Here are a couple of funny videos of various kids at VBS singing. We're still in the process of getting other videos and pictures onto the site, but for now you'll just have to enjoy these! The one of little Sarah Johnson singing B-I-B-L-E is hilarious!
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Sights and Sounds
Here are those pictures that I promised all of you! I planned on getting a lot more on here but we're having some technical and time constraints that limit what I can do. We also have some really awesome videos that we're goin' to upload soon (the internet here is entirely in Swedish so we have to figure out how to get it to English in order to get them uploaded). So without further ado, here is small sampling of what we've been up to the last few days. Bear in mind this whole site is in Swedish so these pictures may not be uploaded in the best way...also bear in mind that these pictures are in no particular order due to lack of free time! Enjoy!
Here's an awesome pitcure of downtown Stockholm.
Ditto.
An amazing castle in the hear of Stockholm where the Nobel Prize is given out every year!
Here's a pic of Jamie pulling weeds outside of the church this morning.
A Swedish girl shows of the lion mask she made (in honor of the "Daniel in the Lions Den" story we told today)
A picture of the fountain in downtown Tranas, taen during our walk on Thursday night.
Sweden is home to some truly massive slugs and snails! This a picture of one of the many giant black slugs we've seen here. Snails are everywhere here! You can't go walking anywhere in the woods without seeing dozens and dozens of them!
Nate and Heather hard at work on the roof for the church's sign.
The VBS kids try out their new kites on Thursday morning.
Some delicious Swedish desserts! Berry cobbler, coconut brownies and some crazy chocolate pudding.
Ariana and Heather are weighed down by various Swedish kids during a game of Duck, Duck, Goose!
Another picture of our thrilling Duck, Duck, Goose game.
As of my last update I honestly really wasn't very aware of what the girls had been up to. The guys and the girls have generally had very different tasks to accomplish. So Jamie decided to write up a little something about what the girls have been doing lately. I'll try to keep up with them a little better so I can write aout both sides from now on. Here's what Jamie had to say:
"Arianna Garofalo and I spent most of the afternoon helping one of the interns, Mary Beth prepare for what is called American Girls Club. The interns meet with local Swedish girls around 12 years old and teach them American things, such as recipes and games. We had a Christmas in July theme today so we iced cookies and strung popcorn while watching a Christmas movie. It was a very inetersting experience because most of the girls spoke very little English. Most of the people we have been around so far speak better English than we do! While we were doing that, Ariana Gubba helped another intern babysit kids from the church. She was on cloud nine. Tonight the girls went to dinner at a family from the churchs house. The food was again really amazing. We are getting ready to attend an orientation on Swedish politics. And its starting now!! So bye!"
The group agreed that yesterday was a very successful ay and we got a ton of work done. We got the chance to talk to a very intelligent man by the named Andreus (not really sure if that's spelled right...) about the state of the Swedish church and and it's socialist government. That meeting turned out to be very informative and interesting. It's amazing how a society that looks so much like America on the outside can be so very different on the inside. Later last night we headed into the heart or Tranas to check out the sights and go into a Swedish gorcery store. We got some pretty amusing and tasty items them! Today is shaping up to be equally successful day I'm happy to report. The guys have basically finished the trench down by the baseball field and have managed to clear away quite a bit of brush from the surrounding area. Nate and Heather are almost done with the roof for the church's sign and the girls have made a lot of progress on the weeding out in front of the church building. We'll be finishing up these tasks for the next few hours (it's about 2PM on Friday over here) and then we're all going out for some good old fashioned Swedish pizza in downtown Tranas. Well that's all I have time for today, but hopefully i can get a lot more pictures and videos to you soon!
-Adam Shaffer
Here's an awesome pitcure of downtown Stockholm.
Ditto.
An amazing castle in the hear of Stockholm where the Nobel Prize is given out every year!
Here's a pic of Jamie pulling weeds outside of the church this morning.
A Swedish girl shows of the lion mask she made (in honor of the "Daniel in the Lions Den" story we told today)
A picture of the fountain in downtown Tranas, taen during our walk on Thursday night.
Sweden is home to some truly massive slugs and snails! This a picture of one of the many giant black slugs we've seen here. Snails are everywhere here! You can't go walking anywhere in the woods without seeing dozens and dozens of them!
Nate and Heather hard at work on the roof for the church's sign.
The VBS kids try out their new kites on Thursday morning.
Some delicious Swedish desserts! Berry cobbler, coconut brownies and some crazy chocolate pudding.
Ariana and Heather are weighed down by various Swedish kids during a game of Duck, Duck, Goose!
Another picture of our thrilling Duck, Duck, Goose game.
As of my last update I honestly really wasn't very aware of what the girls had been up to. The guys and the girls have generally had very different tasks to accomplish. So Jamie decided to write up a little something about what the girls have been doing lately. I'll try to keep up with them a little better so I can write aout both sides from now on. Here's what Jamie had to say:
"Arianna Garofalo and I spent most of the afternoon helping one of the interns, Mary Beth prepare for what is called American Girls Club. The interns meet with local Swedish girls around 12 years old and teach them American things, such as recipes and games. We had a Christmas in July theme today so we iced cookies and strung popcorn while watching a Christmas movie. It was a very inetersting experience because most of the girls spoke very little English. Most of the people we have been around so far speak better English than we do! While we were doing that, Ariana Gubba helped another intern babysit kids from the church. She was on cloud nine. Tonight the girls went to dinner at a family from the churchs house. The food was again really amazing. We are getting ready to attend an orientation on Swedish politics. And its starting now!! So bye!"
The group agreed that yesterday was a very successful ay and we got a ton of work done. We got the chance to talk to a very intelligent man by the named Andreus (not really sure if that's spelled right...) about the state of the Swedish church and and it's socialist government. That meeting turned out to be very informative and interesting. It's amazing how a society that looks so much like America on the outside can be so very different on the inside. Later last night we headed into the heart or Tranas to check out the sights and go into a Swedish gorcery store. We got some pretty amusing and tasty items them! Today is shaping up to be equally successful day I'm happy to report. The guys have basically finished the trench down by the baseball field and have managed to clear away quite a bit of brush from the surrounding area. Nate and Heather are almost done with the roof for the church's sign and the girls have made a lot of progress on the weeding out in front of the church building. We'll be finishing up these tasks for the next few hours (it's about 2PM on Friday over here) and then we're all going out for some good old fashioned Swedish pizza in downtown Tranas. Well that's all I have time for today, but hopefully i can get a lot more pictures and videos to you soon!
-Adam Shaffer
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Life in the Trenches
Sadly, I didn't ge tthe chance to leave an update yesterday, but I'll be sure to fill you all in this one. We woke up bright and early yesterday and watched Conan O'Brien at 7 in the morning (meaning it was midnight in PA). We got a pretty big kick out of that. We had a short orientation meeting with the pastor of the church and then we split up into groups to deviler newspapers across the entire town (which is no small task, I assure you). The girls (and Nate) delivered papers for hours on end while a few of us went back to help out the interns with their sports camps. It was a lot of fun to try and communicate with the young swedish kids and to see how some of the bilingual ones operated in the crowd. Later we organized and executed the first day of the VBS program. It went extemely well. We did some memory verse and name memorizing, played ''Duck, Duck, Goose'' and had an amazing Swedish meal prepared by some of the women in the church. We ended the day (the sunlight lasts about 20 hours over here!!) with a group meeting where we planned out the rest of the week.
Ok, now onto today's activities. We all woke up and spent a few hours leading the morning VBS program. We made some kites with the kids and ''Sheryl the Crow'' (played by the lvoely and talented Ariana Gubba) taught the chil'n all about the story of Joseph. A few of us (the lovely and talented Shaffer Brothers to be exact) helped out with the final day or sports camps and played some more football and tennis with the kids. Next Nate and Heather worked on building a roof for a billboard structure and the rest of the guys worked on renovated the baseball field and helping out with the little league practice going on there. The team that is assemlbed there is actually going to Poland to play in the National European Champships next week! The group is also hard at work at building a trench around the baseball field (guys) and doing some housework for the locals (gals).
So that brings me to the present, which means its about 10 AM, Thursday in PA right now. Tonight we'll be going to various people's houses to eat dinner and we're having a bonfire tonight to burn up all the brush we gathered around the baseball field today. Tomorrow will probably be our most labor intensive day, with a lot of labor and VBSing to be done. Unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties (mainly important cords that were in the lost luggage) we can't put up any pictures of the trip until tonight. The good news is is that luggage has finally come in and Nate, Eric, Arianna, and Jonathan finally smell like decent human beings again. We sgould lots of entertaining videos and pictures on this blog sometime within the next 24 hours!
Ok, now onto today's activities. We all woke up and spent a few hours leading the morning VBS program. We made some kites with the kids and ''Sheryl the Crow'' (played by the lvoely and talented Ariana Gubba) taught the chil'n all about the story of Joseph. A few of us (the lovely and talented Shaffer Brothers to be exact) helped out with the final day or sports camps and played some more football and tennis with the kids. Next Nate and Heather worked on building a roof for a billboard structure and the rest of the guys worked on renovated the baseball field and helping out with the little league practice going on there. The team that is assemlbed there is actually going to Poland to play in the National European Champships next week! The group is also hard at work at building a trench around the baseball field (guys) and doing some housework for the locals (gals).
So that brings me to the present, which means its about 10 AM, Thursday in PA right now. Tonight we'll be going to various people's houses to eat dinner and we're having a bonfire tonight to burn up all the brush we gathered around the baseball field today. Tomorrow will probably be our most labor intensive day, with a lot of labor and VBSing to be done. Unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties (mainly important cords that were in the lost luggage) we can't put up any pictures of the trip until tonight. The good news is is that luggage has finally come in and Nate, Eric, Arianna, and Jonathan finally smell like decent human beings again. We sgould lots of entertaining videos and pictures on this blog sometime within the next 24 hours!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Great Journey
Wow, it is very, very difficult to get to this blog page when the entire internet is in Swedish, believe me. Iäm writing this blog from a computer near the church we're staying at. Our travels were pretty smooth in general, but we did encounter a few minor problems. Our flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago went well, and we enjoyed a few leisurely hours in the Ohara Airport in Illinois. Next we got onto our 8 hour flight to Frankfort, Germany. Amazingly, most of us found that it went rather fast and we found plenty of things to keep ourselves entertained. We were in Germany for about an hour before leaving for Stockholm, Sweden. Unfortunately we really didn't have much time to check out the German airport. The flight to sweden was a short one, but 4 people were missing their luggage when we got down to the baggage claim. So we're hoping that that luggage will arrive at our living quarters sometime tonight. Heather Peters secured her passport in Chicago and will hopefully be joining us here at the church in a few hours (Jonathan is waiting for her back in stockholm). Once we figured out the luggage shortage situation we got in a van with an english speaking member of the church and headed off to Tranäs. On our way we stopped to tour Stockholm for a little while and saw some truly amazing sites (like the giant castle where the Nobel prize is issued every year!). We also stopped in on a town that has a massive medieval chapel and we got to take some amazing pictures. Hopefully all of the pictures of our travels will be up by tomorrow night. So we arrived here in tranäs at about 6 PM (Swedish time) and we had some soup and we're just about to head off to bed. It has been a very long and tiring day and most of us haven't slept in over 24 hours. Tomorrow we'll be helping out with the VBS program and delivering some church newspapers. Stay tuned for more updates! I for one, am thrilled that I get to go to sleep. I'm not so thrilled about these swedish keyboards, though. There are some really weird changes to the key configuration, believe me.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Pre-Trip Blog
This is just a blog to let you know that you've reached the Providence Presbyterian Church Sweden Mission Team's blog page. We'll be heading to Tranas, Sweden on the 16th of July. Once we arrive we'll be posting trip updates here every day or two so you can know what has been going on with the team!
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