The Land of the Swiss!

September 30, 2010

Marching through the mud, rain, cold, and up slow death hill with my camera bag, rolly bag, food bag, sleeping bag AND pillow was not the most thrilling adventure in Germany, but an adventure nonetheless. Did I mention it was at 2 o’clock in the morning? So of course we had no sleep the night before. We were heading off to the beautiful land of Switzerland, and despite the rugged beginning I was quite thrilled to head to another country.

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   We were going to Lausanne, Switzerland for the 50^th anniversary of Youth with a Mission. After the 14 hour bus ride, we were overjoyed when we finally arrived, and joined the big rally in a tent that resembled a circus house. It was quite inspiring to hear and reminisce on all the stories from Loren and Darlene Cunningham, especially in the beautiful city of Lausanne. I took so many pictures there; there were so many riveting things to capture. One of the most incredible things about the trip was that I got to spend my 18^th birthday in Switzerland!

            For most of my birthday we were sitting in lecture, but after it was all done we were released at ten o’clock to roam the city of Lausanne until midnight. It was so much fun to laugh and be silly with my girls, and pretend to be a “grown up” since I was 18 now. But we were in a bit of a rush to not miss the last bus, so once we showed up at the bus station with a bunch of other people from our DTS we all hopped on the very last bus of the night. It was barely five minutes though before the bus driver kicked us off, saying it was the last stop.

            We were all quite worried at the sudden change of destination, since we were definitely not back at the YWAM base. Luckily, our dependable Swiss friend Jonas from our very own DTS had a GPS. We followed him to our home; we walked a little over 2 kilometers.  It was scary and cold walking into the unknown land of the Swiss, but luckily we made it to the base at almost 1am.

            The next day wasn’t as much of an adventure, but it was still quite incredible. We got to tour around Lausanne in the sunlight, and actually made it back in time for the right bus. Sadly though we had to go back to our home in Herrnhut, Germany. Got blessed us with the most stunning and radiant sunset though, and after that I slept quite peacefully on the ride back.

            Once we got back to our dear home in Herrnhut, we all marched back down “Slow Death Hill” and to our beloved castle, where cookies and birthday cards and letters were left for me in my mailbox. I’m pretty sure I’m going to remember this 18^th birthday for a very very long time.