Joy to the World!

Joy to the World
the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare Him room....

Wishing you a very blessed Christmas!

This Nativity scene is a special gift (it was made in Congo, Africa) given to us by dear friends of ours, before we left the USA.

Christmas eve day....

It's Christmas eve day.......and at 8 AM this morning we began baking our Christmas cookies, while listening to sermon's "on-line" and singing Christmas carols! Most all of these cookies you see here, are going to be given to the two families who have invited us to join in on their celebration of Christmas eve and Christmas day.....we'll keep a few for us to enjoy too!

It's Christmas time!

It's Christmas time.....and over the past few days we have been enjoying listening to our instrumental Christmas CD and listening to sermons "on-line" in the anticipation of the Christ Child's birth. We have a small amount of decorations out and our Nativity scene that we have on our shelf in our living room that we have out all year round. We been hanging up to display all the lovely and thoughtful Christmas cards we have received ~ THANK YOU to all for your Christmas wishes!!

God's goodness ~ God has provided for us and others who do not have family to be with this Christmas, two different families who's hearts so lovingly goes out to us and others! On Christmas eve, we are invited to share with a very dear family we are friends with to their home for a "Christmas walk through the snow" (if the snow stays around....it's been melting over the past couple of days). After wards we will share in a meal and then a time of Christmas carols and fellowship. On Christmas day we will attend La Rochette church, for their Christmas day service and then we are invited to share in a day of Christmas celebration with another family. We are so very grateful and give thanks to God for the hearts of these folks for us and others at this time of Christmas!

Good ole McDonald's!

Good ole McDonald's

Several weeks ago, Trace and I decided to treat ourselves to a good ole McDonald's meal since the first time we arrived in Switzerland! There is two McDonald's that exist in Neuchâtel, one is located in the train station and the other is in the center of town. Can we tell who just how happy Trace was to have this special McDonald's treat?! Here's a little interesting bit of information, if you would like to get packets of Ketchup (Heinz brand, by the way) to go with your french fries it costs 20 cents a packet!

~ Picture of the Week ~

~ Picture of the Week ~

Today, Trace went to the church we attend in Neuchâtel (I stayed home with a sore throat and a bit of a cold) and when he returned home, low and behold he brought this little bread man home with him. Each person as they were leaving the church service this morning received one of these little bread men. As you can see, I enjoyed savoring this with a nice cup of hot tea (to help with my sore throat of course!). At the moment we don't know if there is a story behind this little bread man as a tradition of Switzerland, but we will ask to find out, that's for sure.

Graduation Day!!

~ Graduation Day ~

Well, we are officially graduated from Inlingua School of Languages!! We did not receive a diploma and that's just fine with us ~ we know the achievements we have made through out this past year. So, whats next for our French language studies you ask? Our French language coordinator has recommended we do our own French language studies at home until we leave for Africa this February. We have plenty of study material and also a couple of good inter active French language sites we are going to be using as well. We are certainly motivated, dedicated and structured to do this work at home!

We are extremely grateful for all of our teachers at Inlingua, we thank them for; their patience, their gift of teaching, their humor at times that we needed it, their comforting words of encouragement and all the extra material they allowed us to borrow to further our language skills!

Picture of the Week

~ Picture of the Week ~

Château Gruyeres
in
Gruyeres, Switzerland

To enlarge the photo, left double click the mouse on the photo.

Giving thanks for Thanksgiving

~ Giving thanks for Thanksgiving ~

Trace, carving the Thanksgiving turkey.

What a delicious turkey!

Lots of vegetables to savor and cranberry sauce made with real cranberries.

Home made pumpkin pie too!

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we had the opportunity to enjoy a Thanksgiving celebration last (Nov. 28) Friday afternoon after school. Our dear friend from Switzerland, had invited a total of 5 missionaries (Trace and I included) who are in Neuchâtel for French language studies and our French language coordinator to join in the celebration of Thanksgiving. It was a lovely time shared together and we ate very well.

We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatos, cranberry sauce, vegetables, rolls and pumpkin pie with whip cream!! It was incredible ~ it was just like home! During our meal, we took turns sharing what we are thankful for and then after we enjoyed our pumpkin pie and coffee, we had a wonderful time of prayer.

A special treat!.....the guys did all the cleaning up of the dishes! One of the other ladies brought Tupperware containers, so we all were able to take home Thanksgiving leftovers. We are very grateful for our dear friends, who made all the preparations that went into this Thanksgiving dinner to make it so very special for us Americans, not being able to be home for Thanksgiving. We give thanks to God for special friends blessing us with a lovely Thanksgiving celebration.

~ Bountiful Blessings ~

~ Bountiful Blessings ~

Today was the day we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family of brothers and sisters in Christ here in Switzerland. We do hope and pray that your Thanksgiving day was a time shared with your loved ones. Giving thanks for God's bountiful blessings!

In our next blog entry we will share with you our pictures of our Thanksgiving feast!

Blessing in a Box...part two

~ Blessing in a box....part two ~

On Tuesday, November 25 I had written in our blog site about the "Blessing in a box". What we did not know at the time when I had written about it, was the Bible that was in the box was not given to us by Trace's parents (we had assumed that, since it was in the box of all of the other things they mailed to us, along with the Bible). We have come to find out that this English/French Bible was mailed to Trace's parents from our friends back home in PA! We THANK YOU dear friends for this wonderful gift!! We can't expess enough how much we appreciate it and I (Karen) have been reading from it each day, ever since we received it!!

Blessing in a box.....

Blessing in a box....

Before we arrived in Switzerland, we planned out carefully what are the things that we most needed to bring that would fit in five suitcases, two carry-on bags and two computer back-packs. We had to decide which books we would like to read (maybe even for the second or third time). I decided I would take my study Bible, since it has so many notes that I have written over the years through out the margins from varies sermons that I have heard to Bible studies I have taken. However, it dawned on me that I had not brought along a purse or a pocket size Bible, that fits easily into my purse. So, I have been contemplating; do I order a small Bible via "on-line" through the Christian book store or do I look and buy a small French Bible here in Switzerland?

Today, we received in the mail two boxes filled with wonderful surprises; some delicious food items (especially the Oreo cookies), others are necessities (that are not always easy for us to buy here). As we continued to dig down through one of the boxes, I could not believe what I saw......The New Testament Psalms and Proverbs in both English and French (written side by side) and the size....yes, you guessed it, it's purse size ~ exactly the size I was imagining. A blessing in a box!! God provides even our smallest needs. God is so good!

We THANK YOU so very much Dad and Mom for the "care packages"!!

~ Picture of the Week ~

~ Picture of the Week ~

This picture was taken some time during this past summer as we were walking through a small village in Switzerland.

~ Thanksgiving ~

~ Thanksgiving ~

With the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner, you may be wondering what we are doing for Thanksgiving this year?

We have been invited to share a Thanksgiving feast being lovingly prepared by a dear friend of ours in Switzerland. She has warmly welcomed a total of five missionaries (all from the USA) who are all studying the French language at Inlingua and a dear friend to her home after school on Friday, November 28. We are extremely grateful for her thoughtfulness, compassion and Christian love extended to all of us. So, we will be enjoying; turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and the best of course....pumpkin pie! Most importantly, we will be with family, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Giving thanks for His goodness.

Not your typical vaccinations....

Not your typical vaccinations...

Today, we began our vaccinations for Rabies. We will have a total of three vaccines for Rabies over the next month. This is one of the last vaccinations that we needed before arriving in Africa. The doctor we are going to is one who specializes in Tropical Medicine. This doctor had also given us wonderful council about the prevention of Malaria; what medicine we will need to take and what is the best way to treat our mosquito nets prior to arriving in Africa ~ to help prevent us from getting Malaria.

Picture of the Week

~ Picture of the Week ~

This building is found in a quiet little place in the center of Neuchatel. On has to go through a small little walk way in order to find it.

~ Picture of the week ~

~ Picture of the week ~

A recipe for disaster?

A recipe for disaster?

Last week, I decided to bake my favorite dessert given to me by my mother called Cherry Kuchen, I thought it would be nice to take it in to share with our classmates and our professors. The next day, one of the students in our class said that he loved the dessert so much that he would like the recipe. This student said it would not be a problem for me to write it in English, just as long as I can explain it in French. So, over the week-end I wrote out the recipe in English and on Monday morning I explain how to make it in French to him.

The next day, this student came into to class telling us that he had made the Kuchen. I of course asked "so, how did it go?", he said to my surprise " it tasted different and it looked different, the cake had raised much more than mine", unlike the way mine was made, it does not raise much at all. As we began to speak to each other in French about it and how he was making the cake, he said that he had really mixed, mixed and mixed the batter with an electric hand mixer! Oh dear, well that explains it then, I had left out that one little detail. Any time I make this Cherry Kuchen dessert, I only hand mix it! We all had a great laugh about it.

Prayer for the Day

~ Prayer for the Day ~

Loving God,

Make me more and more aware daily

opportunities to encourage others,

Open my eyes and my heart to the lives

of family, friends and strangers

who I can encourage.

Winter Wonderland

~ Winter Wonderland ~

Last Thursday (October 30) was our first snow fall ~ it was a winter wonderland. Although it did not last very long, the very next day it was completly gone. However, I'm sure there is more to follow!

This picture was taken just as we step out of our apartment door.

Santa Lucia!

Santa Lucia Restaurant
in Zurich, Switzerland

Karen enjoying her delicious pasta!

Trace's dish of lasagna ~ absolutely delicious!

Recently, Trace and I had been given an extremely gracious gift from our home church; Jefferson Center Presbyterian Church (JCPC). They had a special collection on our behave, so that we could go and enjoy a savory cup of coffee somewhere and enjoy an evening of dinning out in Switzerland ~ what a real treat! We are so very grateful for such a special and thoughtful gift and thanks to their gift we will be able to enjoy several dinners out (a great time as well to utilize our French language skills)! We THANK YOU all at JCPC with our most grateful hearts!

While we were on a recent visit to the city of Zurich (thanks to friends of ours in Switzerland who gave us a gift of a train ticket good 2 people to travel any where in Switzerland for a 24 hour period), we decided to enjoy our first dinner there.

As we walked the streets of Zurich, we would walk by many, many restaurants....hmm, what did we feel like eating? Walking by Santa Lucia Restaurant caught my eye, we stopped and looked at the menu that was displayed outside....this is the place!...they have LASAGNA!

Trace's dish of lasagna was absolutely delicious, he savored each fork full. My pasta dish was made with pesto, olive oil, garlic and pine nuts, another tasty dish! Our meals of course came with fresh bread and crispy fresh salads as well.

After our meal, I enjoyed sipping on a espresso, just taking in the charm and ambiance of the surroundings.

My image (through movies) of European restaurants with outside terraces is one we have seen all through out Switzerland, almost all restaurants here have them ~ and what a wonderful way to enjoy your meal as you watch the rest of the world walk by.

Picture of the Week

~ Picture of the Week ~

These stacks of rocks are found through out Switzerland. This particular stack was one that Trace and a friend of ours saw during their hike to the summit of Mt. First in Switzerland.

Starbucks.....oh, what a treat!

Starbucks.....oh, what a treat!

Recently, Trace and I had been given an extremely gracious gift from our home church; Jefferson Center Presbyterian Church (JCPC). They had a special collection on our behave, so that we could go and enjoy a savory cup of coffee somewhere and enjoy an evening of dinning out in Switzerland ~ what a real treat! We are so very grateful for such a special and thoughtful gift and thanks to their gift we will be able to enjoy several dinners out (a great time as well to utilize our French language skills)! We THANK YOU all at JCPC with our most grateful hearts!

Another gift that we had received recently was from friends of ours in Switzerland. They had given us as a gift, a train ticket (good for two people) to travel anywhere in Switzerlnad over a 24 hour period. To our friends we THANK YOU so very much ~ you know how much we enjoyed our travels that day! Blessing upon blessing, God has poured out upon us through our family and friends.

So, with this gift and the gift from our home church we decided to travel to Zurich. The travel time by train was about 1 1/2 hours. Okay, I admit Starbucks was our first stop once we arrived in Zurich.....and what a treat! A savory cup of coffee and a slice of lemon loaf....for a moment it felt like home again. For those who don't know me well, at least once a week I would find myself at Starbucks to enjoy a cup of coffee and a slice of lemon loaf while reading either Scripture or a book of choice. On occasion, it was delightful to meet a friend (s), a time to enjoy amongst friends.

Look for our next blog entry......our dinning out in Zurich! WOW was that great!!!

Switzerland in Autumn

Picture of the week

~ Switzerland in Autumn ~

"Allez! Allez!......Vas-y! Vas-y"!

"Allez! Allez!......Vas-y! Vas-y"!

At every soccer game you will hear that being yelled by the coaches, the team players and the vans that are watching....and that includes us! "Allez" in the French language means "GO" and "Vas-y" means "Go on".

Each week-end we try and take the opportunity (weather permitting) to go and watch the different soccer leagues that play just about 5 minutes walk from our apartment. What really nice is it's absolutely free and every seat in the stands is a good seat to see the match. Oh, yeah and we bring snacks and pop along....what a treat!

Praise

From the rising of the sun
to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD
is to be praised.

Psalm 113:3

Picture of the Week

The Alpes from our living room window!

Be sure...

Be sure to look at previous blog entries, as today our blog site allowed us to download a lot of pictures and for us to write about the past couple of weeks. Our last several blog entries and photos cover everything from elevators to hiking. Thanks for reading and enjoy the photos!

Pic Chaussy...

Our hike near to the mountain peek of Pic Chaussy
(Double click on the picture of choice, to enlarge the picture)

I made it!

Trace and I
(yes, there is snow beneath our feet in the month of October)

Living in Switzerland, how can one pass up the chance to go hiking. Our friends from Switzerland had invited us to go for a day of adventure...to hike up to Pic Chaussy. The Pic Chaussy is a mountain peek in the what is called the pre-Alpes. The Pic Chaussy summit is 7,716 high. For Trace this was easy and he has had several opportunities to go hiking with friends here in Switzerland, but for me this was my very first real hike up a good amount of elevation.

After having a light snack we began our hike. As we continued to hike higher in elevation the view was spectacular and taking a break not only to rest a moment and to get a drink of water but also to take in the beauty of God's creation all around ~ incredible!

Once we reached the top (2nd picture above) which was a little short of the Pic Chaussy summit (due to our time limit of having to get back down the mountain in the day light), I felt this wonderful feeling of accomplishment, something I had not ever done before....to have hiked such a hike as this! After taking in all that was around us we settled into a nice spot to eat our lunch and watch as hawks and falcons soared below us, now that's was a first. It was not long though, that the clouds rushed in, covering our sight all around us.

After finishing our lunch, we began to hike back down. One would think hiking back down might be easier than hiking up. However, hiking back down was done in a very careful manner mind you paying very close attention to footing upon snow and mud at a steep level ~ what a challenge.

We gave thanks to God for our day of safe hiking, good weather and fun with friends!

"Fete de la DesAlpes"

"Fete de la DesAlpes"
and the cows that make this Swiss tradition

Traditional Alphorn

Swiss music with the accordion

"Fete de la DesAlpes"

This is a tradition that I had been waiting to see and experience since we arrived in Switzerland. We are so very grateful for the friends of ours here in Switzerland that were able to drive us to this day of the "Fete de la DesAlpes"! This particular "Fete" or festival is a day of celebration when the cows are brought down by the local farmers from higher mountain side pasture grounds. Earlier the same day as the festival, the farmers place on each cow a large leather collar (some of them colorfully embroidered) with a big bell around the cows neck. Some of the cows (such as the cow in the first picture) are given head dresses to wear as well. Then the farmers slowly walk their cows down off the higher mountain pasture grounds where they have been since the spring time.

In the early afternoon of the festival, there is a parade. The cows are the first to begin the pararde followed by the traditional Swiss Alphorn (picture above), accordion players (pictured above) and marching bands, etc.

There were plenty of food stands to choose from, bakery items to buy, home made candies and artist selling their crafts, all in all we had a fantastic fun filled day!

I could not believe...

I could not believe....

that there would be such big spiders in Switzerland! Okay, I am very much aware that I would most likely see big spiders in Africa once we arrived, but I had not ever thought I would see such a big spider here in Switzerland. Thanks to the boards that make up the ceiling in this picture, Trace a day or two later took a second picture with a measuring tape in the same place to compare/measure the size of this spider. This spider measured 3 1/4" in diameter.....that's way to big a spider to be living in our apartment! If you notice too, it only has 7 legs.

Is that really an elevator?!

Is that REALLY an elevator?!

Yes, it's really an elevator! During our vacation time, when we spent the day in the city of Berne, Switzerland with our friend Priscilla, she took use to this really cool sporting goods store. This sporting goods store had in it this very unique elevator, one of which I have never seen before. What is so different about it is a couple of things, the first is the elevator does not stop at all. It's all in the timing, and it requires good timing too. You have to wait until the bottom of the elevator floor is level to the ground you are about to stop off from and it just carries you up WITH OUT stopping. If you would notice also, there are no doors to this elevator either. Trace had so much fun on it, he continued to ride up and down the elevator a couple of times. Once was enough for me!

Sometimes....

Sometimes, things do not always go as we plan. Like for example, our blog site lately. Over the past couple of weeks we have been experiencing problems with our connection to the Internet and then when we go to post a picture, it just will not allow it. Thank you for your patience.

Lausanne Cathedral

Lausanne Cathedral

During our visit to the city of Lausanne, we could not miss seeing the Lausanne Cathedral. It's construction began in 1175 and was then consecrated in 1275.

Lausanne was one of many medieval cities to institute a nightwatch to prevent the all-too-common threat of devastating fires. Although it is mostly stone stone, the city was once made mostly of wood and burned down several times. Every night, watchmen stationed on the wall surrounding the town would call out to each other, ensuring that there were no fires and that no enemy was approaching.

The cathedral nightwatch was the most important. Every night, the watchman walks up the 153 stairs to the top of the tower. Every hour on the hour from 10pm to 2am, he calls out to the four directions: C'est le guet; il a sonné l'heure ("This is the nightwatch; the hour has struck"). Lausanne is the only city in Europe to continue this tradition to this day.

Cloches (des vaches)

Cloches (des vaches)

"Bells of the cows"

~ Journey of the Cows ~

During the month of August in our blog, we had asked if any one knew what the first picture above was.....any idea? They are cow bells! To share a bit of Switzerland culture....the secound pictures is from the "Journey of the Cows". The "Journey of the Cows" is when the farmers walk their cows down from the high pasture ground after being there since spring. As you can see from the picture; the cows are wearing these large beautiful embroidered collars with the large bells and beautifully arranged floral head dresses. To enlarge the photos to see them better, double click the mouse on the photo.

This is something I'd really like to see while in Switzerland! So, yesterday we had asked one of our friends from Switzerland; when and where do we need to go to see the "Journey of the Cows". She knew just where we need to go and when in our local area. On Saturday, September 27 we will travel, not to far from Neuchatel to take part in this festival! Look for more pictures later!

Our Day In Berne, Switzerland

Our Day In Berne, Switzerland
To enlarge these photos to view them better, double click your mouse on the photo.

Our friend Priscilla

Trace and I

The lovely cobblestone streets of Berne

God has truly blessed us with a our friend Priscilla (pictured in the second photo down). Over the past several months she has been helping us one day a week after school with our French language studies. She was so kind in taking us during one of our vacation days to see the city of Berne, Switzerland. We had a great time walking through the lovely cobblestone streets, window shopping and seeing different sites of the city! We even walked by Albert Einstein's house! The one picture that did not make it in this blog (because it was not in focus)....our coffee time at Starbuck's....oh, what a treat ~ cafe mocha!

We thought we would share a little history lesson with you about Berne; The city of Berne was founded in 1191 by Berchtold V. Duke of Zahringen. The wooden-built town was almost completely destroyed by a fire in 1405, the houses were then rebuilt of sandstone. There are approximalty 130,000 people who live there today, the Municipal area is 20 square miles and nearly one third is public parks and woods. What a beautiful city!

Trace has won the gold

Trace has won the gold!

If you would like to see the photo's enlarged, just double click your mouse on the photo.

Where's Karen?
Do you think Trace can make the jump?
Le Parc Olympique Lausanne

One of the highlights of our vacation was to travel to Lausanne, Switzerland by train (approximatly 1 hour away from where we live). We made a point as you can see to visit the "Olympic Capital". It was fitting that we visited the very week the Olympics in Beijing began. The Olympic capital in Lausanne, is home to the Olympic Committee and also the Olympic Museum, the world's largest information center about the Olympic games. Lausanne is Swizerland's fifth biggest city and is situated on the banks of Lake Geneva. After our visit of the Olympic capital, we found a nice little spot to have our picnic lunch sitting along the lake. Once we finished our lunch, off we went to go walk through the streets of Lausanne ~ taking in the charm of the boutiques and cobble stone streets.
Until next time! Hhmmm.....a a church that is regarded as the most beautiful Gothic building in Switzerland.