Last weekend

This weekend has been fantastic. Our dearest friends, Matt and Suzanne, hosted a backyard party for us to hangout with all our friends from church. They presented us with cards from everyone to take with us to Germany, something we will cherish. 

Saturday we ran lots of errands and made sure we had everything we needed for packing. It was a long and tiring day, but we ended the day by watching some sweet friends get engaged. 

Yesterday morning we enjoyed our last Sunday at Wedgwood for the summer. It was a great day and we will miss it greatly while we're gone. 

The ministry is in good hands with these sweet friends. 

We started packing and getting everything in order today. We are so excited! Thanks for praying with us! 

A Week Away

We are one week away from heading to Germany!

Now we are in the midst of packing and making sure we don't forget anything. We've got a lot to do and a lot of people to see this weekend.

Please see our previous post about communication if you want to stay in touch with us this summer!

Please pray for us this week as we are wrapping this up at our house, packing, putting final touches on plans. Please pray that we are calm and not worried. We know the Lord has gone before us and we could not be more excited!

Communication

While Ethan and I are in Europe, we will have different preferred forms of communication. We won't have our phone numbers in operation, so if you're wanting to chat with us, here's how you can: 

Email-

emilyrosejones@gmail.com
ethancjones@gmail.com

Emily on Instagram (and Facebook):
emily_rose_jones

We will use WhatsApp instead of texting, so download it in the App Store for free and then test it out with us!

You can leave comments on the blog as well. And if you're really feeling fun, we can give you our mailing address in Germany. :)

I mean, who wouldn't want to chat with us??

We can't wait to hear from you! Thanks for following along!

Overwhelmingly Blessed

We have been so blessed during this process of praying and planning for our summer in Germany. There is no way to do what we have had to do without the faithfulness of The Lord and without the most amazing family and friends (a true blessing!).

We have friends who championed the idea with Ethan, believing he could do it and highly suggesting he consider it. Other friends were among the first we told about this crazy idea and they immediately supported and offered to check our mail, take care of our car, etc, instantly easing my mind. Our families didn't bat an eye at the idea. In fact, the Joneses and Princes have been our biggest sounding boards, giving advice, calming nerves, and praying diligently. We have bosses and supervisors who have worked with us from the beginning of this process to allow us to go and still have jobs in August (this will never cease to amaze me). We had friends who would sit with us, listen to us, and encourage us to keep dreaming, including sending a book about Germany with the most encouraging note! We've had friends offer to store some of our stuff. We have friends willing to take the day off work to drive us to the airport. We have family and friends who have invested in us financially, which is so humbling and inspiring. Our family and friends have prayed for us the whole way, being the voice of reason and calm.

Most of all, we have seen God be so very faithful every single day of this journey. If anything, we will have story upon story of God's provision and blessings. Not every step had been a breeze and sometimes things felt crazy and unclear. However God had always shown us that this path is one he is making for us. We are thankful and we celebrate what God has done and is doing!

A Summer in Germany

It's been over a year of praying, planning, saving, discussing, and dreaming.

We are well on our way to accomplishing one of Ethan's goals in education: to study abroad.

Ethan and I are headed to Germany for 2 months this summer! He will be studying German and gaining mastery of the language. German is a required research language for a PhD in Old Testament and this experience will help Ethan be a better researcher in his field. It is not required for his degree to study abroad, however, Ethan has a goal of doing his best in mastering German, so this is a great step for him.

Because I can read your mind and I know you're wondering, here's some Q&A...

So, where will we be? Good question. We will be in Göttingen, a small university town in north central Germany. We have some dear friends who are currently studying in Göttingen, so we look forward to being there with them.

What will Ethan do? Another good question! Ethan will be going to classes Monday-Friday. He'll be in small groups of people speaking only in German. What's cool about this program is that the people in the classes are from all over the world and from all different professional backgrounds. He could be in class with a doctor from Africa and a banker from Australia. The common ground is the German language everyone is learning.

What will Emily do? Great question! I plan on making friends, drinking coffee, reading books, walking in the park, visiting the local farmers market, exploring, and cooking meals for my hard working husband. I will likely spend a lot of time with our friends in town, too! We also have several friends visiting us (how crazy is that?!) and I am delighted to show them around.

This is an exciting time for us and we are thrilled to be going! God has been so very gracious in every step and we are looking forward to seeing how he uses this experience. Please pray for us as we prepare to go and follow along here for updates on our journey, if you'd like!

Love y'all!

Cold/Flu Bomb with DoTerra

A few weeks ago, I started feeling like I was getting a cold and was pretty run down. I started running a fever and really didn't want to get sick. I looked up the protocol for a cold/flu and started it right away. In less that 24 hours, I was back to normal with no symptoms at all!

This is what I did:

• Every two hours, I mixed 5 drops lemon, OnGuard, melaleuca, and 3 drops oregano and applied to the bottoms of my feet with coconut oil. I put socks on to keep it in place. You're actually supposed to do this mixture in an empty gel capsule, but I didn't have any.

• I diffused OnGuard and Breathe together constantly and kept the diffuser near me.

• Drank lots and lots of water with a drop of lemon.

• Used peppermint on my throat and back of neck for congestion.

• I did that for a whole day. The next day, I slowed it down to every 4 hours applying the bomb on my feet and continued to diffuse. I tried to drink a lot of water, but I'm actually really bad about that.

What I felt was surely going to be a winter cold and make me feel terrible, turned into just feeling poorly for about 2 days instead of longer. I have been reading that using the oils can shorten the duration of a cold/flu virus and now I believe it from experience!

*All these oils were contained in my Family Physician Kit. However, you could do the allergy shooter of 2 drops peppermint, lemon, and lavender in 2 oz of water or orange juice every 2 hours. From what I've read, that would have worked as well. And as a side note, that allergy shooter is what I do when I feel my allergy symptoms coming on. More on that later.

My Journey with DoTerra Essential Oils

I've been using DoTerra essential oils for a little while now and wanted to share my amazing experience with them. I rave about them because they work! 

I ordered the Family Physician Kit because it contained all the individual oils I wanted to purchase, plus a few extras that I was able to try out! It contains a 5mL bottle of each: lavender, lemon, peppermint, melaleuca, oregano, frankincense, Deep Blue, Breathe, DigestZen, and OnGuard (the last 4 are oil blends).

The lavender, lemon, and peppermint are the single oils I use most. Ethan and I both suffer from mild seasonal allergies. We've been using the combo of these three oils to treat the allergies and I have been able to stop taking my meds! We diffuse the lavender at night and we have both been sleeping better. We also put lemon in our water each day which tastes wonderful and helps reset your pH levels and detox your liver (**if using essential oils other than DoTerra, please be sure to check that you can actually ingest them. DoTerra is the highest quality and are safe for internal use). We diffuse peppermint in the afternoon to help perk us up in the afternoon slump.

OnGuard and Breathe are constantly being diffused in our home. OnGuard actually purifies the air and Breathe helps you, well, breathe better. OnGuard is the DoTerra equivalent to Thieves oil that you might have heard of. We put it on the bottoms of our feet for immune boosts, too. Breathe is great to rub on your throat if you feel stuffy or if your throat is bothering you. You will feel it working immediately.

If you know me, you know I have had 'tummy' issues my whole life. DigestZen is my new best friend. I keep a bottle on me at all times, but lately have rarely had to use it. I think the lemon in our water is helping a lot. But the DigestZen calms the stomach and intestinal tract. If you start having those tummy issues we all hate, you just rub a few drops on your abdomen, sit back and relax, and feel better in a minutes. I'm not joking. I love this stuff. And it smells amazing to me!

If you have questions, please let me know! And if you want to look around the DoTerra site for more info, check this out: www.mydoterra.com/emilyrosejones