Brandon's Salon

One way that I have been able to serve in the dorm this year is by giving haircuts. At some point while I was still in college, I started to cut my own hair using clippers and found that it wasn't that hard. Not long after, I was giving haircuts to guys on my floor in college. And now I have found myself offering the same services here at HBR. Once in a while, Brandon's salon will open up at the top of the staircase on the top floor, and guys will hear my clippers running and climb the stairs to see who the victim is. Out of the 24 guys in the dorm, I have given haircuts to... let me think for a second... maybe 12? So I've cut the hair of half the guys in the dorm! Plus a couple adults including Greg the dorm dad. No girls though. I would have no idea what I'm doing there. I only use clippers. I tell the guys, "I'll cut your hair, but only if you want it short." There are several of them who have come back for seconds so the reviews are good I suppose. It's something I enjoy doing for them, and I think they appreciate it. I mean, what guy wants to spend money on a haircut? I think their mothers might even appreciate it more than they do. Some of them tell me horror stories about getting haircuts in their own countries (or from their own mothers) that lead to them having the attitude of "Oh well, it can't be that bad. Do whatever you want." or even begging me to cut their hair, especially when we are nearing a break from school. This last week, I gave one of my more notable haircuts so I figured I'd write about it. Phil has had a lion's mane ever since the first day he showed up last year. I've written about him before, and you may have seen him in random pictures. But this spring break, he was going on a missions trip to Africa, and he is also on the soccer team so he just decided it was time to say goodbye to the long hair. It actually made me sort of nervous. I kept asking him, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" Eventually, I gave in. Here are the two of us upstairs, Phil looking calm and me looking uneasy.

Here we are after the deed was done.

Immediately after I finished with Phil, I gave Will a haircut as well. Here is the pile of hair combined from the two of them following the haircuts.

The day after that, I gave a haircut to Isaac as well. That was the last night before spring break started. A good portion of the dorm was gone already, but the next day we took everyone who was left to the train station and the airport and our spring break officially started! Sidenote: the week before spring break was when March Madness and the NCAA Tournament started so we were able to bring the tradition of filling out a bracket to HBR. Again, similar to my comments on our students and the Super Bowl, quite a few of them had never filled out a bracket before and had no idea what they were doing. But they really enjoyed it, and the first handful of games the first day of the tournament really introduced to them what March Madness is all about. After that, some of them were hooked. I made a giant bracket on the wall to keep track of the official results, and we hung their personal brackets around it. My fellow RA Jon did a great job of keeping the standings updated, showing who was in the lead in making the best picks. I was delighted that we could introduce them to this great weekend of American sports. Here's a picture of the back wall in our TV room upstairs.



I mentioned how Phil was going on a missions trip. Every spring break, BFA sends out a handful of student groups led by staff who go on mission trips to surrounding countries. This year BFA sent out teams to Greece, Macedonia, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and a country in central Asia. HBR had four guys who went on a mission trip. The group that went to Macedonia set up a blog to use specifically for their time there to keep everyone updated on what they are doing. Here is the link: http://www.bfatomacedonia.blogspot.com/. Josh from my dorm and Christopher from my small group are on the trip. They are still there as I write this; go check out the blog! (And pray for all of the kids on missions trips!)



Although our spring break started on Thursday of last week, we still had work to do because this year BFA was hosting a conference during the first part of the break. It was the ICEC (International Christian Educators Conference) put on by ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) at BFA (Black Forest Academy). Yes, we love acronyms! The Residence Life program was put in charge of transportation so we were doing a lot of the same things we do for the students. We picked up people at the airport, got them to the places they were staying, shuttled them to and from the school during the days of the conference, and then dropped them off at the airport when it was time to leave. The conference officially ended yesterday so today was the last day spent driving around making trips to the airport. I was able to attend some sessions during the conference, but what was amazing to me was being able to meet so many people who are serving God all over the world. Everyone who was there worked at a Christian school somewhere in Europe, Asia, or Africa. I met lots of phenomenal people with phenomenal stories. God is good, and he is at work! The fact that I am one of these people who is in a position to be used by God in this way leaves me stunned. All of the people at this conference represented thousands upon thousands who are supporting people doing God's work at these Christian schools. If you are one of those people, I hope you're stunned, too.

God bless.

Brandon

February into March

Basketball season got over a couple weeks ago. The boys' varsity won three games this year, which was a big improvement over last year (when they didn't win any games). They also went on to the tournament where they won two of three during pool play. However, going into the elimination rounds, there were too many teams whose record was 2-1 so they decided who got in based on number of points scored during the first three games. BFA missed the cut by two points! The guys were happy that they made it that far but were heartbroken that they were ousted by such a tiny margin. We felt the emotions along with them, but overall we were very proud of our guys. Here are a few pics from the final home basketball game of the year.

The student cheering section: they cheer just as loud no matter what the score is all the way to the end of the game.

The last home game of the year is "Senior Night," where the school honors the seniors who are on the basketball teams. Many of the students' parents traveled to be able to be at the game with their son or daughter. Will asked me if Lizzy and I would represent his parents since they weren't able to be there. I think part of him just thought it was funny to force the two of us into a role of being parents, but it meant a lot anyway!

This last weekend was our high school retreat. All of the high school students jumped on a rented bus, and we headed north to the town of Feldberg, up in the mountains. This is the same town where we took some of our HBR guys about a month ago. The kids were able to ski or snowboard if they wanted during their free time (I refrained). The speaker was named Greg Speck, and he did a great job speaking to the students and challenging them to be people of character and to put their hope in Jesus Christ.

There were many moments over the weekend when it seemed that a large portion of the student body were being convicted and were softening their hearts and embracing spiritual growth. If you have been on a weekend retreat or an event like this (and I'm guessing almost all of you if not all of you have), you know that there is a period of time following the event where you are still considering words spoken and desiring life change but before long... it seems like life is completely back to normal again. Please pray for the BFA students and especially our HBR guys that they would not settle for returning to spiritual dryness and a heart closed off to the Spirit's voice. I know there were thousands of people praying for these students over the weekend while they were at the retreat, but this is still a vital time for you to be praying for them as they are fresh off the weekend and are feeling the pull back to routine life.

I don't remember if I have mentioned this, but this year I am leading a small group at school. Each student has the opportunity to join a small group if he or she so desires, and the groups meet on Wednesdays. I am actually the only RA leading a small group (most are led by teachers), and I have a group of sophomores. So these are the same guys I was meeting with at the retreat for small group time. There was much evidence that God was working in them throughout this weekend, and I was blessed to be a part of it. Here is a picture of all of us together that we took this Wednesday: from left to right - Christopher, Josiah, Jean Claude, Kenneth, Noah, and Daniel. Pray for them, too!



Lastly, HBR is blessed this week to have a student visiting who graduated last year. It did my heart good to sit down with Sam and hear him talk about his growth and how college is going (he's a freshman at Notre Dame). He also displayed loads of generosity by bringing back a huge suitcase filled with American food to bestow on the dorm. On Tuesday night, we called all of the guys down and let them eat a bowl of cereal or a couple Pop Tarts. Now, I was raised on and absolutely love cereal. And he brought Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp, and Honey Bunches of Oats. I ate a couple bowls, and I don't think I've ever got so emotional over a bowl of cereal. It was delicious, it reminded me of home, and it just made my day. Sometimes it's the little things!


Thanks for reading, and thank you for your continued prayers. God bless!

Brandon

Skiing, Bowl, Getaway: All Super

Super Skiing
Last Saturday Greg and I took a couple vans about an hour north to the city of Feldberg. Seven of our guys went along with three guys from Sonne, another boys' dorm. About half of us skied, and half of us snowboarded. I guess you could say I skied. All you need to know is that skis have never touched my feet before. And they may never do so again. It was exhausting, but all of the guys seemed to have a good time. Here is a picture of the group of us that went. I'm the one on the right in the Ronald McDonald costume that I borrowed from Greg.



Super Bowl
I wrote last year about our Super Bowl celebration, and this year we once again had a really great time. Yes, we are stuck without the commercials, and yes, the game starts well after midnight, but we enjoyed it. Super Bowl Sunday is the one night out of the year that the guys are allowed to stay up way past bedtime on a school night. I mean, how can we deny them the Super Bowl? Although when we asked at lunch on Sunday, at least four or five guys admitted they had never seen a Super Bowl.

This year we decided to hold our first ever "Super Bowl Snack Extravaganza!" We asked them before the weekend to get into teams of four, and to choose a recipe for a snack they would like to enter into our competition. Most of them turned in recipes on Friday so Danielle and Anna went shopping for all of their ingredients on Saturday while we were skiing. Now you probably know what a Super Bowl snack might look like, but I can introduce you to 24 young men who have no idea. Of the six groups, one of the snacks looked vaguely familiar - it was a dip made of olives, cheese, and tomatoes. The other five snacks were bruschetta, churros, cheese quesadillas with homemade tortillas, Korean pancakes, and smoothies. To be fair to the guys, the snacks were delicious and really reflected their home cultures, and overall they did far more than we ever expected out of them. Here's a pic of some of them working in the kitchen.

The prep work took place in the late evening and the actual event began at 11:30 pm. C.B., an RA at the boys' dorm Sonne, came down to drop off three guys who were watching with us so she was pressed into service as a judge. So the four judges from left to right were Danielle, Anna, C.B., and myself. Yes, I wore a Bears jersey for the Super Bowl.


Here are some of the reactions as we started announcing winners. After the judges conferred, I led off by saying, "Before we announce the winners, we should say that we were really impressed with all of you..." I couldn't finish because I was immediately drowned out by boos. BOOOOO!!!!! They didn't want to hear my sensitive, politically correct, mumbo jumbo preface - they just wanted to know a winner! (We gave awards to the bruschetta and the quesadillas)


This is the TV room upstairs where we were watching. I made a couple of my own snacks and Luke, the dorm dad from the girls' dorm Palmgarten, helped me carry them up. You really have to know Greg to understand the sour expressions on our faces reserved for the cameraman. And yes, not only was I wearing a Bears' jersey, but it was David Terrell's jersey. Go look him up. Shame.


We invited some students over from other dorms who wanted to watch. Everyone sits anxiously during the pregame and as the National Anthem is sung. They're all ready for the action to start!


Another group shot. You can probably point to a random person in this picture, and there's at least a decent chance they don't know half of the rules in football. But we had a really fun time! The game went from 12:30 til about 4 in the morning, but the most of the room lasted through the entire thing! (Go Saints!) (Sorry Greg.)



Super Getaway
Meet Austin.


Austin's birthday was Wednesday, but we celebrated it in the dorm on Tuesday because a bunch of people were going to be gone Wednesday. Austin did the unthinkable on his birthday. He escaped from his creeking. As many of you know, a major birthday tradition in our dorm is creeking. On your birthday, you get whatever cake you want, we sing a birthday dirge to you, and you are promptly hauled out back and thrown in the creek. Doesn't matter if it's sunny, raining, or snowing. You're going in the creek. Seniors are exempt from this practice, and they are also the ones who carry out the sentence. But on Tuesday, Austin got away.

Austin is a sophomore, and well, let's just say a lot of the seniors were really looking forward to this day coming. Let me give you a visual. Here's a picture of the dining room where everyone was sitting. The blue circle in the middle is Austin. The red squares around him are all of the other students, singing and yelling in his face, circling like vultures. All of the lights are off aside from the candle on his piece of birthday cake. After the singing and yelling is over, Austin blows out his candle, and it is pitch black. Immediately, there is a tussle like you see in a movie or cartoon where there is yelling and grabbing, but no one knows who is who.


The green circle by the door is me turning on the lights probably three or four seconds after the candle was blown out. The blue arrow represents where Austin was when the lights came on. He was scrambling on all fours straight out of the room, untouched. I couldn't believe it. He had quickly slid under the table and crawled out as everyone was lost in the confusion. He raced out the front door as a number of students chased him. In short, he made a getaway and eventually made it back up to his room on the fourth floor without anyone knowing. He remained in hiding for several hours until not long before lights out. The sophomores showed a video to the dorm interviewing Austin under his own bed, and the seniors took off to tear the dorm apart and find him. They found him hiding in another student's room and carried him outside to deliver the creeking that had been put off for most of the night. So although he made a spectacular getaway, he was indeed eventually creeked. And yes, it was snowing that night.

Stories from Christmas

The last day of finals for the first semester was December 17th, and by the afternoon of Friday the 18th all of our students were out of the dorm. They were rejoicing as they headed towards their three-week Christmas break, and I was granted the huge blessing of visiting home during this time as well. So a month ago on December 20th, Lizzy and I flew out of Basel, Switzerland together. We had a layover in London where we discovered our upcoming flight was overbooked. Then we were randomly pulled aside and informed that we were getting put on business class! Woohoo! This was a life-changing experience (falling short of hearing and receiving the gospel but surpassing the time I found a twenty-dollar bill in an old pair of pants). I ordered coriander chicken off of a menu! I was served salmon, trout, and shrimp as an appetizer! I had my own personal computer that I could watch a huge variety of movies and TV shows on! I could recline almost all the way back in my leather seat and sleep without a problem! I was served a hot fudge sundae for dessert! This was a blessing because it was amazing, but it was a curse because anytime I fly from now on, I will be absolutely grumpy and depressed. Just kidding. Sort of.

So our trip started off the right way, and we had no problems despite several flights that day being delayed and canceled due to the weather. We spent the first week with my family in Morton, Illinois. And here's the part you're all waiting for: On Christmas Day, I woke Lizzy up early in the morning (our family always wakes up early on Christmas), and I told her to get ready. She came downstairs, and I gave her a dozen red roses. We went out on a walk, and walked to a big tree all alone in the middle of corn fields not too far from my house. We watched the sunrise together, and I said some pretty nice things. Then I asked her to marry me, and she said yes! We're engaged! We came back to the house, and spent Christmas Day with my family, and it was a really great day.


We spent the second week of our break in Atlanta, Georgia with Lizzy's family. It was a lot of fun, and we also got a lot of wedding planning done down there too, which was a huge blessing.
The third week, we spent a few days in Wisconsin and a few days in Wheaton, Illinois. In Wheaton I was in the wedding of Andrew Tebbe who worked with me at HBR last year. The wedding was on the 8th, and we flew out of Chicago on the 9th to come back to Germany. Looking back at our three-week break, I realized we didn't have a single night off the entire time. Leading up to the break, I was thinking things like, "Well, I can take care of a lot of stuff over the break because I'll have more time then." And when we were actually on the break, I was thinking things like, "Well, when I get back to Germany, I'll finally have time to take care of everything." Yes, life has been busy, but it has been a good kind of busy. I'm very thankful for the time I was able to spend at home. If you were a part of it, thank you! And if I missed you on this visit, hopefully I'll see you next time.

Speaking of Christmas, I realized I never showed HBR's Christmas celebration to the blog universe. We celebrated the weekend before finals. First we played one of those Christmas carol trivia games where the students were in teams and they had to decipher the names of Christmas carols which were renamed with a more descriptive phrase (i.e., Jingle Bells is instead "A joyful song of reverence relative to hollow metallic vessels which vibrate and bring forth a ringing sound when struck"). Even though I witnessed them trying their hand at similar stuff last year, I was once again surprised that they were terrible at any sort of Christmas trivia.

Then we played "Pin the Nose on Rudolph".

Poster drawn by yours truly

Tony being prepped for a Rudolph search

Spencer can't find the wall

With some help from the other guys, Samuel was literally wandering out into the hallway to look for a place to pin his red nose

A side view of Erik nailing Rudolph right on the nose

After the game, our dorm took part in our annual Christmas gift swap, which was a big highlight of the year for me last year and did not disappoint this year either. Basically, the dorm staff goes out shopping, and we buy enough gifts so that each student will receive one. Then they draw numbers out of a hat and open in order, and they can either open a new gift or steal one that is already opened, and a gift can be stolen three times. Each class of students - seniors, juniors, and sophomores - band together to help each other get the best gifts. It's fantastic. The looks of excitement on their faces and the hooting and hollering from the other guys when they see the opened gift is just priceless. They are simple gifts, but they get a great reaction. Some examples of the gifts we gave are a belt, a scarf, a Spongebob pillow, a couple strands of Christmas lights, ramen noodles, duct tape, a gift certificate to a local restaurant, a large painting (of an ocean scene), slippers, Euro underwear, several hats, and some soda. Here are some pictures documenting the event.

After the gift-opening was over, we all took a few minutes in our temporarily remodeled TV room to relax and listen to Danielle read "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

So that is a sampling of several of my Christmas celebrations from this year. I've gotta say - it was probably my best Christmas ever!

And now I am back in Germany about a week into the second semester at BFA. More news will be coming soon. Thank you for your prayers!

Brandon

Christmas Banquet

Last weekend (November 28th) we held our Christmas Banquet here at BFA. I believe 20 out of our 24 gentlemen had dates for this night. The day of the banquet, it was the same old routine. We were outside playing pole soccer on the basketball court roughly an hour before it was time to leave. Then everyone started getting ready and the questions started coming. "Brandon, do you have a black belt I can borrow?" "Does anyone have an extra pair of black socks?" "Can someone help me tie my tie?" "If anyone has a pair of black shoes they're not using, come to my room!" Eventually, everyone looked presentable and we took off in our vans heading towards the school and a successful night.

Here are all seven of our sophomores in the dorm before we left.

A few of the students from student council were already at the school getting ready, but here are most of our juniors dressed up with an undressed Titus wandering around in the foreground.

The senior class looking dapper.

Here are all of the students meeting up with their dates outside the school before heading in to the auditorium. There's Greg snapping a picture of a good lookin' fella.

If you've read much of my blog, you might remember that at Christmas Banquet, there are several activities that take place on stage, such as acts performed by the students, wishes of the students being granted, and emails from parents being read aloud. If you've read much of my blog, you might also know that whenever there are people using their musical gifts on stage, you're probably going to find Phil. Here he is playing and singing a song with Deborah and Hannah.

One of the odd wishes that was granted with hilarious consequences was a wish by one student that Austin, a junior from Maugenhard dorm, would have a rap battle with Mr. Bowen, the junior year English teacher at BFA. Really funny. Austin on the right, Mr. Bowen on the left, entourages behind and on the far right.

And Phil was on stage again at the end of the night with these other students performing a bouncy rendition of "I'll Be Home for Christmas." This song was performed last year by a student, and the song was given new meaning to me because last year was my first year celebrating Christmas away from home. If you haven't heard, this year I have been afforded the huge blessing of being able to come home and spend Christmas with my family! I'm also going to be in the wedding of Andrew Tebbe on January 8th, which was part of the reason why I made the decision to fly back for Christmas break. Andrew was an RA with me at HBR last year. Needless to say, I'm really excited to be coming home this year!

Here is a rushed picture of the Christmas court voted upon by the students. There is a boy and girl from each high school class. Yes, it's blurry - they were barely up there long enough to snap a pic before they all hurried back to their seats. This year HBR's very own Hangil Jung was voted onto the Christmas court for the sophomore class (third from left).

Tony and me.

And this is every student and staff member from HBR this year!

Christmas Banquet was a great event that the school body all enjoyed together this year. I marveled and agonized at some of the awkwardness on display (and I don't mean only from the students), but it all added up to be a fun night.

There is only about a week and a half now before the students start leaving for their own homes for the break. And I will be leaving a few days after them. This Sunday night we all met as a dorm, and we asked the guys to share some things that they think God has been teaching them this year. The answers were varied, but some of the concepts that came through consistently were that God is sovereign and every person who lives in the dorm is there for a reason, the students are blessed to be where they are, and they should take advantage of the situations they are in and the friendships that they have. Pray that the students and the staff both would be taking advantage of the opportunities we have in these last days together before our Christmas break. God bless.

A Swine Flu Thanksgiving

Sorry I haven't written here in a while. I wrote in my last email update about our swine flu experience and our medical problems in general this semester. Basically, we are pretty familiar with a lot of the doctors and hospitals in the area at this point. During the first week that myself and many of our students were getting sick, the dorm just felt dead. Either you were sick or you felt sorry for those who were sick and also felt like you were going to go down any day. Here's a picture of a white board we were keeping by the front door during the week.



At the time this picture was taken, there were nine people in the dorm feeling under the weather, including two staff (Danielle and myself). The piece of paper taped to the board is actually a police report created by a student. He decided to get cute and make a chalk outline of a person out of tape on the junior floor. He got sick not long after.



To follow up on my email: the school was closed Monday and Tuesday, the 16th and 17th to help prevent the spread of swine flu. On Wednesday most of the students went back to school, but there were still some kept home. Now if you happen to remember from last year, BFA celebrates Thanksgiving on the wrong date in the dorms. Why? I guess it's a compromise between the Canadian and U.S. Thanksgiving dates. But really. I don't know. It's weird. So we were all set to celebrate on Thursday the 19th, a week early. We invited all of the people who help sub in our dorms to join us. Here's a blurry picture of some of the folks eating in our dining room.



If all of the students had been healthy, we would have had somewhere around 50 people for dinner that night. But they weren't all healthy so there were a little less. Yes, we had four students with the flu who were not able to celebrate Thanksgiving with the rest of us. It was really sad! Instead we let them celebrate together in one of the extra rooms on the junior floor. They were a sorry sight. I couldn't decide if it was more funny or sad. We brought them platters of all the food from downstairs, I prayed for them, and we just let them dig in. Here's a picture of the Swine Flu Thanksgiving, again blurry. Sorry about that.



The weekend following was my weekend off so I disappeared for a few days. I came back on Monday to the news that Anna, Danielle, and the Storrs' two children were all sick with swine flu and had been sick all weekend. Poor Greg! He must have had an exhausting weekend. The good news is that none of our students were sick any longer. By Wednesday, everyone in the dorm was flu-free and feeling good. It has been several days now, and it seems like this trial of sickness is behind us.

When we celebrated Thanksgiving in the dorm, Greg gave a short devotion before the meal and emphasized that we should be thankful for everything, including the painful circumstances in our lives. This two-week battle with swine flu was not necessarily a barrel of fun, but I can see some positives that came from it. Many of the students were able to use the time off to catch up on some of their homework. They also spent a lot of extra time with each other having fun and strengthening relationships (especially since they weren't really allowed to leave the dorm or go anywhere). All of them, even the ones who were sick, were able to get a lot more rest than normal. I personally was thankful that I was forced to get a lot of rest the week I was sick even though it was frustrating not to be able to help out around the dorm. Also, this time in the semester in November is when the students often get really restless and harder to deal with because they are ready for a break and the end is almost in sight but not quite. With all the focus on the swine flu and sickness in the dorm, it felt like we kind of skipped that period of time. Now there are only a few weeks left, and I think we can make it! Thank you for your prayers!

My Thursday Diary

6:57 am - Alarm goes off.

7:06 am - Alarm goes off again. I get out of bed.

7:32 am - It's time to take the early van in to school. This is for those who want to go in earlier than they would by riding the bus at 8:30. Three have signed up to ride in. We throw the hot box in the back before taking off. The hot box is what we pick up dinner with every evening to bring it back to the dorm and keep it hot. We take it back to school every morning. The three guys ride silently most of the way to school.

7:47 am - I arrive back at HBR.

7:56 am - I depart again, this time on an "ortho run." Different dorms are assigned at different times to provide drivers to take a group of kids to the orthodontist. It's usually on Thursday but not every week. I take Tony, Mark, and Austin with me as we leave HBR.

8:02 am - We pull in at school where four girls from Wittlingen dorm are waiting to jump in the van with us and ride along. "Ready to get our teeth worked on?" I ask. No response.

8:29 am - We pull into the parking lot for the orthodontist in the city of Müllheim.

8:31 am - I give paperwork to the nice lady at the desk, and we all sit in the waiting room and hang out. I always want to grab a book or magazine in the waiting rooms here, but then I remember... I don't know German! So I try reading a little of "A Tale of Two Cities," which I brought with me.

9:03 am - Soyoung, an RA at Blauen dorm, arrives with another vanload of five more students from different dorms.

9:35 am - Falling asleep.

10:04 am - Everyone is finally done so I leave with the seven students I brought to head back to school. After we're in the van for a few minutes, I ask, "Does anyone want to go to McDonald's?"
"YES!!!" from everyone.
"Is anyone opposed to going to McDonald's?"
"YES!!!" from one or two. Frantic whispering in the back: "He said is anyone opposed!" Then "No, no one is opposed!"

10:15 am - They switch from breakfast to lunch at 10:30 so I buy a couple breakfast items. A bunch of the students buy one-euro ice cream sundaes. Nice stop after a visit to the orthodontist, huh? This is almost tradition for any visit out there so don't think I was being an especially cool guy at this point.

10:53 am - We arrive back at the school, and the students sign in at the front desk and start walking to their respective classes. Third period has just started. I go check if I have any mail and then I hunt around for my Bible that I left at church on Sunday. No luck but it turned up later.

11:29 am - I get back to HBR and find Anna downstairs. "Ready to go shopping?" I ask. I wait for the answer, "Actually, they have hired people to deliver our groceries to us now so we never have to shop again!" Instead, all she says is "Yep."

11:38 am - We grab seven large crates to carry groceries in and jump in the van. I would never think to take crates along if I were just shopping for myself, but when you're shopping for a dorm, it's a necessity. We visit two grocery stores on Thursdays. Anna works on the grocery lists and then divides it so that we're looking for different things in the stores. Here is my list:

Brandon's LIST

LIDL
Ice Tea 12
Milk 5 1.5 cases
Soda 2 Coke 1 Fanta 1 Sprite 1 Apfelschorle
1 case H-milk
1 case Multi-Vitamin
1 case Orange juice
2 cases Apple juice
2 Master Crumble fruit

Penny
5 White bread
2 Wheat bread
8 toast bread
1 Bee Pops
1 Fruit Cereals
2 Nougat Bits
4 flats yogurt
12 flour
6 sugar

11:45 am - Our first stop is at a grocery store called Lidl. Lidl is a lot like Aldi - in fact it is Aldi's main competitor worldwide. Look it up! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidl) I run around and fill my cart with everything on my list. 12 cartons of ice tea. Milk comes in 1.5% fat and 3.5% fat. I pick up five boxes of ten cartons each of the 1.5%. H-milk is a special kind of milk that doesn't need to be refrigerated - the H is an abbreviated German word. We use it mostly for baking although you can drink it as well. It creeps me out. The cases of soda are a six-pack of 1.25 liter bottles. I get 12 cartons of multi-vitamin juice, eight cartons of orange juice, and 16 cartons of apple juice. Master Crumble is a kind of cereal that we get that is actually quite good. After filling my cart with all of these drinks, it's probably almost as high as my shoulders and is probably the heaviest shopping cart I've ever pushed.

12:14 pm - We pay and head out to the van. The driveway down to the parking lot which you drive onto and push your cart down is sloped downward. So when you're pushing the kind of cart that we push, it makes for a really fun experience. When we get down to the van, I think aloud, "I wonder how many liters of liquid are in my cart?" I quickly add up everything in my cart, and the answer is: 161 liters. There are 161 liters of milk, tea, soda, and juice in my cart. And this was only supposed to get us through the weekend. The majority of it would be gone by Monday night. I told Anna, "Have you ever watched those 'World's Strongest Man' competitions on ESPN? I felt like this was one of the events - how fast can you push 160 liters of liquid down a hill and unload it into a van?"

12:20 pm - We arrive at the second grocery store of the day called Penny Markt. I get all of the cereals and breads and decide to get only three flats of yogurt instead of four. Each flat has 20 yogurts on it so that was still 60 yogurts. Again, just to get us through Monday.

1:13 pm - I pull up next to the front door of HBR. Anna and I transfer everything from the van indoors to the pantry. This takes a while.

1:59 pm - Arrange the last item on the shelf and pay a visit to the laundry room. I did laundry on Thursdays last year, and it worked out for me to have Thursday once again. I do the laundry for the seven sophomores in the dorm every Thursday. Because of the busy morning, I hadn't really done much to this point so I just transferred stuff from washers to dryers and put another load in the wash as well.

2:08 pm - I walk upstairs to my room for a brief respite.

2:12 pm - I leave for school again, this time to meet with a friend named Lee. Lee is the middle school chaplain at the school, and he is excellent at asking good questions. His first question to me is, "Are you getting your rest?" Go back to the beginning of this blog post, and start reading all over again, and you'll know what we talked about for the next few minutes.

3:04 pm - I drive over to Palmgarten dorm to hang out with a really special lady named Lizzy.

4:00 pm - I head back to HBR. The bus usually shows up at about ten past four with whoever wanted to come home early that day. It could be four guys or it could be 14.

4:12 pm - Anna made cookies as a snack for the guys who came home. I grab one and head out the door to take Michael to the doctor. Similar to the entry about visiting Palmgarten, there's not a ton you need to know about this trip. Let's move on.

5:57 pm - Normally, I would go pick up dinner at the school at six, but Anna had already left to do so since I was busy at the doctor's office. So I lay down on the couch until she returns and brings turkey stir fry with sesame noodles back with her.

6:15 pm - "It's dinner time! Everybody come downstairs! It's time for dinner!" Made by Anna on our PA system.

6:30 pm - You'd think we starved them by how fast they inhale their dinner. If you've ever eaten with me or seen me eat, then you know I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm the last one sitting and eating at the dinner table every single day.

6:46 pm - Guys are either doing their chores or sitting at a computer or playing outside or are up in their rooms at this point. I find Anna in the kitchen and make sure it's ok that I take a short nap. I climb the stairs to my room and collapse on my couch for a while.

8:03 pm - Study hours start at 8:00 for the juniors and sophomores, and normally I would stay up on their floors to monitor things/help guys study/discourage goofing around. But since I still haven't finished laundry, I walk downstairs to work on that. Thursday is the day off for all dorm parents so Greg and Danielle are not around, but we usually have dorm subs come in on Mondays and Thursdays to help out, and Eric and Viki are here to help preserve the order.

8:05 pm - Doing laundry is a time for quiet reflection in the dorms. Faithful blog readers will bring to mind my laundry blog from the first semester of last year. It takes a while when you're trying to do laundry for seven teenage guys all in one day and end up with it nicely sorted and folded! I pop in a mix cd, and start folding.

8:37 pm - Still folding.

9:14 pm - Still folding.

9:43 pm - I finish folding, and venture back into the world of the living.

9:44 pm - I climb the four flights of stairs up to my room for probably at least the tenth or eleventh time today.

10:00 pm - Toast time! Study hours end at ten, and the guys are allowed to go downstairs and enjoy some toast and milk. When I first heard about the idea of toast time, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Why toast? But now it seems completely and absolutely normal. Toast time!

10:03 pm - Our dorm subs Eric and Viki don't have cars so I leave to drive them home. They both live in Kandern. Good night! Thanks for your help!

10:20 pm - I get back to HBR. Lights out is at 10:30 for the sophomores and juniors so I start hunting around for anyone who looks like they'll want to make trouble tonight and avoid going to bed. This usually isn't a problem, but I like to be ready to practice some Clint Eastwood lines on them anyway. Well, do ya, punk?

10:29 pm - Tonight is a little more frantic than most nights because tomorrow is a spirit day at school. They have these once in a while where there is a random theme to dress up as for the day. Tomorrow students are supposed to dress as their favorite Bible character. This leads to one of my favorite lines of the day.

10:31 pm - On the junior floor, Jay is standing in the hallway and flexing in the mirror. I'm yelling, "Alright, get in your rooms! It's lights out!" Jay is basically ignoring me and eventually proclaims, "I don't know who to go as." He follows that by saying in all seriousness, "I'm thinking of going as Samson." I laugh, and then give him some serious counsel about how he could dress up tomorrow.

10:35 pm - All of the younger guys are in bed. Marco is out in the middle of the senior floor designing a Roman soldier's costume. I stick around and talk to some of the seniors for a while. I'm basically done at this point. It feels especially good tonight because it's my weekend off, and I won't have to be on again until Tuesday morning. Thank you, Lord, for giving me rest! I need it!