But anyway, here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to send you through a fast-paced whirlwind blog miniseries. Won't that be fun? I'll just describe some of the stuff that happened the second half of this semester. Let's see, how far back do I need to go?
On April 25th and May 2nd, there were baptisms at church. The majority of them were students from the school. On the second Sunday, two guys from our dorm were getting baptized: Spencer and Phil. The way the church does baptisms is that the person being baptized can choose people to be involved in baptizing them, reading Scripture, and praying for them. So it ends up being the pastor or the parents or other mentors. Not all of the students' parents are able to be there so you see a lot of dorm staff and other teachers involved. Spencer's parents were there, and his father baptized him. But Phil asked me if I would pray for him at his baptism! Here are some pics from the morning.
Make-Your-Own-Pizza Night
This is kind of self-explanatory. One weekend a lot of our students were gone because of a soccer trip, a track trip, and other stuff. So with the handful of students we had left, we allowed them to create their own pizza or calzone instead of us making them for them. A lot of them really got into it, and the results were delicious!
JSB
The Junior Senior Banquet was on May 7th, and I wore the suit I always wear. I had the same beautiful date as always, and we had as much fun as always. The banquet was held in Müllheim like always, and the guys waited outside for their dates like always. There is always entertainment which includes tributes that juniors make for the seniors. This year I helped Reece and Ross make an awesome stop motion video. We took over 1,000 pictures and had a lot of fun with it. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a link to the video. I hope it gives you insight into the personalities of our nine seniors!
Guys waiting for their dates
Me with my beautiful date
Greg and I with our nine seniors
Everyone from HBR at JSB
Senior Appreciation Day
BFA does a good job with goodbyes. And there are always a lot of them. One way that dorms say goodbyes is by having a senior tribute day or senior appreciation day. Basically we spend all day going through each senior one by one and allowing anybody to tell that person why they admire them or what they will miss about them. I think this is an important time, especially for guys. It gives them an opportunity to say things on their heart that they otherwise might not say or even think about. This took about six hours starting in the afternoon and lasting into the night, and we took a break in the middle to eat a giant dinner of ribs! It always ends up being a long, tiring day, but the guys enjoy it nonetheless.
Dorm Party
Every year each dorm throws a party at the end of the year where they go out and do a ton of fun stuff all day long. This year HBR threw an epic party of parties. We got up in the morning and drove over half an hour into France where we rode go-carts THEN we went back to Germany and went to a water park for a few hours THEN we came back to the dorm and ate T-bone steaks the size of my head THEN we drove out to Switzerland to watch the movie "Prince of Persia." That's about as much as you can fit in a day, and at the end of it all, we were exhausted. But the guys loved it!
FYI: We're wearing those creepy black masks so that none of us gets athlete's foot on our ear or something from the helmets. And for the second year in a row, there are no pictures from Laguna the water park because well... speedos only. I wrote about the big blue slide last year, and we dominated it once again this year. Basically, it's a giant no-rules slide. Actually, I saw a sign saying you couldn't take an intertube down it just as I spotted one of our guys dragging an intertube up the stairs so I stopped him. So I guess there was a rule. But as many people can be on it at once as you want. It tells you what kind of slide it is when it is not uncommon at all to be receiving apologies from strangers in the middle of the slide. Weird. When it was time to leave, a group of us were going down the slide one last time, and as everyone dropped into the pool at the end of the slide, every guy started splashing in the water and yelling, "STEAK! STEAK! STEAK!" Goofballs. But dinner was good, and the movie after dinner was good.
My Creeking
This year on June 3rd, exactly two months after my real birthday, I was creeked for the first time. My birthday falls during spring break so no one is around for the real celebration. When this happens, we reschedule the birthdays for a time when everyone can be present. Last year my birthday got rescheduled at least two or three times until it was eventually forgotten amongst the end-of-the-year busyness. This year the rest of the staff was determined not to let this happen. So my birthday was stuck on the schedule a week before my flight was set to take me away. I made it interesting by coming down to dinner dressed in my "Italian Stallion" boxing robe with some boxing gloves on. After my birthday song was over, I pulled out my cap gun that was hidden in my shorts and started firing it in the air like a mad man. There was really nowhere for me to go though, and fake guns only help so much. I put up a good fight, but ultimately ended up in the creek. Once again, all pictures stolen from Greg's blog.
Camping on top of a castle
We continued the "tradition" this year, which we started last year, where we took all of our seniors and camped on top of the tower of the Sausenberg castle. Greg and I both went up and camped with the guys. We cooked hot dogs, told stories, played twenty questions, and enjoyed the beautiful view. The wind wasn't nearly as bad as last year, but we were awakened at about five in the morning by some GIANT buzzing fly/bee creatures. There were about a dozen buzzing around us like helicopters before they disappeared again. Very weird, but overall, it was a lot of fun!
The last event of the year was graduation, but I can't tell you about it because I was already gone! I came back the States early so I could be in the wedding of Jamie, a good friend of mine from high school. The next weekend I was in my cousin Brent's wedding. Now my own is coming up in less than a week. This summer has been so busy so far with wedding planning and support raising. Sorry I dropped the ball on this blog the last couple months! But thank you so much for being interested in my ministry this last year and for supporting me and praying for me. Talk to you later!
Brandon Jeffers
