Seeing Family

Family's great, especially when they give you an excuse to travel in the middle of the week. Last Tuesday, I took a 1/2 day from work and drove up to Strasbourg, France, to see my uncle, aunt, cousins, and some cousin in-laws for the day. We toured the 12th century cathedral, climbed the 330 stairs to the top, meandered around the old parts of the city, and ate a magnificent meal before wandering around some more. It was such a treat seeing relatives and sharing stories of what God's been doing so far at BFA with a real live person!
I loved this picture of all the coins on the statue's head. Many of the coins were not Euros, which means they've probably been lying there for a while. In the last picture, my favorite building was the one that has 5 stories in the roof alone! Talk about a steep roof!So, who wants to come visit next? Any takers?

Gotta love sophomores!

I'm excited for tomorrow morning because I get to hang out with these guys:You'll meet them in my next Prayer Flash and Newsletter. (If you don't get either and would like to, please let me know via comment or at katrinacuster@gmail.com.)

High School Retreat

Wow, where to begin! The town was an adorable Alpine mountain village, and the slopes literally were across the street from our youth hostel. We had the entire hostel for our 200+ students and 50 staff members, which was super nice. The beds had fluffy down comforters, the food was a.m.a.z.i.n.g., and the decorations all bought at Ikea. I spent a wonderful day on Friday on the slopes: the morning teaching a student which end to point the skis and how to let gravity do the work rather than the poles. In the afternoon, I got to go fast with some of the other RA's - soooooo fun! The only scary part was going down a black diamond and coming across a patch that was all mogels - not my favorite!

The four session with our speaker, Greg Speck (he spoke at Northwestern at least once a year) were fabulous! He balanced Biblical truth with practical applications and teenage humor perfectly, and the students related to him so easily. Praise God for that! The time with my small group, which was made up of 5 senior girls, was overall excellent. On Friday, we were all dead from skiing all day, so conversation was somewhat stilted. But by Saturday, everyone was open, very open, in fact. I was pleasantly surprised by the transparency, and we had some beautiful times of prayer together. There were also great times of laughter. For one activity of the weekend, we were matched up with a guys small group and had to pick and perform a Disney song. Our group chose "Kiss the Girl" (can you tell we had senior girls and freshmen guys?), and within 30 minutes, we had to be ready to go on stage. In all the franticness of practicing, guess who got cast in the role of Ariel? Yeah! Actually, the funniest part was that of the 16 teams total, 10 chose "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan. We were SO sick of that song by the end of the weekend!

On Saturday, we were hit with a blizzard that dumped nearly a foot of snow on us. I opted to not go skiing in the snow storm and instead rested. It was a good decision! Anyway, here are some of my few pictures. Thanks for all the prayers for this weekend!

(bag line to load bus)

Warning: English nut

Does it bother anyone else when one person comments, and then it says "1 comments" on your blog? I almost want to post another comment myself, so it won't be grammatically incorrect. :-) I'm such an English nerd.

What I've been up to lately

Inviting some missionary kids over for Pizza Night:
Keeping the official score book at basketball games with friend Rachel:
Getting ready for Candlelight Dinner: (if you don't get my prayer updates and would like to, let me know)Taking pictures of the Carnival Parade from my window:And enjoying gorgeous sunsets over Kandern (actually rather rare but definitely stunning):
(the nutshell version)

When Jesus saw THEIR faith...

It's Friday evening, and I finally have time to settle into my lazy-boy and share some of my reflections of the last few weeks with you all. They've been tough, to say the least. To hear 3 weeks ago that two students were being expelled for sexual misconduct was hard. To hear the following week that there had been multiple cases of sexual abuse constituted a crisis.

I hadn't been really close to any of the students involved, but several of my students were close, and it's obvious they've been hurting. The Monday the news broke (we call it "Bad Monday"), my two 10th grade boys spent most of the next hour staring out the window. One wanted to talk about it, the other not at all. Counselors have been available on campus, tears have been shed, hugs have been passed out freely, and grace has been abundant. It's been beautiful to watch the Body at work, and yet, I've really questioned over and over what I can do. Why would God have worked so hard to have me here already this year when he knew this crisis would break out?

The day after "Bad Monday," I was reading in Luke 5 about the friends who carried a paralytic on a mat to Jesus and ended up having to break in through the roof tiles in order to actually get to Jesus. It says, "right in front of Jesus" no less. I was moved by their dedication to fight through all obstacles and make sure the wounded person of the group was brought before the Healer. It was such a clear image to me that I needed to bring my wounded students to God in prayer. Sometimes it might be most seriously wounded girl, EY, on the mat. Other times the perpetrator, JN. Maybe it would be me on that mat every now and then, but that's the beauty of the Body. We can bear each other and lift one another up before the throne of God.

And I was also moved by the ending. After Jesus had forgiven sins, put the Pharisees in their place, and healed the paralytic, Luke writes, "Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, 'We have seen remarkable things today.'" Oh how I beg that BFA will be able to say that about this situation one day! Until then, I just keep bringing the paralytics. Keep returning to the throne.

Meaningful Lyrics

Hear our cry, Lord, we pray
Our faces down, our hands are raised
You called us out, we turned away
We've turned away.

If we've ever needed you,
Lord, it's now, Lord, it's now
We are desperate for your hand
we're reaching out, we're reaching out

All our hearts, all our strength
with all our minds, we're at your feet
May your kingdom come in our hearts and lives
Let your Church arise, let your Church arise

If we've ever needed you,
Lord, it's now, Lord, it's now
We are desparate for your hand
we're reaching out, we're reaching out

We need you now.

(portions of "If We Ever Needed You" by Casting Crowns)

Rough days for BFA right now.