What a break! God is so good, I was continually amazed at how good God was even in the little things. I was blessed every single corner I went around. This is definitely a life experience.

I’ll start at the beginning, I started my journey with Dustin S. from B.C. Canada, Joe V. from Nebraska and Emily D. from B.C. Canada. We got out to Gothenburg a city on the west coast of Sweden, which is not nearly as nice as Stockholm which I spent 4 days in November. We looked around the city and enjoyed some dinner and being away from the school (our first night of freedom!) We met some people at our hostel from Australia and the States and had some fun conversations with them. The next day we walked around a little while and then got on our plane to go to Dublin, once in Dublin we immediately jumped on a bus to Belfast in Northern Ireland.

We got there and Arietta (Joe’s friend) picked us up and we walked to her house. Joe, Dustin and I stayed a few blocks away at the YWAM offices which is a parsonage to an old Presbyterian cathedral. It was a very cool building, in a bit of disrepair (leaking sinks and shelves). After a good nights sleep the fantastic four jumped on a bus to the coast of Ireland where we saw the coast, and something called Giant’s Causeway, it was very pretty there. After that Dustin and I walked around Belfast at night (I love to see cities at night). It is a very nice city at night too.

The next few days involved seeing the city and going to various church services leading up to Christmas. Christmas day after church we served lunch to people who didn’t have homes or a place to have a Christmas meal. It was a very cool time, I was able to share the gospel with one man and hopefully the love of Christ was evident in my life. The next day I got on a bus early morning down to Dublin and then got on a plane to Germany (Stuttgart).

A fellow student Lisa and her boyfriend Lorenz were there to pick me up and we went to a village called Kirchheim Teck, a nice little place of about 4000 people I believe. The next few days involved meeting friend’s of Lisa’s and hanging out with her family too. The Stark family (my host family) was very hospitable to me, I had a nice bed and always a full stomach. The German food is very delicious! For New Years (Silvester as they call it there) a few other Holsby Brunn students in the area came over to Lisa’s house and some of Lisa’s friends and I hung out all night, had homemade pizza and chocolate fondue. After one more day of hanging out in Germany I jumped on a train to Switzerland.

After a very beautiful ride through the German countryside I made it to a small town near the German/Swiss border called Steckborn. Here another fellow student named Barbara, her parents were waiting at the station for me. Barbara was feeling very ill that day. And they speak hardly any English, and I have learned a bit of German (I speak more German than they speak English I speak very basic German [how are you? How did you sleep? Can you please pass the___? And a few other phrases and words]) So with their tiny bit of English and my limited German and a LOT of hand motions we had somewhat of a conversation. We got to the house, the village called Hinder-Homburg that has about 25-30 houses in it, right on the edge of the Swiss Alps. That evening we hung out at the house and I enjoyed a typical European meal called Raquelette which is potatoes, ham, corn and you melt a special cheese in a small pan and put it on top. As they say in German: Das ist sehr gut (That is very good)!

The next day we went to an old town on the German-Swiss border called Stein-am-Rhein, it was a very pretty city, that evening we went to Barbara’s home fellowship group, it was fun to meet her friends there. I was far more interested in meeting the people than seeing the sights that I saw. The next morning I got on a train to head towards Italy. It was exciting to ride through the Swiss Alps, I missed the mountains so much,
Sweden is nice, but lacks the mountains. I was sad that I was not able to go skiing there.

Once I arrived in Italy my friend (also fellow student at Holsby) Davide, was there to pick me up. We got on the subway and went to his church, where we dropped off my stuff and walked to a coffee shop down the road. You get a very small cup (about 1.5 ounces) filled with very strong coffee, so different from what many North Americans are used to. I believe that I enjoyed it more than ours. After a prayer service in Italian I met Davide’s family and we went to there house a bit outside of central Milan. After a brief dinner (Italians have their dinner at 8 or 9 in the evening) we played some card games and went to bed. The next day we went to Central Milan and walked around the shops saw all the expensive stores like Gucci and even walked around one, however I was somewhat disgusted, how can people say that God is unjust in allowing children to starve and then turn around and buy a purse for $2500 (that was actually a mid-range priced purse). That day I was challenged to look at my own life and how I spend the money that the Lord gives me. I challenge each one of you to do that too. The next day we went to church and had some real Italian pizza (which is just as they claim, the best pizza) then we went Ice Skating, which is a pretty popular thing in Italy. After that we got prepared for our train to Rome which left at 11:30 that night. So after packing we got on the train.

It was somewhat of a restless ride, night trains really aren’t that comfortable, I probably slept 3 or 4 hours the whole night. We arrived in Rome at 7:00 am, where we immediately embarked on our journey through Rome. First we got some breakfast and headed through the streets towards the Vatican City and the Pope’s palace (whatever it is called) we saw the square that the pope speaks at and then we got to have lunch with him =). After a bit of time in that area we walked across the city to the ruins where the coliseum is and walked around there for a bit, what a neat area. It was fun to wonder about the original Christian church in Rome, and Paul’s imprisonment there (we saw the prison), it was also neat because I had just finished going through Paul’s letter to the Roman church in my personal devotional time, so it made it all the more real. Rome was not just a mythological place, but a real place with stone buildings and people living there! After the ruins we went to the Palace and watched a changing of the guards ceremony, it was a very special one, there were probably 60 horsemen, some were in a marching band playing patriotic songs and the national anthem, others were the guards and the carriers of the flags. It was a cool time. Then we worked our way to the train station and got on a train to Florence at about 5:00pm, needless to say it was far too short a time in Rome, but it was still fun to go there.

At Florence Davide’s friend Luise was there to pick us up and we went to her house a few minutes away where we had some pasta and drinks, Luise’s roommate, Nicole was from Portland and came over to Italy a few years back with Campus Crusade For Christ and Luise works for them too, so it was fun to talk with both of them about that. Luise had also been a student at Bodenseehof, the Torchbearers school in Germany. Then we went to bed and slept very soundly on real beds, it was nice not sleeping in a train. The next morning we said our thanks and walked out to see Florence, which is a very nice little city. This is where the famous statue of the naked David is, which we did not see because it cost $20 to get in to see it (we are travelers on a budget!) We did see some models of him though. We walked around the city, it was very beautiful, the weather was wonderful probably 60-65 degrees in the sun. We hiked up to a hill the looks out over the city and enjoyed our views from there. Then we caught a train back to Milan.

The next day we basically hung out, relaxed, and I packed up and left that night for Sweden! After a non-eventful flight I arrived at a small airport an hour south of Stockholm at 11:30 pm hoping I would have a place to sleep, and somehow the airport was open all night long (it was so small I was surprised, I’ve seen bigger airports close at night) So I tried to sleep on the floor there, that was relatively unsuccessful, so after a long night I hitched a ride on a train back to Holsby Brunn. And Sweden was never more welcoming, it was nice that even though I still don’t understand Swedish it was familiar compared to Italian, so it felt familiar! I even got to see a sunrise on my first day back.

Not only did I have a nice time seeing Europe. I came out from this time changed too. God did substantial work in my life even away from school. I was challenged by a biography of Keith Green called No Compromise, I was called to my knees in repentance several times for certain things and compromises I have made in my life. A little sermon we heard before we left was that reading and studying the Word of God was dangerous because it is living, active and energetic. You will be changed by it when you study it. And in my studies over break on Romans and 1 Corinthians I was changed and my heart was continually transformed into hopefully and better image of Christ our Lord.

Now may the Lord bless you and go with you this year. Thank you for your prayer and support. God bless you all.

Nathan Kellogg