Beginning life in Iceland

Everything has been going great. Absolutely great! I arrived 8 days ago now. The first few days I was very disoriented. But when they throw you into city and say find your way home via bus it has to click pretty quickly. I am pretty sure I know downtown Reykjavik by heart now. But unfortunately I do not live there anymore. I was supposed to be staying with the congressman's family, but he and his wife Pala are on vacation for another two weeks. So I stayed at Callie's (our Icelandic/American helper coordinator lady) mother's guest house for a few days. That was located right in the middle of down town so I really enjoyed walking not even 10 min to a nice little pond and coffee houses everywhere each day. Then one of the boy's host families called and because the boys wouldn't get here until a week after us, they asked if they could get a girl instead. So I was very disappointed at first, but God has a plan for everything. And I got shuffled into their home fairly quickly actually. They called on Tues, I met them Tues night, and moved in Wed afternoon of this week. So Its been all new and fun and exciting. God really knows what he is doing. This family is way awesome. The parents are great! Halli and Ana. Helping me out with so much and feeding me plenty (food is awesome - dad....i like fish) and just being great. The kids are real cool too. Youngest is named Erla - 13. She showed me around town and stuff. Really nice. Funny too. Then middle is Halli - 19. Cool kid. Always has friends here so thats been nice cause I really need to start getting more plugged into people and stuff. But he is a super track star from what I've gathered. So thats cool. Oldests is Ragnar - 23. Cool cat. Does schooling in the afternoons, so we chill in the mornings sometimes. He is active I guess is what Ana was saying. So hopefully that means outdoor active type :). But he said he'd take me around and show me cool stuff. The family lived in FL from 96-02. So everyone knows english really well. The only one who needs to talk slower is Ana, but she does just fine. But most the time everyone is speaking Icelandic. So I'm lost almost always. But thats ok. I'll deal with it. I've learned to really read tone and actions. Its kinda cool. I can follow some of what they are saying, kinda. But Ragnar did a year of schooling in NY and has a Masters in English. So he is just dandy! Anyway, I think this weekend I get to go to their summer house with Ana and Erla. I'm really excited for that. And when I get back either at night on Sat or Sunday the boys are going to take me out. Not exactly sure what that entails, but hopefully something fun!

Handball... way awesome. I have been to 5 practices now. They started off not so good for me. Its hard to understand and know what I need to be doing when everything is in a different language. Some girls know english, but I guess the only learn to write it, not speak it. So that whole language barrier has been difficult, but definitely getting better. The actual handball part of it has been way cool though. Have learned a lot about positioning of the body on defense already.That is something I really need work on. You see, I learnd the basic idea of handball, but none of the tactics or fundamentals. It is very obvious here that I am missing those. So hopefully I can pick those up quickly. Fussy has been such an awesome coach. He is the younger teams coach that I practice with on my off days. My coach is names Joey(pronounced w/o the "j") and he doesn't speak much english to me. So Fussy has been my main source to getting better. Which is awesome. He was an Olympian not too many years ago. Knows his sutff thats for sure. Anyway, handball is all good. My club's name is Valur, well as of right now. Its about an hr bus ride to and from because of my new location. The clubs you get placed in are mainly based off of where you live. And now I live in Hofnarfjordur and Valur is in Hllemma or something like that. So I am going to try to switch clubs to the one that is a 2 min walk from home named Haukur. Hopefully that will work. But overall, learning a lot and having fun with it!

God is doing soem pretty amazing things here. He has really showed to me what patients really looks like. I mean really looks like. I have yet to worry about anyhting. I realized that no matter what you do, how hard you try or anyhting else, things will happen how they happen and how God wants them to. So there is no point to try to make things go your way. They wont, and if they do then God will totally make it a living hell for you! ha. Well maybe not that far, but it definitely does not go as wanted when you get "your way". He has showed up with me every step of my days here so far. Just the beauty of this place itself is such an eye opener to the creator of it all. He is pretty cool dude. But two words adventure and spontaneous have kinda been my theme for the trip so far. I haven't really planned much. Well nothing really actually. I just have taken each day at a time and figured out what I might or might not do. Its pretty fun. Mixture of school work, exploring, handball, food, coffee shops, playing with Toni. Its all a good time. Mornings are slow filled with school and email junk. Then usually in the afternoons I'll meet Toni in town somewhere and we will find somehting ufn to do. Like today, we walked down the main shopping street in Reykjavik, stumbled onto a Red Cross store. Stopped. Asked if there was a place we could volunteer at. Got directed to another location. Then to the main building. Stopped on our way at this crazy Ti Restaurant for lunch. Went into the headquarters. Got placed with the Youth Director right away no questions. And now I will be volunteering Thurs nights at a teen thing. Really cool because over the summer, after I decided I wasn't going to New Orleans God spoke to me through this crazy man in Manitue springs and said you have to be patient and your time will come... hints the whole Iceland thing. And he also said, "He wants you to use your gift with teens to glorify Him" so to just "stumble" upon all this today is no mistake. Its really cool because it wasn't a big deal, or any trouble, or out of the way or anything. Set no expectations what so ever, and look at where I find myself. Right where God wants me. Pretty cool stuff.

But its like 1 am here. I better get some sleep. Think I may have caught a cold. Have a stuffy nose and had a headache for 2 days now... o dear. Miss all and I can't express enough my thanks to all he support, thoughts, and prayers that have been coming my way."Takk" Thanks from the heart. Bless Bless.