Greetings Scholars and Warriors.
Sorry I missed SEVERAL weeks in a row of blogging. My computer decided to give me issues while I was in Europe so I was not able to get blogs written very easily.
FEDCON!
Fedcon in Dusseldorf, Germany, was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed the panels, cosplays, and conversations. This was my first European con so it was definitely more of a leap of faith, especially being in a nation with another language. What I found was that there are many English speakers at this con. In fact, when all the American actors were up on stage for panels, they were not using translators. Only a few panels were in German; most were in English.
Here are a few pictures:
Trekkies were there in abundance.
Stargate was well represented as 3 actors from the franchise were present. David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay in SG-1/Atlantis) was amazing on stage.
I was so excited to walk up to this cosplayer and say "Tek ma'te Master Bra'tac!" I got to talk with him a couple times over the weekend. Very outgoing guy.
Although comics were not really a main focus, you did have a lot of comics based cosplayers at Fedcon.
Do you think I like Stargate? This cosplayer was doing a Nox. I think the Nox are only found in 3 episodes of SG-1 (out of 200+ episodes).
My lesson from Fedcon is this: don't let cultural walls, such as a language barrier, scare you when you consider attending a con. I was not to concerned about language barriers because English is widely spoken around the world. Certainly it is not the only barrier and some cons might be harder than this one when it comes to that issue, but a nerds can always find ways of connecting when we are together.
Also, I want to thank the Guthries, who are trying to start a new section of Fans for Christ in Europe, for hosting me and letting me tag along with them. It was a great experience and they are a great family to spend time with.
For anyone interested in FFC Europe, go here on FB.
Slovakia
While in Slovakia I had the pleasure of joining with Youth with a Mission (YWAM). I had spent many months with them previously as a student at a Discipleship Training School. I did not come for an organized event or program this time but instead just came to spend a few weeks helping out around their new facility. I did a lot of weed whacking, some painting (which I wasn't very good at) and just provided an extra set of hands around the facility.
The 3 weeks in Slovakia were an interesting situation. I was the only single surrounded by couples for most of it. I am not complaining as there were some great couples there. It took a little more self management for me. I just had to pray about some things and watch my attitude. Even with being a 5th, or 15th, wheel I still had a great time. What I learned was to enjoy the people around me and pray about my feelings/thoughts as I worked through them.
I strongly recommend the DTS program that YWAM runs. I did not always agreed with some of the teachings, but I still learned a lot. Admittedly,, YWAM takes some getting used to if you do not come from a charismatic background, but I grew a lot during my DTS. YWAM Slovakia is still working on their website at this time.
Sorry I missed SEVERAL weeks in a row of blogging. My computer decided to give me issues while I was in Europe so I was not able to get blogs written very easily.
FEDCON!
Fedcon in Dusseldorf, Germany, was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed the panels, cosplays, and conversations. This was my first European con so it was definitely more of a leap of faith, especially being in a nation with another language. What I found was that there are many English speakers at this con. In fact, when all the American actors were up on stage for panels, they were not using translators. Only a few panels were in German; most were in English.
Here are a few pictures:
Stargate was well represented as 3 actors from the franchise were present. David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay in SG-1/Atlantis) was amazing on stage.
Although comics were not really a main focus, you did have a lot of comics based cosplayers at Fedcon.
Do you think I like Stargate? This cosplayer was doing a Nox. I think the Nox are only found in 3 episodes of SG-1 (out of 200+ episodes).
My lesson from Fedcon is this: don't let cultural walls, such as a language barrier, scare you when you consider attending a con. I was not to concerned about language barriers because English is widely spoken around the world. Certainly it is not the only barrier and some cons might be harder than this one when it comes to that issue, but a nerds can always find ways of connecting when we are together.
Also, I want to thank the Guthries, who are trying to start a new section of Fans for Christ in Europe, for hosting me and letting me tag along with them. It was a great experience and they are a great family to spend time with.
For anyone interested in FFC Europe, go here on FB.
Slovakia
The 3 weeks in Slovakia were an interesting situation. I was the only single surrounded by couples for most of it. I am not complaining as there were some great couples there. It took a little more self management for me. I just had to pray about some things and watch my attitude. Even with being a 5th, or 15th, wheel I still had a great time. What I learned was to enjoy the people around me and pray about my feelings/thoughts as I worked through them.
I strongly recommend the DTS program that YWAM runs. I did not always agreed with some of the teachings, but I still learned a lot. Admittedly,, YWAM takes some getting used to if you do not come from a charismatic background, but I grew a lot during my DTS. YWAM Slovakia is still working on their website at this time.
Great pics, and very cool that there's a FFC in Europe. Geeks are international :) How did you find them weird? I know little to nothing of YWAM so I'd be curious to know your thoughts, not asking for bad talk about them but just what you thought of their teaching and all that if you could share. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYWAM is a great organization but there are some drawbacks to being a decentralized organization. They come out of a very Charismatic/Pentecostal group which is not bad but the overall organization does not give a set standard for how to deal with very many things, including spiritual gifts. So you sometimes have comments like "Oh, that thing you did means you must have a demon in you." and other stuff like that. Often well meaning but sometimes just a little odd. I found in my DTS experience that just because you disagree with someone about an issue does not mean you can not learn from them about that. There are a lot of people who leave YWAM because they don't know how to deal with the focus on tongues and prophesying and such and some within YWAM do handle these things in ways that can only be described as weird.
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