Blog

Each summer for a number of years now, Austria has been fortunate to welcome a group of high school students and their leaders from Denton Bible Church. This group of specially selected students help put on a Christian “English Teenager Camp” along with a team of Austrian young people from various churches. This camp is a huge blessing and really helps grow the youth ministry our team leader, Russ, heads up. This summer is really significant, because Austrian believers whom Russ has been mentoring are for the first time taking head leadership of the camp as Russ and his family are in the States. Such a milestone is a cause for celebration and praise for what God is and has been doing here. Please pray that even after the camp finishes up today that the fruit of the ministry would last.After spending the night at Russ’s church and getting in a good breakfast the next morning, the team spent their first full day in Vienna getting oriented and sightseeing in order to fight off jet lag. The next day they traveled to their camp destination far away from the city into the beautiful mountains.
Some of the Denton Bible students, leaders, and a couple of Austrians. They were very excited to get started, and we were very glad to greet them and thank them for coming! We were especially glad to have two of the leaders come a couple of weeks early to explore the possibility of joining our team here in Austria long-term. This is a huge answer to prayer. Though we are just starting ministry here, we see God doing so much and we are very excited about the possiblity of God sending new workers for the harvest.

Liz and I wanted to send a quick update to let you all know that we are
expecting! Liz is 7 weeks along and aside from the normal fatigue and
queasiness is doing fine. Please be praying for the baby’s development and
that Liz will be able to get plenty of rest.
-Other News-

We were unable to go to Romania last week because we felt it would be wiser
to stay in Austria until we receive our residence permit. We are still
waiting, but we hope to be hearing back from the visa office soon. Please
pray that the rest of the process would go quickly and smoothly.

Thank you so much for your prayers,
Matt, Liz and…..

Music has become a big part of our ministry. Aside from playing and singing at our church and the refugee center, we often get asked to teach people to play instruments. Most of the time the requests are not very serious, but recently a young man, we’ll call him M., has been taking guitar lessons from Matt. They started only a few weeks ago but M. has endeared himself to our hearts.

We were surprised and very glad that M. showed up at our apartment for a guitar lesson Tuesday afternoon after not making it the week before. We were afraid he had gotten deported or sent to another part of Austria, but he explained to us that he got approved to receive a visa! He is very fortunate that he is 16. Nowadays it’s getting more and more difficult to receive asylum, but those that are 16 or younger are almost automatically accepted because of their youth. Because he had no identification papers, M. explained to us in broken German how a doctor here had examined his teeth and hands to determine he was 16.

Before Matt and M. start the lesson, we sit down at the dining table together, Matt and I finishing our pleasantly interrupted lunch, and M. enjoying some tea and cookies. Looking at framed photos of our families on the wall above the table, M. comments that it is very good that we have family photos. Unfortunately he has no pictures of his family. M. then makes machine gun sounds and pantomimes someone shooting up his family’s home, explaining that he was the only one to survive an attack made by the Taliban.

We give our condolences, and after a brief period of sad silence, M. changes the subject. Mother’s Day is coming up, and now he has three “Austrian mothers” for whom he wants to do something special. M. no longer lives in the refugee camp in Traiskirchen, just outside of Vienna, which is a good thing. M. tells us how bad the camp is and as he remembers, says, “ooooh!” as if he has just bitten into a hot pepper. “Everyone there– deport, deport.” He now lives in a refugee transition house sponsored by a Lutheran charity. His three mothers work in this home to look after M. and others and to help them integrate. M. also shows us the free museum pass given to him by the charity. Apparently he can get into any museum in Vienna for free. M. waves the pass in front of him as if to show it to a museum guard and says in English, “No money, no money.”

M. has also been taking a German language course in the city. He complains about how difficult German is (“Ooooooh!”). He teaches some Farsi greetings to Matt, and praises Matt for his successful pronunciation, as he proves his point. “English–gut (good), Farsi– gut, Deutsch–nein (no),” says M. in broken German. M. grabs the small amount of skin in front of his Adam’s apple, repeats the difficult O-Umlaut sound several times in a row, then shakes his head as if to say, “Farsi doesn’t have a ridiculous sound like this!”

Matt asks M. about the languages and culture of Afghanistan, and if the situation there is improving. M. shakes his heads and lets out another signature “oooooh!” He explains that each of the main tribes has its own leader, so there are four “chefs” (German for boss) working against each other. M. states that he would like to travel to America one day. But for now, it’s time for guitar lesson. Today’s lesson: rhythm and a review of the chords G, C, and D. In the future, M. hopes to play a Julio Iglesias song. Anyone know a good Julio Igesias tune in G?

Seriously he is a joy to us, but as you can see M. has been through a lot. Please pray that God would give us wisdom in how to best minister to this young man who has had to grow up way too fast. Please pray that through the music and the broken German we can let him know how much God loves him.

I wanted to share a quick update about language learning. When you live in a foreign culture and desire to interact with people in their heart language like we do, language learning is a life-long endeavor. However, the first months of our being here has been dedicated to focused language learning. In two weeks Liz will finally be finished with her time of focused language learning. For the last eight months she has been faithfully going to language class every morning, four hours a day Monday through Friday. It may not sound like much, but believe me there is nothing more mentally taxing than struggling to express yourself in a new language for four straight hours a day. She has progressed very well and I am quite proud of her. She started from zero and now has full-on conversations all of the time. We are looking forward to the time it will give us for ministry.
I have been done with language classes for a while. Since I majored in German I only needed a refresher course to get me back in the groove. However, I have found that since I have been out of language class it’s sometimes hard getting practice. The majority of our ministry at the moment is among refugees, who may or may not speak German. Because of this I’ve been trying to find a language partner, someone I can practice my German with in order to keep it sharp. Just this last week the Lord provided me with a guy from our church who has the time to meet with me twice a week. This has been a great motivator to continue to improve my German skills. Please be praying that we can find a similar situation for Liz as she finishes. Pray also that our ministry would grow and branch out more into the German-speaking community here as we wish to be light and salt not only to the internationals, but also to the nationals as well.

Have you ever heard the story about the leaky bucket? In case you haven’t, I’ll tell you the short version. There was a leaky bucket that was ashamed that he wasn’t doing a good job since he could only deliver half of the water a normal bucket could because of his holes. However, one day he noticed that because of his daily routine of bringing water from a stream, there were many beautiful flowers along the path where he had leaked. Yeah, it’s a cheesy story, but I have to say I’ve been feeling a bit like the bucket lately. Despite how well things have been going for us here in Austria, sometimes I wish we weren’t starting over again. Instead of having a laser-focused action-packed ministry, I’m learning culture and language again while doing a Bible study here, a meeting there, refugee center once a week, while throwing in the occasional project for a little variety.

However, like the bucket, faithfulness (and of course GRACE) can make up for our inadequacies. Just the other day I was reminded that even though David was anointed as king at a young age, it took him many years of hiding in caves and running around like a crazy man before he became king. God was using this time to build his character– it was not wasted time. In the midst of my discouragement last week God had me stop and look at the flowers I had watered along the path that I’m beating. Last weekend we had some visitors in from our missions office to do a presentation on Biblical leadership training. Russ and I had spent several weeks beforehand inviting people who we thought might be interested, and we weren’t getting many commitments. But as the day of the meeting came and I looked around the room, I saw a couple of guys from my Bible study, some other friends from the refugee center, and the pastor of the church we attend.

I don’t know what the fruit of last week’s meetings will be, but I am encouraged to see what God will do. So if you don’t mind I’m going to grab my leaky bucket. I’ve got a path to water.

It feels like spring is just around the corner here in Austria as the sun is actually out for a change and the snow is finally melting. Not everyone is ready to fully let go of winter here, however. Winter sports are a very big deal here. EVERYONE is following the Olympics and you can hardly turn your head without seeing some news paper headline about Lindsey Vonn (who spends extensive time here training) or the fact that Austria finally struck gold in the Olympics. Liz and I had quite a cultural experience watching the Men’s super G with a group of Austrians. All eyes were glued to the TV and everyone cheered when the an Austrian was up gasping at every falter or missed turn. You would have thought it was the Superbowl. After it was over they all sang songs about skiing…who knew there was such a thing!

It seems ever Austrian knows how to ski. It’s no surprise since not only do they get a week off in the winter so that families can go skiing (with the excuse that they are saving on energy by not heating the schools that week giving rise to the holiday’s name Energiewoche –Energy week). Not only that but starting around Jr. High age all of the kids take a field trip to the slopes each year with their school. A minimum of two solid weeks of skiing per year…not too shabby. Liz and I both having grown up mostly in flat country are at a decided disadvantage. Not wanting to be left out when our church offered an opportunity for a ski retreat this weekend Liz and I took some snowboarding lessons earlier this year. We aren’t in our twenties anymore, so we’ve got just about every kind of protective pad you can think of, but if you think about it an extra prayer or two wouldn’t hurt either.

Aside from learning about Austrian Ski culture, we’ve been working at getting our visa. Everything went smoothly on the first day. We showed up at 6:45 am to stand in line for the doors of the visa office to open up at 8:00. After that we rushed in with our forms and grabbed a number and waited some more. I was prepared for a long day of waiting, but we were out by 11:00 so I was pretty pleased. Now more waiting as they process our documents. It’s a long ordeal and we still have to occasionally travel out of the E.U. to keep our tourist status, and bring in more documentation when they ask for it, but I’ve been encouraged with how things have gone so far. We got a very nice case worker and she seems to genuinely want to help us out which a pretty rare quality in a government worker.

Ministry has been going strong as well. Liz is still in full-time language. I’m not taking any classes right now, but I hope to start taking a part time class and then find a language partner to get some more practice in. I just started helping with a Bible study for some Nigerian Refugees a couple of weeks ago. They are all young guys who are helping out with a Children’s ministry in the area. They are all faithful guys and have been a real joy to get to know.

We also still go to the refugee center once a week and do the worship there and I’m still preaching there once a month. I preached last week, in fact, on the Philippian Jailer in Acts 16. There was a lively discussion afterwards with many of the men from Afghanistan. I’m curious to find out what was said. I talked with a young man from there who speaks English. He asked me about St. Valentine and lent and told me about his two year journey to Austria (much of it on foot!) It is heartbreaking. He seems curious and open yet holds very fast to his native religion and beliefs.

We will be leaving to go down there soon so I’d better cut this short. If you think about it, pray.

It was after lunch and Matt had left the house for an afternoon meeting. Feeling oddly energetic after a full morning of German class, and after having gone to bed at 12:30 the same morning following a late night at the Oasis, I decided to straighten up the home a bit. To me, there isn’t a better feeling than clean sheets. “All right,” I thought, “Time to change the bedding!” As I ripped off the old bedding, threw it in the hamper, then got out a clean sheet and duvet cover, I thought, “I’m so thankful to have two sets of bedding.” Since laundry here is hung up to dry, it’s very convenient to have two sets of bedding. I continued in “straigthening-up” bliss as I put on the clean fitted sheet. I remembered how I used to think that our thin, European-style foam mattress which sits on wooden slats fitted into the bed frame was strange, but now I enjoyed how lightweight it was. It was very nice that I could, all by myself, easily and quickly put on the fitted sheet!

Next came the more difficult part: fitting the duvet cover on the duvet. I had never done this myself, since Matt is so skilled at it. “But,” I thought, “how hard can it be?” After all, I had remembered Matt saying that it’s like putting on a big pillow case. So I unbuttoned the cloth buttons of our Ikea duvet cover and spread the cover flat on the bed. I tried to stuff in the duvet as uniformly as I could, but soon I discovered that there was no way my short little arms could stuff the entire duvet up to the top of the cover, a distance of two meters or so, without literally diving in with my whole body and doing the army crawl. Hmmm…I took a moment to think. Aha! I bunched up the mass of duvet and cover and marched down the hall to the living room. I stood on the couch, and holding the partially-covered duvet above my head, I began to shake and turn the whole mess in a clockwise manner, in order to get all of the nooks and crannies of the cover filled. Twenty minutes later, parched and sweating, I had achieved a small victory!!!

Here’s a story that was published in the Smithsonian, about a Polish family who came through the Traiskirchen refugee camp just outside of Vienna, to escape the Iron Curtain. Here’s a picture of the front gate of the camp. The Oasis, the refugee ministry where we volunteer on Wednesday nights, is located in an old storefront not far from the camp. Please pray for Matt as he is preaching at the Oasis this Wednesday night.

Plans for new refugee camp to help Traiskirchen – General News – Austrian Times Online News – English Newspaper

Governor calls for immediate action on refugee camp – General News – Austrian Times Online News – English Newspaper