Newsletter #1

Eric Roth
Germany YES Team
Newsletter #1
November 22, 2006

Greetings from Halle. This past week has been a very exciting yet exhausting week. We arrived in Halle on Tuesday the 14th, around noon, local time. Which would be 6 am Eastern Time. We were all exhausted, since EMM doesn't fly their missionaries first class. : ) In hopes of getting over the jet lag sooner, we made it our team's goal to stay up until 8 pm that evening. This was obviously not the easiest task, because most of the team got between 0 and 1 hours of sleep on the whole trip. At around 6 that evening some of us decided to go for a walk and explore Halle, so that we could stay awake. This was our first time out on the streets of Halle. I'll pause this story for a second to tell you that the street we went down was not just a street with sidewalks on it. It is a very busy street that has trams(basically electric trains), bikers, and little cars buzzing by almost all of the time. So, picture us in a sleepless state of mind, in the dark, in a new city, exploring around Halle. Just a little note for all of the concerned parents: our outreach coordinator had given us the OK for our little expedition, so don't worry. So, as we were walking, we came to a large intersection that had a lot of different tram tracks going different directions and a four-lane road(two lanes each way). So, needless to say, we were not really sure where we should cross, but we decided to give it a try. The crosswalk that we were supposed to use was actually on the other side of the street, but we didn't see it. As we began to cross this tangled mess, I realized, "Now I know what FROGGER feels like." We had almost made it the whole way across to safety when I hear Shaina yell, "TRAIN!" or "TRAM!" or "LOOK OUT!" I don't really remember which it was, because all that I saw was the headlights of a tram coming around the corner, straight at us. We quickly sprinted the last few steps and jumped over a railing to safety. As I jumped I looked over my shoulder to see if the tram was now barreling by us, but all that I saw was the tram turning left, and heading in a different direction, down a different set of tracks. Now, we always use the crosswalk!

Praises:
- all of our luggage arrived safely and unharmed
- we did too
- God is Good!
- Everyone is fairly healthy
- team unity

Prayer Requests:
- learning the language, wisdom for our language teacher
- adjusting to the culture
- that all of our host families would come to know Jesus(Jen's and Shaina's are already believers)
- Greater team unity

In Christ, Eric