Chapter 13, in which I travel to Bayern and start saying goodbyes

It seems I have not posted a blog in a while, which is probably something I say in just about every post I write. The last few weeks have been a lot of fun, but also bittersweet as some things are coming to a close.

A few weekends ago, we all traveled together to Bayern to visit Johanna's family. They live in a town with a population of 36 people and 36,000 chickens. Needless to say, it was a very relaxing time in the countryside. The weather was great as well, and we went to Volksfest, basically a small version of Oktoberfest. I even got to drink from one of the one liter beer mugs, although my drink was not so much alcoholic and more full of sugar and carbon dioxide. We rode bikes, went swimming, and ate extremely well. At the end, I even got to drive for about 450 kilometers on the Autobahn, the German highway. That was most certainly an experience.

Additionally, my time working with the youth group has come to a close, and we had a lock-in event at the church as a sort of wrap-up for the year. During this event we went bowling, and I beat my personal record by around 50 points, so safe to say I'll probably never go bowling again. Another activity in which we participated with the youth group was a volleyball tournament, at which we lost 4 times and one once in a ridiculous fashion, coming back from 10-16 to win 21-17. To be fair, our team consisted mostly of fourteen and fifteen-year-olds, but we held our own.

One of the hardest things for me was saying goodbye to the children at my school because summer vacation began the 22nd of June. I'm somewhat glad to not be getting up at 6:15 anymore, but at the same time it's hard for me to know that I'm unlikely to see most if any of them ever again. I suppose such is life in the missions field.

Anyway, enough of me being sad, here's a bunch of pictures!

 Road tripping!
Look I'm actually in this picture. Yes my beard is natural. No I don't use beard oil.
 We got to enjoy the Bayerisch countryside and go biking with some really cool e-bikes which means I didn't have to work hard to go up hills.
This is Spezi, a mix of coke and fanta, but this is the size of the beer glasses at Volksfest.
 Here I am pretending to know how to fire a gun.
Kris can actually shoot really well and puts me to shame any day of the week.
Here one can see part of an incredible pillow fort that Kris and I made for the children of a fellow American who lives in Mannheim. Reliving childhood can be pretty fun.

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