Brandon in Kandern!

Hallo from Germany! I arrived here safely on Thursday around 7 o'clock at night. I had no trouble with my flights, my layover in Frankfurt, my luggage, or finding the two RA's who were waiting at the airport to pick me up.

Like I mentioned in the last post, I received a call at 8 in the morning on Wednesday, the day of my flight, letting me know I could leave that night. That meant I only had a few hours before I needed to leave the house. So I finished packing things up like a madman. I woke my little brother up after an hour or two and told him we were leaving for Chicago in a few hours. That was met with, "Are you serious?" We finally got out on the road around two (my mom, Blake, and I) and picked up my dad at work around 2:30. We headed straight from there towards Chicago and met my sister at Moody a little after 5. We dropped over by Portillo's for one last American burger and one last chocolate cake shake (yum). Then we stopped by the public library so I could print off a couple important documents that I may or may not have remembered to print off earlier in the day during my mad rush. I didn't end up needing them. Got to the airport between 7:30 and 8. Before long, some tears were shed, goodbyes were said, and I don't know when the next time will be when I see friends and family from the States. But I miss you all!

Headed from the Mulhouse/Basel airport (it's on the border of France and Switzerland) to Storch, one of the dorms around the school where all of the RA's, new and returning, are staying together for the first couple weeks. At this point in my journey, I had almost doubled the amount of countries I've visited in my life if you count the two at the airport... which I guess you don't... but that's cool. Got to the dorm around dinnertime, ate some dinner, played some cards, watched a movie, and went to bed, ending my first day in Germany. Through the first two days jet lag hasn't been a problem. So I'm thankful for that.

Today we visited the school to wrap up our class on the German language and culture (which I missed the first four days of). This trip successfully fulfilled the name of my blog because Brandon was finally actually in Kandern. Tonight some of us took a trip into Switzerland to visit the city of Basel. This was awesome and actually counts as visiting Switzerland (not like the airport). We walked around the streets and took some pictures, and I got to see some buildings over three times as old as the United States itself. Pretty sweet.

There's nothing new to report because we're just hitting the weekend so it won't be until next week when things start getting busy again. Pray for unity and the fellowship among the staff because these next few days and weeks are vital as we get to know each other and prepare for this ministry with one another. So far I have enjoyed hanging out with everyone here. Next week we will have a lot of sessions on the Germany culture, life at BFA, and all of that. So continue to pray also that I would take in and apply all of this new knowledge and wouldn't be afraid to be open and ask dumb questions. That's all for now! Thank you for reading and God bless!
-Brandon