Days in Nuremberg

First of all it is October 13. Therefore it is my beautiful mommy's birthday!!! Happy birthday momma reyna!!! She is the best! One of the strongest people I know. I couldn't ask for a better mommy. Despite her fear she allowed her baby girl to travel across the world, alone, for six months. She let the love she has for me conquer the fear of letting go.

And now that I think about it she is an example of exactly what I have been doing on the streets of Nuremberg. Every day we go out on the streets to share with people, we are conquering fears of failure, doubt, rejection, judgement etc. because we regard our love for God much higher than our fear of man.

A week of being in Nuremberg is coming to a close. Our mini outreach is focused on "street evangelism". I honestly didn't really know what this meant when we arrived, but after a week of being in the streets I have become very familiar with it. Nuremberg is a very diverse city with deep rooted history in the days of WWII. Next to Berlin, Nuremberg was rooted deepest in the Nazi movement. Huge marches would would happen in the streets where we evangelize every day. When the dust settled 90% of Nuremburg's buildings were destroyed.

Every day that we walk the streets and approach people to share Jesus with we encounter, atheism, different religions, poverty, prostitution, humanism and very angry and hurt people.

Our daily schedule usually consists of something like this:
I wake up early, without an alarm. For everyone who knows me that in itself is a miracle right? Haha. I roll out of my sleeping bag, grab my stuff out of my back pack and make my way, using my iPhone, past 30 other girls on the floor of the YMCA basement, towards the door.The people at the YMCA are so generous and provided us with super good accommodations. I wash my face, brush my teeth and get ready for the day. I have a couple hours of good quiet time in the lounge of the YMCA. We eat breakfast together. Usually cereal, fruit, bread and jam. We pack a sandwich and fruit for our lunch that afternoon. I head back down to the lounge for more reading and praying and eventually make my way to Starbucks to answer messages, texts, emails etc. the city is absolutely beautiful! I love walking along the cobblestone streets and passing the beautiful architecture all around. Towering elegant churches and perfectly colored shops. I enjoy practicing my German in Sarbucks with the baristas. They usually laugh a me haha. Our lectures and worship begin late morning at a local church that is near a 10 minute walk away. I rather enjoy waking. My favorite is looking at the buildings and admiring the style of dress all around me! For lecture this first week an area evangelist Sam Hoffman taught us. He taught us practical ways to approach people on the streets, challenged us to be creative and be bold on the streets and had such unbelievable stories! Listening to him everyday definitely increased my faith! After lecture we spend the whole afternoon on the streets putting into practice everything we have learned and experienced. Then we have dinner together and sometimes some type of event after. Wake up, do it all over!

Being an arts school we have done tons of creative things to grab people's attention and start a conversation with them. We do live painting on the streets, 40-50 of us will stand in the middle of the busiest area of the city, sing, dance, pray and worship with instruments. We will have our eyes closed worshipping an when we open them so many people will be standing all around us watching. It is so awesome! We have chalked roads with scripture, buy food or coffee for people on the streets, hide scripture in clothing stores haha. So much more!

Some people have laughed at us or become really angry and yell at us, but hey I have no idea what they are saying anyways so we just keep going ;) because the people that we have talke to and prayed with are worth it! We have made friends here where we are being invited to houses for dinner or they search for us every afternoon just to hang out. Some people have neve heard of Jesus before, others we have helped reignite faith.

What I've learned this week is that we sometimes make this life thing and this sharing God thing do incredibly complicated. For most of the week it has felt like we were struggling. We were all very open to doing Gods work, but it just seemed like something was missing and it was forced. It was exhausting and a lot of times discouraging. Our hearts were very heavy with things we saw going on on the strees. But Thursday it felt like a release happened! It finally sunk in that a lot of us were trying to carry this all on our own shoulders. We were putting to much pressure on ourselves to show people God. But who saved me? I sure as heck didn't save myself, so why am I trying to save other people? I've realized more than ever before that it is Jesus' presence that changes people. I am only a vessel of his presence. If I do my part in spending time in His presence then that will overflow into the lives of the people I encounter! We simply have to be available and willing and God will do His thing :)

Well I think this blog is long enough for now! I will try and post some more detailed and specific stories of people we've met and prayed for! Thank you everyone for all the love and support! Keep praying!!

Highlights Of the week!
-I skyped with a few friends and family while I've been here! You guys have no idea how encouraging it is to hear how God is working in your lives and just to hear your voice! Means so much to me to be encouraged by familiar hearts :)
-my German friend cut my hair with a Swiss army knife :)
-Jesus blessed me with an iPhone that has a working camera so hopefully I will get to share more photos soon!
-our worship times have been incredible in front of amazingly beautiful churches at night and during sunrise atop this stone tower which is the highest point of the city!
-we prayed for a women with leg pain because it didn't heal correctly after she broke it and the pain went away an hasn't returned the last few days!!
-I helped cook dinner for 50 people a few days ago! It turned out awful, but was so fun haha
-was honored to teach some people from the community basics about photography
-walked in the rain, in Germany!
-I have become very used to community showers. Woohoo! Hah
-I learned a new sport. Kind of a mix of volleyball and badminton.