This week felt like it snow down a little bit. On Sunday we got our first big snow quite a few inches and a few friends and I got to go out and take photos it was super gorgeous there's something about the stark contrast between the bright white snow and the black wet trees and a person it makes it almost looks fake. I've so enjoyed being able to take photos of the different adventures that I've had here in Switzerland I made the financial sacrifice to switch phones before I came to have a better camera and to be able to give my mom an iPhone for the first time and I think it was a good decision.
On Monday it was ministry circles and we practiced with watercolor. Last week we had done the hand lettering and so this week we focused on different techniques such as dry brushing, flooding, masking, salt block, wet on wet and wet in dry. It was really cool to learn so many new things and I think that the students really enjoyed it. They always say that they enjoy their time on Monday afternoons. It's quite the break from the date today and it has shifted a bit not not exactly 100% Bible journaling but I know they like it. next week we will be water coloring tons of leaves to decorate the tables at the love feast on Tuesday.
During my down time this week i took the opportunity to pray and ask God how i can bless others with my painting and i i made a few cards to slip into peoples mailboxes. Some people came to me and asked if it was me, and said they were exactly what they needed in the moment. I was doubly blessed.
On Tuesday we or blessed from our staff with a brunch in our classroom with croissants, eggs, spinach, bacon and yummy continental breakfast items. It was such a nice treat we really all felt loved. After brunch and class we got a chance to go shopping to prepare for local Outreach on Wednesday. Our school has taken on the challenge of preparing our Wednesday corporate Outreach to Ripppone square in Lausanne. We usually bring something to share and hot chocolate and it's been a super successful ministry. This week as well as the first two weekends in December my team is in charge. Our theme this week was "faith the size of a mustard seed" and we prepared 200 cards with mustard seeds that told of the verse and attached a cookie and also brought hot chocolate. Within one hour of the three hours that we spend doing Outreach in the city all 200 of the cards were gone and people really enjoyed being able to pass them out and talk with people.
I talked with a couple of ladies myself even connecting with one of them on Instagram inviting her if she would like to come and join us for a Thursday night meeting she's a local christian young adult from the community and attends a church we go to as a base. It's nice to get to chat to people. In class we learned about outreach leadership. So much of leadership is guiding people and on outreach making connections with the people in your outreach community is huge. I tool this week to try and be a leader for local outreach, to not push my ideas but help to create and implement the ideas that the others offered and to do it with excellence. I also tried to toe the line between being helpful and too much like "the checklist mom"... it was a struggle, haha. I wanted to create lots of opportunity to connect so we increased the number of handouts to be able to connect with more people. In dividing up our base at the outreach site i didn't give them too many restrictions but let them go out with people they felt connected with and i think that brought an element of trust and allowed them to be themselves and talk with others openly. it was a very successful outreach.
Friday finally came around and we got to prepare brunch for the DTS. It was so nice to be able to take this on as a school because usually the active DTS stuff have to get up early and prepare this welcome home brunch but we got to do it for them so they could also enjoy.
We had breakfast potatoes, fried eggs, bacon, croissants, french toast and all of the yummy toppings. It was quite the spread and I got to be the MC, I gave one of my first public speeches in a long time it wasn't as great as I wanted it to be but I know that it was encouraging for those students. it was so great to be able to take this time and blessed them.
I got to hang out with some friends go to the market and drink some coffee this weekend and it was a nice change of pace. I love being able to share my favorite coffee shops with other people and also get to introduce them to new places so we went to a couple different shops and then I took them to the rooftop restaurant at the Manor most of them had never been. i love getting to take people to experience things i enjoy.
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