A Circle Of Friends

As those of you who've been in close contact with me have heard dozens of times, I am so surprised and overwhelmingly blessed by how welcoming, encouraging, and accepting my peers have been. Specifically my 11th grade class in which I feel like the girls have warmly welcomed me into their circles.

Most got to know who I was quite quickly between my always being lost or late and I've probably asked the majority where a classroom, bathroom, bus, or teacher was at some point. But to my delight and relief, I've never even seen a hint of annoyance at this helpless American and her questions :-) Now that I've been in school a while, I finally know who are the people are that added me on facebook two months ago and my language skills are finally allowing me to participate in conversations!!!! (A very exciting achievement I'll have you know)

I've also joined a Christian girls group that meets every Wednesday night. The group has about 15 girls on a full night and each night has a theme that I've found to be quite creative and always fun. :-)

Germany's Next Top Model night included a wardrobe exchange!

Germany's Next Top Model! Well, that was the theme and everyone was asked to bring at least two pieces of old clothing they didn't want --we ended up with sweaters, sweatshirts, jeans, scarves, and anything else you can think of. Unlike everyone else though, I didn't have 5 years of clothes just sitting in my closet as I did a wonderful job of packing lightly when I came, but it worked out and once all the clothes were displayed, the hounds were set loose to find something in the pile we wanted. I ended up with a pretty blue scarf :-) Afterwords, we talked about how beauty isn't everything.

Me and my AMAZING friend, Eva <3



Eva was one of two friends "assigned" by my dear Mama, to help me on my first day of school. Well, her assignment lasted far longer than one day, but now we hang out as friends and Eva is no longer my babysitter ;-) We have nearly every class at school together, go to the same church, play handball together, and also attend girls group so I'd say I've gotten to know her fairly well in the last two months and really come to love her :-)

The Fast and the Furious! ...We couldn't stop laughing!

I missunderstood the instructions for this night, and therefore am in shorts instead of jeans but it was in September and I didn't get too cold :-) We arrived as usual and then loaded up and went out into the middle of the woods to play what I'm used to calling "night cames". My legs came out of those woods a little scratched up and I had to go fishing in mud that was at least a foot deep for the flip flop it stole from me but not without having a blast! The evening turned out to be a lot of fun and after our "fast and furious" game, we sat down and talked with candlelight.

My awesome leaders, Anne and Francie--Africa night!

Set to a Jeopardy style gameboard, Africa night included tons of trivia regarding African food, geography, animals, and a few random topics. My team decided they loved the "action" category rather than the actual trivia so we ended up crushing walnuts by hand and drinking over a liter of water each--all to a timer of course :-) It was one of my favorite nights with a discussion I could barely follow on challenges women face in Africa.

We have always have lots of laughs and lots of fun :-)

And that picture is what I'll leave you with. A great representation the laughs and smiles that I've come to know and love so much in the last months. I'm really exciting to get to know my friends better as the language barrier slowly begans to decrease.