With Great Change, Great Opportunity

It's been less than a week since my last post, but so much has happened. I began classes on Monday, and finished today with a full day. It's not as bad as it sounds, though. I am taking a German language class through JYM (Junior Year in Munich, my study abroad program), which meets twice a week, Monday and Thursday mornings. All my other classes only meet once a week. I'm taking linguistics, an overview of Media Systems of Germany and Europe, as well as a Seminar that goes with that, and my personal favorite: Renaissance Drama. That's five classes for a total of 15 credit hours. My lightest semester load since starting college. I figured I'd take it easy since half my classes are in German, and well, I only needed 6 credits to graduate. So technically, I'm overachieving.
Yes, I did say graduating. For all who were not aware, after this semester I will be a B.A! A Bachelor of Arts, that is, in German with a double major in Communications: Media Studies. Crazy how time flies, right? And the question for all impending graduates: what happens next? How will you pay back all of those student loans? What's your five year plan? And for Wheaton graduates: when are you getting married?
Slow down. I'm just getting started. The truth is, I don't know. (I do have a job, but we'll get to that later.) My whole journey through Wheaton has been a lesson in trust. Learning to trust God despite not knowing, or not liking what I see ahead. Yes, I'm scared, but I know that it doesn't matter. God is in control. I don't know how I will pay back my student debt, I don't know where in the world I'll be in five years, and I have no intentions of getting married anytime soon. (Unless there are some desperate Senior guys? Just kidding.) But, I do know what happens next. I take a running leap across the chasm in front of me and trust that He's got me.
That being said, I do know where I will be physically for at least the next year or two. I have officially offered a position in the Front Office on the high school campus of Black Forest Academy beginning this coming August! It's terribly exciting, but also terrifying. I love living in Germany, and I get to stay, but I won't see my family for ever so long, I'm missing my cousin's and my roommate's weddings, and I really don't know what to expect. That's why it feeling like I'm heading towards a chasm. But I will run all the way there.


Here are a few more pictures from the trip so far:

At the peak of the Kranzberg in Southern Germany

Watching an FC-Bayern game with friends!

On the trail on the way up the mountain

A chilly day in Munich

Real German food at the Augustiner Restaurant

A Mountain to Climb

Tomorrow begins the last semester of my undergraduate degree. It still doesn't seem real, especially since I don't have all my classes figured out. But I am close! However, this past week has been full of preparation for the impending semester, as well as fun activities in our free time. We toured the campus of LMU, and got to see where some of the classes there will be. The main building of LMU is on Geschwister-Scholl Platz. The Scholl siblings (Hans und Sophie) were a part of the resistance group, The White Rose, during the 30s and 40s. They, along with their friend Christoph Probst (the building I live in is on Christoph-Probst Strasse), were executed by the Nazis for distributing their anti-Nazi writings. I love how actively the University seeks to honor and commemorate their actions and beliefs. The main building houses a memorial exhibit to them as well.

On Thursday we toured the Paulaner Brewery in Munich. It was very interesting to learn how beer is made, and how they get different flavors and colors, etc. We were given a complementary meal at the end of the tour as well. My favorite part of the process was seeing the room in which they bottle the beer. Germans are very efficient, and this room was no exception. At the beginning was a giant dishwasher, bigger than my room, in which they thoroughly wash all the bottles. (When Germans return their beer bottles, the bottles get sent back to the company they came from, so they can be reused.) Then the bottles go on conveyor belts around the room to the different stations where they are dried, filled, capped, and labeled. Finally, they are loaded into cases and shipped out all over the world. After the tour, we had the afternoon off. A few of us headed to a market near Marienplatz where we bought the best fried dough/ doughnut thing I've ever had! Then Katie and I went to the top of St. Peter's Church (which has the best view of Munich) and took lots of pictures!

Friday was my favorite day so far. We took a train down to Mittenwald, a town in the Alps near the Austrian Border. We spent the day hiking up the Kranzberg. It was the most beautiful day possible. It was 70 degrees, even up in the mountains, and so sunny it hurt our eyes. There was still snow everywhere, so my childish wish to have snow in summer was fulfilled!

So I climbed a mountain. It wasn't the highest mountain around, as you can see by the higher peaks in the pictures, but it was an exhausting and rewarding climb. When we got to the top, the view was unparalleled. No picture can do it justice. There was also a restaurant at the top, where we filled our hungry bellies with Germknödel and Käsespätzle. As cheesy as this is, I´m going to look at that mountain as a metaphor. Because tomorrow I have to start climbing another mountain. Some parts of it will be level and easy to navigate, but other parts will be steep, and I might run out of water in my water bottle. But I will make it to the top, and it will all be worth it. And then maybe I'll have to climb down the mountain, or maybe there will be a cool chair lift to carry me down. Either way, I know that God is in control, and has my back!