CCS YWAM France/Germany Mission Trip - 2014: Bad Blankenburg - Mission Work at YWAM Base - April 8th

Our last week of our trip was doing mission work at the new YWAM (Youth with a Mission) base in Bad Blankenburg, Germany. Bad Blankenburg is a quaint little town with a population of about 7,000 people. It's about 2 1/2 hours from Nuremburg and about 1 hour and 20 minutes from ErFurt just to give you an idea on the location.

Our accommodations were not what was expected, we had originally thought that we were going to be housed in the actual building that we were renovating. However, due to major remodeling that was going on, sleeping in that location was not a possibility. Our YWAM representatives Susie and Stephie set all 27 of us up in a barn type hall on the top of the hill. The hall had a kitchen with a refrigerator, military cots and enough room for all of us to spread out with the men/boys on one side and ladies/girls on the other side.

People set up their little fortresses with the stools you see in the picture below. The nights were pretty cold as we did not have any heat in the building. We piled on blankets to keep us warm at night. The snoring from multiple people was the only sound we heard for some of us in the night as we laid there trying to fall asleep. It was pretty challenging for all of us, but we persevered. It pretty much felt like we were camping, only indoors with no heat. I must say there was a remarkable view of the city from the top where we stayed though.

We will never forget the 157 steps down from our camp into town. We walked these steps daily at least 4 times to and from the YWAM renovation site to camp each morning and at lunch time. The work was exhausting, but just hearing about what a blessing we were to the YWAM group was rewarding within itself.