Not I, Said the Big Bad Wolf!

Okay, Ill give in. Actually miss my family right now. [love you!]

Anyways, Since our last post, we have been to Vienna, Where we stayed with the Brother of my friend Shamiran and His family(Eva, Immanuel and Elizabeth]. Incredible hosts and friends and lovers of God =) and continue to pray for them in their ministry to Assyrian refugees; Grunau, where we were offered a job to work in the Treehouse Hostel there =p; Salzburg where we "experienced" everything Mozart and Sound of Music OH and ICE CAVES!!! the biggest in the world!; Venice, where we got lost (of course, but we meant to!) and sat by the sparkling canals eating baked bread and Nutella.

Besides that, we are now in Rome! Exploring the ancient History of bloodbaths and romance. We also went into the Bascilica of "Saint Peter in Chains" Where the chains that Peter reputedly wore before his crucifixion are kept in a glass case. It was actually quite powerful, sitting in that church, looking at Peter's chains with Michaelangelo's sculpture "Moses" to the right, thinking about these men of God who sacrificed everything for the Word of God, praying about how I can know God and serve Him even a fraction of the amount that these people have. As for now, we will continue to give water and bread to the beggars on the street in Jesus' name, and sharing His love to the people we meet. We've actually met so many cool people on our way so far! (Toga parties and awesome roommates help with that ;)

Oh and we also have a super opportunity (at a "slightly" extra expense) to go on a three day trip to Pompei, the ancient city preserved by volcanic ash.

Internet is expensive and we're running out of time again, wish we could write more, but hey! More stories to share when we return!!! Thinking about you lots, especially family and Joe's Place (and certain somebodies) haha, love you all, Oh! And at Cheryl's request here's an itinerary of our next stretch of our journey.

Pompei: July2-4
Rome (again) until the 7th,
Stopover in Siena, Picture at Piza, Florence for 3 nights, Cinque Terre for two, and then off to other countries!

Please leave comments or email us about how we can remember you and pray for you too!

Dobri den!

That means "good afternoon" which is probably the only thing I can say correctly in Czech =]
We are now on our fourth night in the Czech republic and loving every minute of it! The beautiful castles, old architecture, rolling green hills, wild poppies, cheap food =)
[Although it is raining here in the tiny town of Cesky Krumlov but we get free internet, so hey!]

Our first two nights in Praha (Prague) were spent with Jen Nolin, a lady I met through her parents who work at my school whom I met while searching for someone who knew whether I needed a visa to visit the Czech Republic or not! haha. So it was really kind of her to let us stay with her without even meeting us! But that is one reason why I love being a part of the Body of Christ. All family. And we even got to help out at her school for a few hours. (She's a grade 2 teacher at an international school). It was so much fun meeting kids from all over the world and helping them colour and cut out fish and being stung by the crepe paper "tentacles"!!! It was a nice change from all the sight seeing and historical information that I feel obligated to absorb as much as possible while traveling the old and culturally rich European landscapes! But one gets a little exhausted of all the incredible sights and sounds and information. (Although the acoustics were AMAZING in "the oldest church in Prague" where we listened to performances of Ave Maria and Mozart and Vivaldi etc)

But I must say thank you to whoever taught me that ping pong game where you hit the ball, drop the paddle and run around to the other side of the table-you know what I'm talking about? Anyways for our last night in Prague, staying at our hostel, it was a hilarious alternative of laughter and ridiculous fun getting to know people-we had about ten people going -while everyone else was out on a pub crawl. But seriously. So much fun. Although I had to humbly explain that I had not invented the game but everyone loved it, so cheers!

Oh and get this. Checking in, we realized that I had not booked two beds in an eight bed dorm, but no, the entire eight bed dorm. AGHHHHHH with no possibility of cancellation!!! I was about to cry. But then I realized it was still only about 40 Euros altogether and we had our own private shower and toilet so it wasn't all that bad. And of course God had a reason. Let's just say that it opened up a door to help out our awesome friend Leigh (who was previously staying in a room with all guys haha fun, but smelly) and share scripture and pray with someone who actually really appreciated it. And now she has a bible and open eyes and I'm excited to hear about how God is going to use her in the rest of her travels!
"God, if you want me to read this story to her then make her cough or something so I know she's still awake"
"cough"
"...fiiiine"
=]

Do you have a piece of chewing gum?

BERLIN!

This City is fantastic, with so much historz (and crayz kezboards) AMAZING Döners and wonderful people. We took a bike tour our first day which was really neat, riding a bike around the city, hearing the history and stories about the berlin wall and Hitler's bunker. We saw some museums and met more people on our busabout tour. We have about ten friends now that are traveling to Prague on the same day as us! Australians, Canadians and Brits and Iäm sure well meet more =) Quite the characters some of them are. Should be a fun trip.
So on the bike tour our Australian friends decided that they would like to order the big one liter mugs of Beer (each) and let me say that the rest of the tour was quite entertaining.
Oh and one girl had her bike tire flattened so we got to watch our tour guide in action!
I got a free piece of the Berlin wall for volunteering to stay at the back the whole time... didnt help that we got lost and separated from the front of the group for about 10 minutes or so haha.
Well Im running out of time on this computer, but feel free to ask us more about our adventures last night haha
"what do you want to do?" "I dont know, what do you want to do?" "I dont know, Jesus, what do you want us to do?" "fine.. lets just walk around.. maybe find something... music... i dunno"

"Hey, do you speak English? Oh good, me too. Do you have a piece of chewing gum?"

Prijst de naam van Jezus

Okayyy! So under some promptings from Jacee I have decided to create a blog to follow Olinda's and my adventures in Europe!
We have already been away from home for about 2 weeks now. Our first weekend was spent in Montreal with my wonderful relatives (Thank you Uncle Brian and Aunt Luce and Noemie and Sophie and Erica!) and we had a really incredible time. Among catching up with old friends (like Noemie and Dena and Kelly and Christy and Nathan and Sherri) and worshiping with fellow believers and dancing on Mont Royal and walking along the Saint Lawrence, we also had opportunities to meet new people and pray with others who really needed it. (Barbra anne and Lucky)
Then we were off to England where we spent a few days in London, seeing the sights and meeting the people. We had more opportunity to talk to people who wanted to talk about God and pray with them as well, in our hostel (Maureen), waiting for the train (Pete) and on the train as well (Stephanie) (We took a train up North to see some country -really beautiful! Lots of Goats too) Oh and we also met up with my ol' friend Dan in Manchester!
Now we are in the Nederlands visitin Olinda's relatives. We got to worship with them on Sunday as well (in Dutch, but I recognized the Hymn "Prijst de naam van Jezus!" and they also sung some english songs.) Such wonderful people! (thank you so much tante Tineke and uncle Zweer and Judith and Sander!) Later today we're going to visit some more of her relatives =) Im still seeing about the possibility of catching up with some of mine. It was just Judith's birthday so there were lots of people coming over and lots of tea and cake eaten! Oh and we also got to have a private tour (along with some tourists from Boston) in a windmill even though it wasn't technically open. God is zo goed!
Okay, that's all for now, Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers and for even reading this thing =p God is so good and has been providing for us and giving us blessings everywhere, and it's obvious that people are praying for us. We're excited to see what He has in store for us and who He has us meet and talk to next!

tot ziens!