Little snippets

I sometimes fear that the impression other people get of my life is that all my time is consumed by preparing for the bar or by touring around the country taking pictures or by fun fun fun. None of them is true, of course. The up-coming bar exam (June 2007) is taking up much time and even more thought. It would actually be better for the bar if I was really studying all the time... But I have a hard time studying in a constructive way and not doing this, then doing that and doing something totally different inbetween. Still seven months to go though!
And I don't always travel around and have fun either. But my beloved and I enjoyed some really fun trips over the last months. (I'm still not reconciled to the thought of having to study on Saturdays...).

What else has happened lately? Our church had its annual church retreat and I really had a good time. We did the "Walk through the Old Testament". It was quite fun and brought some random information together into the big picture. It is so interesting to learn about God's working in the OT. What really struck me was the connection between the Passover in Egypt and Christ's sacrifice for us. Christ is our passover lamb! It was amazing and revealed some of what happened on the cross to me in a new way.

Last week a dear friend and I started doing a bible study together. We started "Breaking free" by Beth Moore. The passages are mainly from the book of Isaiah. This week we learned about the four kings of Judah during Isaiah's lifetime. So we read a lot of II. Chronicles. That has never been my favorite book. When I read through the Bible and was reading Chronicles it seemed rather boring (like: I've read this stuff already in Kings!). So what an experience! Suddenly II Chronicles was really interesting. To read about those kings and their particular weak points and sins and then to realize that those weaknesses and sins are still rampant today. And that we still have to deal with them ourselves.

Christ needs to be my all more and more.

Happy pigs

The 3rd of October is the German national holiday, so my beloved and I used that day for a short but fun trip. We really enjoy going on short trips around Bonn. First we visited a small village close to the Belgian border, Monschau. It is very pretty, but very touristy too.
Then we drove into Belgium and toured the Ardennes (a mountain region spanning Southern Belgium and part North-Eastern France). We enoyed small streets, rivers and hills. And we tried to hunt for monuments - there were signs for them, but we were unable to find them. But one such hunt led us high up the hills to a tiny village and those happy pigs on the picture. Aren't they cute. They were definately enjoying the outdoors, eating good natural food and having hardly any stress related to those over-crowded facilities pigs are usually held in nowadays. And happy pigs make good meat :).
Last Friday I bought a cookbook (as you know i'm almost addicted to them) which only features recipes for pork. It' s written by a butcher from the French Ardennes. So we had a casserole of mashed potatoes, fried onions, bacon, hazelnuts and black pudding. Yummy! (Hope this doesn't gross you out too much ;).