Chapter 1, in which I basically just arrive and not a ton of things actually happen

Perhaps a slight bit of background information is in order. A while back, perhaps 5 or 6 years, I had decided that I'd like to take a gap year before college and go somewhere with EMM's YES program. Essentially, the YES program was one year consisting of both a discipleship training school and an outreach portion. The YES program, however, shut down recently, and I therefore was not able to participate in it as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I still had the desire to take a year before going off to college and do something worthwhile with my time. It was in this context that I stumbled upon FSJ in Kaiserslautern, Germany. FSJ stands for Freiwilliges Socialez Jahr, but the English nickname for this particular program is Free to Serve Jesus. Since I am pretty interested in serving Jesus, and the program consists of nearly the same elements that comprised the YES program, it seemed like a good fit to me. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I've taken five years of German in school, and as I began looking into the program, everything seemed to just fall into place.

Anyway, here I am, embarking on my adventure. I arrived in Kaiserslautern Wednesday morning and got settled in before getting a tour of a little bit of the city by Mike, the leader of the program and a fellow American. Here are a couple of the more interesting things that I saw.

 This is an old palace in the city, once a summer home for a Kaiser. It is crumbling a bit, but Mike said that it is still sometimes used for really important meetings and such.

 This is the "Rathaus", the city hall. On Thursday I ventured out into the city on my own to retrieve some yellow trash bags from the Rathaus. Germans recycle about 70 percent of their trash, and plastic, packaging, and aluminum all goes into the "gelbe Säcke".

This is a church that is over 800 years old. Inside I saw a flyer for an evangelical youth choir, but unfortunately I believe I am a slight bit too old to participate. 

 The view from the top of the Rathaus was quite something to behold. Kaiserslautern is a city of just over one hundred thousand people, and the architecture is a mixture of old and new buildings. A lot of the buildings are newer because Kaiserslautern took a lot of damage in the second world war, but one can see the old brick buildings mixed in here and there as well as old churches.

 

 Another old church in Kaiserslautern, this building is currently being renovated and was not open to explore unfortunately. Note the numerous gargoyles along the corners of the building.

I wish I had some interesting stories to tell or that I could write about God's work in my life while here, but I suppose both of those will come. Keep me in prayer as I begin the training and ministry aspects of the program, and as I learn to live with others and divide up labor fairly. Thank you for all of the support, and if you have a question or would like to talk with me directly, I can be reached at hecanmovethemountains@gmail.com at any time, although due to the time zone it may take me a little while to respond.