard this conversation:
My new student: "I am from Hungary."
The student who sits next to him: "I know"
My new student: "My mom is Hungarian."
The student who sits next to him: "I don't think my mom is hungry. She probably ate lunch."
This conversation still makes me giggle! I hope it made you smile!

Mustard making . . .

So, to keep my mind busy while waiting for my mom's surgery to finish, Carrie, Cindi and I made mustard last night.  I've never realized how easy it is or how fun it could be!  It worked to keep my mind busy and I laughed a lot while we were doing it.  It was fun knocking on our friend's doors at 11:00 at night just to ask them if they had glass jars we could have!  They were surprised we were knocking on their door asking for a jar!  Most of them were awake (not all mind you!) but they will enjoy it when we distribute our gifts of mustard (Dad's mustard!)

Stirring it!

Sterilizing the jars

The final product!

The Kinder learned to cross the street today. . .

Apparently children (Kinder) in 1st and 3rd grade need to be taught (or maybe reminded) how to cross the street.  So, the police officer came in today to show us how!  It was amazingly fun and he did really well with the kiddos.  My Kinder made me laugh at their questions and answers to his questions but he took it all in stride (with a smile mind you!).  I was quite surprised that he was so good with the kids and he smiled quite frequently.   How could you not smile with my Kinder around you.  They crack everyone up!

The kids were amazed that the cars actually stopped for them.  He said that they had to because if they did not he gets pretty angry at them!  My kids said, "Ohh!" and I laughed!

Snow!

It snowed today.  Actual stick to the ground, looks like a snow globe, snow!!  I was just as excited as my Kinder!  It reminded me of Colorado snow!  It was great to look out the window and see this "beautifulness" floating down from the sky.  Then the realization set in that I did not have to drive in it and this absolute joy increased (as did the smile on my face)!

I have recess duty this week and I quickly realized that the child within me wanted to play in the snow so the 3rd - 5th graders were probably the same way!  So, since I have compassion, I decided to let the kids not only play in the snow but (gasp here) throw snowballs.  The snow is more like a powdery snow so tightly packed snowballs were certainly not a concern!!  I told the kids that they could play in the snow and throw snowballs in the field but the blacktop area is a "no snowball zone!"  The shrieked with joy when they heard me say this!  We had a great time!

I took my students out to catch snowflakes and then look at them through a magnifying glass.  They were so cute and they were so excited to participate in this crazy but fun activity their teacher was now telling them to do!  They are getting used to doing crazy things all in the name of learning! 

Ice skates

I have finally gotten ice skates!!  I had to get figure skates since my feet are small.  We had trouble finding hockey skates that were not children's in my size!  Thank you John and Kelli for the Christmas money to purchase the skates!!!  The Danube (Donau) has frozen so we are using our skates a lot!!  It is so much fun!  We figured that since we are taking our students skating four times this year it would be most cost effective to have our own skates.  It is a good stress reliever and fellowship time to just be out there on the huge river and skate until either your heart's content or you feet simply get tired! 

The Physics of Sound

So, we've started a new unit in Science called the Physics of Sound.  My students LOVE it.  It is a lot of fun to learn through experiments.  I'm sure it helps that their teacher is just as excited as they are!  Today we were using our sound discriminating skills to try and remember how 8 objects sounded when they were tossed (lightly mind you) into the sound chamber.  After this was established, they had to give each object a corresponding letter and then try to have their partner figure out the secret word they were trying to spell.  I bet you know where I am going with this!!!  We had a few miscommunications and funny moments about the fact that they had to choose actual words to have their partner guess!!  At one point I walked by Stephanie and Uendjipa as Uendjipa exclaimed, "Your word is . . . TOLPAN!!!??"  I said, "What??!" and it was then that Stephanie realized that she had to spell actual words and not make her own up!

If Grandpa Wiggins owned a fabric store this is what it would look like. . .

Carrie and I recently went to a fabric store (more like a warehouse) to find fabric for two wall hangings and then we went back to get some buttons to put on one of these wall hangings.  On this second visit, Carrie and I decided to to take pictures of this store.  It is large and everything seems to be a bit disheveled!  Carrie said that if her Grandpa owned a fabric store rather than a rock shop this exactly what the store would look like!  Even though it is a little overwhelming, everything is wonderfully priced and you can find some pretty good quilting fabric if you are willing to search!

Fabric Anyone?  Choose carefully.  There are many more aisles just like this!

One wall-o-buttons!

Zippers anyone??

Frohes Neues Jahr!

Happy New Year everyone!  It is hard to believe that it is 2009 and I celebrated it's entrance here in Vienna, Austria!  Carrie, Melissa, Whitney, Cindi, and me all went downtown to see for ourselves what it is all about.  It was fun but frigid!  I hear rumor that it was -5 Celsius.  It was also quite loud as everyone, and I mean everyone, was setting off fireworks.  We walked from Stephansdom, to the Graben, and finally to the Rathaus where we actually watched the clock strike midnight.  We were even able to hear the huge bell from Stephansdom ring.  It was great!  

It wasn't as dangerous as everyone was telling us it would be.  If you're smart and keep your eyes open you are fine.  New Year's celebrations here remind me of Independence Day celebrations in the States with the Vienna Waltz added in!  All in all it was fun and I am glad that we went.  Once again, Happy New Year.  Throughout this year, may you grow closer to God and fully believe that He loves you with an everlasting love!  Blessings!

I went to Hungary on Tuesday!

It seems hard to believe, I even giggle every time I say it, but I went to Hungary for dinner on Tuesday!  It was fun.  There was a group of 9 of us from school.  We went there to get a cheap steak dinner, fellowship, and go to a store called Tesco (it is kind of like a Super Kmart but was described to me as like  a Super Wal-Mart).  Hungary is about 1 hour away from Vienna.  So it certainly wasn't difficult to get there.  The restaurant we ate at was called Papa Joe's (not to be confused with Papa John's which doesn't exist here!)  It was decorated in a western theme so I took some pictures.

The sunset on the way there!  It was beautiful.  It's hard to believe that I took this picture through a car window!

We didn't eat at the bar but I thought the stools were creative.  What do you think?

I thought Trent would like this picture!

I thought this old sewing machine was quite interesting!

Ferocious Lions??

Carrie and I are cat sitting for another teacher while he is in the States for Christmas break.  We are excited to do this but were a bit concerned about what we signed up for when we received the e-mail of instructions.  It was long and it told us many helpful things but I was wondering if we were cat sitting for cats or if were sitting for ferocious lions.  When we went today the picture below is what we found.  We were able to hold these really scared cats and they even ate out of our hands.  They are cute and we will enjoy feeding and petting them but I hope they start to calm down a bit so we can hold them for longer periods of time without them having little kitty heartattacks!

The Rescue Service

We walked out of our apartment to find four ambulances, two fire trucks, and one police car blocking the road.  I'm not sure what was going on but I said a prayer for those involved.  It seemed calm but odd that there were so many rescue vehicles involved.  I also thought that the ambulances look interesting so here is a picture of what the ambulances looked like.

Christmas in Germany

Carrie and I went to Germany for Christmas.  Our friend, the Elementary ELL teacher, is from Germany.  Her parents are church planters in Mannheim so they invited some of the other teachers to Germany for Christmas.  It was so much fun to see Mannheim, Rothenburg, and Heidelburg.  We also rested which was a highlight for me!  Thank you for inviting us Leslie.  I had a marvelous time with you and your family!

Rothenburg

Heidelburg

The castle in Heidelburg

The view from the gardens surrounding the castle in Heidelburg

Carrie, me, and Leslie on our way to Mannheim via the Frankfurt airport

3rd Grade Gingerbread Houses/Christmas Party

 I'm not a big party person (I know surprise, surprise, right?).  So, I usually try to plan fun activities to do with my students around most holidays.  At Christmas time we make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.  Since moving to Austria I am always trying to figure out how to do some of the same things here.  I appealed to my student's parents for supplies and they pulled through.  We had a grand time making these houses.  Most of my students had never made a gingerbread house before but they did know what they were because we had been reading about them.  It was interesting to teach my kids how to make something that most stateside kids usually know how to do.  Here are some pictures of their masterpieces. Aren't they absoluetly breathtaking?!

Christmas Markets

It is fun to celebreate Christmas here in Vienna.  Even without the snow you have the cold temperatures and CHRISTMAS MARKETS!!!  These Christmas Markets certainly put you in the Christmas mood.  I love to just walk around them and take it all in!  There is so much to see and smell and a lot of people to simply bump into!  Carrie, Cindi and I went to many of the markets together.  We simply walked around taking them all in.  I don't know if I can choose a favorite one but we did go to seven (if I'm counting right) her in Wien.  Here are some pictures.  I didn't take very many but enjoy the ones that I did take!

A Field trip to the Rathaus

Here are some pictures from the First and Third grade trips to the Rathaus for a Christmas craft.  The first graders made candles and the third graders painted pillowcases.  We had a lot of fun for just 3 Euro!