Yesteryear and Stroopwafels

Hey, thanks for checking out the latest update!

life

I got my first official visitor here in Bratislava! Bekah Schuring, my friend since childhood in Brazil who is currently living in Germany, came to my neck of the woods for a couple days. 

We had a blast catching up, reminiscing of yesteryear, and exploring Vienna and Bratislava together—just the typical, everyday occurrence of Brazilian MKs hanging out in Europe. :)

I joined some TWR folks in venturing via van from Vienna to Barneveld, Holland, to pick up 1,500 recently published books containing TWR listener stories. It was cool to meet the staff members there from TWR and our Dutch Partner.

This is the headquarters for TWR and our Dutch Partner!

We were only in Holland for a little over a day, but it was long enough to see that biking is a huge part of Dutch culture. There were huge bike paths next to all the roads full of businessmen riding to work, children riding to school, and everyone in between. I also saw a large windmill, wooden shoes, tons of flowers everywhere, and ate my favorite Dutch snack—stroopwafel.

On Friday, I’ll be heading back to the foreign police one last time to pick up my residence card. All of my paperwork has been accepted, so I’m officially not a tourist anymore. :)

music

Here are some new tunes I'm looking forward to:

Ascend the Hill - O Ransomed Son (April 17th)
mewithoutyou - Ten Stories (May 15th)
Write this Down - Lost Weekend (June 5th)

thoughts

I don’t know if this is the same with everyone, but I feel like I get more easily inspired as I get older. An inspiring or touching video will literally bring me to tears now, whereas before I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

We get an emotional high when a song, a poem, a video, etc. inspires us. However, anyone can get inspired. It’s easy. Of course it’s not at all wrong to be inspired, but I’ve realized that regardless of how inspirational something is, it rarely actually brings me to the point of changing my course of action. It inspires me and stops at that. Inspiration is easy. Change is difficult.

The famous Martin Luther quote is very true I think. “All of a Christian’s life is one of repentance.” I can get so self-righteous when I realize an area that needs to change in my life and earnestly confess my shortcomings to God. It'd be easy to effortlessly go with the flow for our entire existence, living a life of confession rather than a life of repentance—without change or growth.

thanks

Thanks for keeping up with me! Check back later for an update on my trip to eastern Slovakia and the upcoming TWR happenings. Also, I've joined the sepia-toned madness known as Instagram. Feel free to follow me on there (kitchenerpaul) for the occasional photo upload.