Long Overdue Update

Hello everyone!

Wow - I can't believe it's been over two months since my last blog post. In a way, that's how I feel about my whole stay here. Time has just flown by!

So much has happened in the last two months that I don't even know where to begin. One of the reasons why I haven't blogged in so long is because I've gotten overwhelmed with the amount of stories and information I want to share with all of you that I simply haven't written anything. However, tonight I've come to the realization that I'll never find/take the time to write everything down. I think you would all agree with me when I say some news is better than no news.

So, below are just highlights of my last two months in Denmark:

• Started classes on September 2nd. I'm taking three classes at ASB: Corporate Storytelling, Cross-Cultural Negotiations, and Aspects of Denmark. I'm enjoying all of my classes but am especially loving Cross-Cultural Negotiations. It's taught in a workshop format so we get to negotiate during each class. I've found that I love negotiating and coming up with solutions that will be beneficial for both parties.

Picture from my first week in Denmark. This is my school's sign at the campus' main entrance.

First day of school
Trying to blend in with the natives by wearing leggings and a scarf. :-)

• I bike everywhere. I LOVE having a bike and being able to go anywhere I want at anytime I want (not being dependant on the busses and to their schedules). It's also been a great way for me to get exercise every day. I would guess that I bike on average anywhere from 3-6 miles a day. Århus is one of the more "hilly" cities in the predominantly flat country of Denmark. I really can't complain though. The hills are more like inclines so all I do is switch to a lower gear. :-)

• I've joined a Danish Christian student group called KFS (Cristian Fellowship of Students). I attend their bi-weekly large group meeting with around 40 Danish students. I also meet once a week with 3 other International students and two Danish guys who are all members of KFS as well. This group of friends has been a true blessing during my stay here.

I went on a 2 day canoe trip with a group from KFS the 13th-14th of September. We canoed two fulls day and camped out one night. This was a great trip to meet fellow believers (both Danish as well as international) as well as see more parts of beautiful Denmark.

Group photo of the Canoe trip gang

Gorgeous Danish scenery on the canoe trip

• Dr. Gartner came for a quick visit. He's the Clemson professor that gave me the entrepreneurial narrative research job here in Denmark. He was in Århus the 17th and 18th of September and introduced me to many people I'd be working with and he also gave me several projects to be completed by the end of the semester.

Fine dining with Dr. Gartner (on left) and Poul Christensen (the Danish version of Dr. Gartner). Poul is the director of IDEA, the group I am working with here in Denmark.

• Met and spent time with a really neat professor and author called Saras Saravathy. She was in Denmark for a month giving presentations on entrepreneurship and helping different universities with various projects. She resided in Århus and worked closely with my Danish collegue Poul Christensen. I learned so much from her entrepeneurial knowledge and loved listening to her many great stories. She is also a wonderful cook and on one of her last days with us she prepared a deliciuos Indian dinner at Poul's house.

Saras Sarasvathy and Me

• I auditioned and landed a part in a Danish TV commercial. An email was sent out to all American students at ASB by a Danish film company that was searching for three Americans (one guy and two girls) to act in a commercial that would be a recreation of the Blair Witch Project trailer. The commercial was for a Danish Carpentry School. The commercial will only be played in Danish movie theaters and it's going to be the last commercial before the trailers. The idea is that the audience will be fooled into thinking it's actually the first trailer and initially think it's a trailer for a new Blair Witch Project movie. I will be receiving the final version of the commercial sometime in the next week or two. I'll try and figure out a way to post it on the blog.

The three Americans on set (Michael, me, and Ingrid)

• I went to Legoland with a group of exchange students from ASB on October 4th. It was pretty fun but the amusement park is primarily for little kids. In my opinion, the coolest part of the whole park was the Lego city/world where they have recreated cities and famous landmarks from all around the world ALL MADE OUT OF LEGO!

Main entrance to Legoland

My favorite part of Legoland - Lego City! I'm standing in front of Copenhagen.

• On October 5th, I visited the most northern point in Denmark, Grenen, where the two seas collide. I went with a group of friends (a guy and girl from Germany, a girl from China, and a girl from Austria). It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. Not only did I get to see something quite unusual of two seas colliding, but God even gave us a rainbow right as we were about to leave. I came home with awesome photos. I've included a picture I took just to show you how beautiful it was. We also visited Skagen, a larger town, about 3 miles south of Grenen. The town is famous for it's yellow houses and red brick rooftops.

The most northern point in Denmark

• I was interviewed by a Danish TV station concerning the U.S. election. Again, an email was sent out to American students at ASB asking if anyone would be interested in telling who they voted for in the U.S. election and why. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I'm the only Republican exchange student from America. Below is the link to the interview. You can also click here to see the video. Let me know what you think!

http://community.dr.dk/default.ns?lngItemID=1310&klip=2846

• I went on a school trip to Brussels, Belgium, from October 8th-12th. A total of forty-five exchange students came on the trip along with three staff from the International Office. The journey from Århus to Brussels took us around 10 hours by bus. We all packed into one big bus and drove through Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands to get to Belgium. The TV system was broked on our bus so we all mainly slept the whole way (we drove through the night on the 8th). We were given a guided tour of the city and spent a morning at the EU (European Union) Parliament listening to several speakers explaining the functions and operations of the EU. Other than those two planned activities, we had the rest of time to ourselves! While I was in Brussels, I tried two famous Belgian things: Waffles and Mussels (not together of course!). Surprisingly, I like mussels and finished off an entire bowl of them. Who knew? Lastlly,, I went with a group of friends on an hour train ride to Brugge where we spent almost an entire day. I definitatly want to go back to that city! It was SO beautiful and charming.

The Atomium in Brussels, Belgium

Brugge, Belgium

• Jessica, Julia, and Daniel Brown came to visit me October 13th-29th! I met them in Copenhagen on the 13th and we stayed there for two days. We took a bus to Århus and stayed at my place for the night. The next morning, the 16th, we went to Hamburg and stayed there for one day. The 17th-20th, we toured Berlin and stayed with a really nice missionary family called the Newbranders (my mom went to school with Mrs. Newbrander). Jessica's best friend (and my third sister), Miriam, flew from Madrid to meet us in Berlin on the 17th and stayed until the 19th. The 21st-23rd we visited Prague and stayed with a very cool missionary couple. The 24th was spent traveling back to Århus and was full of adventure (our train caught on fire on the border of Germany and Denmark and we ended up evacuating and having to take 3 other trains to get to Århus. Only 2 hours behind our planned arrival time. Not bad.) The 25th-28th was spent touring Århus and relaxing at my dorm. Jessica, Julia, and Daniel left early on the 29th to catch the train back to the Copenhagen airport. We had such a wonderful time together and I miss them so much!

Nyhavn, Copenhagen

Berlin, Germany
(Daniel Brown did the wonderful job of setting up the shot and editing the photo)

In front of the Berlin Wall

Prague, Czech Republic

• November 5th I woke up to find out Barrack Hussein Obama is our President-elect. This was a very insteresting day for me with everyone (even strangers!) congratulating me on my new president. However, my closer friends knew I had voted for McCain and were sensitive to my feelings and understood that I wasn't exactly thrilled by all the congratulations. I've come to terms with the fact that Obama will be our next president and pray that I will fully trust the Lord and his good will. I've been encouraged by the following passage and wanted to pass on the uplifting words of God.

Philipians 4:4-7:
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I hope my future blogs will be shorter and more regular. I am much better at talking than writing so feel free to call my Skype online number: 1-864-502-2900. I'd love to hear your voice!

To Christ be the Glory,

~JMC~

Intro Week & Answers to Prayers

Hi Everyone!

Last week was jammed pack with activities for exchange students and I came home exhausted every night. I spent very little time on the computer and that's the reason why it's taken me so long to write another post.

I wanted to thank everyone who has left me feedback, emailed, or prayed for me. It really means a lot to me to know that you are interested in what I'm doing and how God is working in my life. Please continue to pray for me and leave comments, emails and messages because it encourages me greatly.

I haven't been able to reply to everyone's messages from last week but I plan on responding to them this week. I don't think I will be as busy this week as I was last week so I'm hoping to reply to emails faster. I don't want this blog to be one sided so please continue to inform me on what is going on in your life and how I can pray for you.

So much has happened in this last week that I don't even know where to start. I've been asked to include more pictures so I will attempt to do this from now on.

IKEA

On Monday, August 25th, I went to IKEA to buy a few things for my room. I was originally supposed to meet up with a group of exchange students at noon but I overslept my alarm and didn't wake up until 11:30AM. Thankfully, Johanne had informed me the night before that I could take bus 3 (it stops close to my apartment) to IKEA. So I took my time getting ready and then made my first journey to IKEA. I had only been to an IKEA store once before in Madrid but it had been a long time since then that I had forgotten how IKEA's shopping system works. I ended up asking a girl in the store to explain the system to me.

What confused me was that I went to the first floor where there are all the display rooms. When I saw something I liked, I couldn't just pick it up and buy it. I had to write down the department that was listed on the price tag and then search for it downstairs in the warehouse. In any case, I eventually figured out the system and thoroughly enjoyed taking my time and looking at everything.

The IKEA in Århus

I bought a few things for my room. The item on the top of my shopping list was a good alarm clock. The digital alarms just don't do the trick for me. I need the old fashion type that you crank at night and that have a super loud alarm. Dennis and Josann gave me a great one for my birthday this year but it wa s too big for me to bring with me to Denmark. Thankfully, I found a similar alarm clock in IKEA that was very affordable. I can tell you now, a week later, that I haven't overslept any morning and the alarm has worked great so far. I praise God for providing this alarm at the right time and for the right price. :-)

While I was at IKEA, I also bought sheets for my bed becaus e the ones I had brought with me from the U.S. were too small. I found out that the standard mattress size in Denmark is 1.5 instead of single size. In addition to sheets, I also bought some picture frames to put around my room. I also bought good smelling candles because the drain in my bathroom occasionally lets off a funky smell.

IKEA has been the only store I've been to so far that accepted my Mastercard. All other stores require the use of a Danish Visa card or just pay in cash.

I was in such a hurry to catch the bus while I was checking out that I forgot to return my shopping cart! In Europe, you have to insert a coin (in Denmark, it's 20 DKK, or about $4) to use shopping carts but when you return t he cart, you receive your coin back. So I basically wasted $4 on a worthless shopping cart. :-(

The good thing is, I will learn from this mistake and hopefully won't make the same mistake twice!

After the bus dropped me off in front of my apartment, I was walking to my blok and I heard a girl speaking English. I asked if she was an exchange student at ASB and she said that she was. She told me her name was Minna and that she was from Finland. I found out that she lives in the building ("blok") across from mine. Minna invited me to join her and another Finnish girl (Katja) for a walk around the city. I accepted her invitation and we left for downtown at around 5 P.M.

We didn't get into town until around 5:30 P.M. and by then, most of the shops were closing. That's something that I'm learning about Denmark. Stores don't stay open for very long! They open at around 10 AM and close at around 5:30 o r 6PM (including grocery stores)! I'm still trying to figure out what people who work during those hours do to shop.

Since most stores were closing, we decided to eat dinner before the restaurants closed too. We ate at a cute cafe near the canal called Chick Inn. Katja left to go home soon after dinner because she was tired. Minna and I walked around for a while longer but and then took the bus home.

Minna and I waiting for the bus

Introduction Week

Tuesday - Friday was Introduction Week. The event was put on by the International Office at ASB for all exchange students. There are around 250 of us so they divided us into groups. There were about 10 groups and, naturally, I was put into group #1. :-) Each group h ad two "tutors" (i.e. assistants/leaders) to direct the group's activities and hel p the exchange students adjust to living in Århus.

I loved my tutors' English accents. Both of them had either studied or visited Australia and thus had a bit of an Aussie accent.

Me with Helle, the first tutor

Me with Mikkel, the second tutor

We did so much each day that it would take several posts to tell you everything we did. I'll just list the highlights:

• We met other exchange students from around the world. The countries that were represented in my group alone were as follows: Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, China, Australia, and U.S.A.
• We ate sandwiches every day for lunch (Denmark is famous for their sandwiches)
• We applied for Danish CPR numbers (the number will allow me to use their health care system)
• We got a tour of ASB's campus as well as the city of Århus
• Had a Western dress-up party and line-dance o n Wednesday. The party and dance also included the 1,000 first-year Danish students (so there was a total of around 1,250 students when you inclu de exchange students). I was quite impressed that two people could teach that many people how to line-dance in 30 minutes.
  

1,250 ASB students line-dancing

• On the last day, Friday, we played relay races against other teams and had to come up with a cheer for our group. Two guys in our group mad
  e up our cheer, here's how it goes, "Group one! Group o ne! We will win under this sun! Un, dos, tres, group one is the best!" We also had to do a chicken dance after saying our cheer to intimidate our competitors (i.e. the other groups). :-)

Wheelbarrow race - my team won!!

A race to see which team could eat a string of black licorice the fastest (no hands allowed). Our team won (again)!

Black licorice is very popular in Scandinavia. But I think that stuff is nasty!

Answers to Prayers

Even though I've only been gone for about 2 weeks, I've been able to see God answer prayers so quickly! He's answered many prayers this week but here are just a few that encouraged me and I hope will encourage you all.

Work Location

This week I had the opportunity to meet with the two primary people I will be working with this semester. I found out that the building where I will be working at is .63 miles from my apartment! I have my own office space too (I'll be sure to post pictures of it soon)! Even though I did not specifically pray for a close work location, I am so amazed at how God worked this out. Student housing is very random and God purposefully put me in the Snogebæksvej dorms which are very close to the IDEA (the entrepreneurship group I'll be working with) offices.

I made a path on Google Earth to show you all how close my work is to my apartment.

Camera Lens

Minna and I wanted to go out and take pictures of Århus this past Saturday since the weather was so nice. Before we left to go on our walk, I was in her apartment and put my SLR camera on her desk. The camera strap must have wrapped itself around the handle of her desk chair because when I went to pull the chair out so I could sit down, the camera tumbled to the floor. It wasn't a very big fall but when I went to use my camera a few minutes later, my lens wouldn't let me zoom in or out anymore.

I took it to several camera shops around town yesterday to ask how much it would cost to get it fixed and they all told me it would be cheaper to buy a new lens rather than repairing the old one. I was pretty discouraged because I really love my SLR camera and was looking forward to taking great pictures with it this semester. I asked the camera shops how much it would cost to buy a new Nikon lens and the lowest price was about $300. They said I could buy a Sigma lens for around $200 instead of buying the more expensive Nikon brand. I decided to go to one more camera shop before calling it a day. I walked into the last store and asked if they had a replacement lens for my camera. The guy went in the back to see what he could find in his storage room. A few minutes later, he came back and said with a big grin, "I have a really good deal for you. I can sell you a Nikon 18-55mm lens for 800 DKK ($155). The reason I can sell it to you for this cheap is because it doesn't have a box with it. Someone must have bought the body of the camera and not wanted the lens." I couldn't believe the price he offered me because it was very close to what I would have paid in the U.S. (and in Denmark everything is pretty much twice as expensive). I tried the lens on my camera and played with it for a few minutes while I considered whether to buy it or not.

I did buy the lens in the end because I figured that I would have paid that much if not more had I wanted to buy a lens in the U.S. and had it shipped here. I'm so thankful that I got a great deal on the lens and that I can continue to use my SLR for great pictures.

New lens is on the left, old/broken one is on the right.

Bike

I've been praying since the first day I arrived in Århus tha t the Lord would provide me with a cheap, reliable bike for the semester. God answered my prayer this past Sunday when I was at my bible study. We were sharing prayer requ

ests and mine was that I would find a bike. Katya and Dave, one of the married couples there, mentioned they had two bikes they didn't use much and offered to let me use one of them this semester. They asked me whether I preferred a mountain bike or street bike. I said street bike and Dave brought the bike by my apartment today after he got off work! In addition to the bike, he included a helmet, bike lock, basket, pump, and tools to fix the bike! The only thing I need to buy are lights for the bike (Danish law states that all bikes must have lights in the front and back).

I think it's so cool how God knew all along that my camera lens was going to break and that I wouldn't have enough money to buy a bike after buying the new lens. I prayed for a cheap bike, and He provided a FREE bike. God is so good, isn't he!?!

My new bike!

Prayer Request

A lot of students are coming down with colds in my blok and within my group of friends. Please pray that the Lord would continue to keep me healthy. I've been taking Airborne a few nights a week to boost my immune system. However, these last two days my throat has gotten kinda sore/scratchy at night like it usually does before I get sick.

To Christ be the Glory,

~JMC~