first of all i wanted to say thank you to all of you that have left comments for me here on my blog, they are so wonderful and so encouraging. its such a blessing to be missed and thought of. so thank you.

now for the update...
the welcome and goodbye conference was really great. it was a good time to meet and connect with other staff that are doing my same job in other parts of europe. with each day of the conference i felt more and more comfortable with in that group. i am told that they will become my extended family while i'm here in europe and i can easily see that being true. there were lots of highlights at the conference including a sweet hike, a fun bbq, and digging for m&ms with my face in whip cream; but the moment where i really felt Gods care and just at peace with the fact that this is home was while playing a game of settlers. that was something that i had missed from home (i'm not so dorky that i missed the game, i more missed the atmosphere) but it was cool that God provided something similar here.

in other news, getting settled is a lot of work. now that i am back in community i have to begin looking for a house, studying for a drivers license, figuring out banking, learning the military, learning acronyms and learning how to fill out paper work (and there is a lot of it). i will also be trying to figure out things like what chapel service best fits my needs, and how i'm going to make some friends my own age. on top of all that i decided at the last minute to enroll in another masters level counseling class, i now have about a month to complete a semesters worth of reading/work, so please pray for discipline.

today i will have my first club (thats our weekly outreach event) where i will be meeting kids for the first time and sharing my testimony with them. i am both excited and nervous for that.

and finally, i received my last bag of luggage, the bottom half of the things in it were wet and some mold had begun to grow in it (including in my camera...it still works, but it needs a good professional cleaning) but the majority of things we were able to clean and salvage (what we were unable to save had a value of less than $100). so praise the Lord for getting everything back to me, it is such a blessing to have all of my stuff finally here with me.