Joint Church Service for Vienna Churches
Yesterday over four hundred people gathered together in a rented movie theater to worship God together. Once a year one of the largest Evangelical denominations holds a joint church service where we can get together and worship with one another.
As we were singing a song in German I looked over the people gathered and was thanking and praising God for all he has done in the past 40 years. You see everyone in attendance is a direct result of a small Bible study that was started by a Canadian couple. This Bible study birthed a church and within 11 years four churches were started. As of a study done in 1999 there were 4 generations of churches that started from this church!
It is neat to be a part of what God is doing here in Austria. The church based training and the Bible school are heavily involved in training and equipping active workers in these churches and helping train many church leaders.
The moderator for the church service was an EVAK (The Bible School) student and another student is leading the city wide youth group (ages 15-25) highlighted what God is doing among the youth in Vienna. Those who pray and give financially toward us and our ministry are also helping in tangible ways for us to be here right now doing the things we are doing. Investing into the lives of these men and women who are actively serving Christ in their ministries and daily lives.
There are other churches in Vienna where God is also working but I am most familiar with these “Evangelical Free Churches” (no direct relation to the Evangelical Free Church of America).
Easter Vacation
Last week Kati had a week off of school and we took advantage of the time as a family. We were able to enjoy some sights outside of Vienna which we hardly get time to do. I think it is always good to continue to learn as much as we can about Austria in order to help us live and minister more effectively.
I have posted some random pictures of the kids and some cool places we visited. One day we met up with some good friends, the Perrys, and Dawn made a comment that struck me. She said something like, “Isn’t it amazing that this town and the buildings we see are older than the United States.” It really puts things into perspective as to how long of a tradition people have been building upon.
One day we went to Enns, the oldest recognized city in Austria April 22nd 1212! I found the old part of the city rather facinating because in most towns we visit the center of town is a church and in this case it was not but the city tower. There was a church on the other side of town but the main part seemed to be the tower and city hall.
Trusting God even when you don’t understand.
One of the exciting things about being in Austria is when we have new people come. It is always a waiting game because some people come within a year and others longer. It just depends upon God’s timing and how quickly the people can raise their prayer and financial support.
Well we had a single lady and a young couple who have been accepted to the mission and we were thinking they all would come this year, 2010.
Not only is it a waiting game but not everyone who starts the process actually arrives.
The single lady, Krishana, has been raising support for about three years. She has applied for her visa two times and been declined and she flew over this January to start the process again. We got word last week that she does have a place reserved and she just needs to hand in a few more documents. What a long process she has had with her visa.
Well after she applied for her visa this January she went back to the states to receive one last bit of training and then pack to come back to Austria. It was exciting. A little over a week into her training she went to the doctors to get something checked out. The visit revealed that she had a tumor and needed to get it checked out more thoroughly. She decided to have the procedure done at home where her parents were, that was two weeks ago.
It turns out she has type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma called Follicular Lymphoma. She is undergoing chemotherapy at the moment.
I, and the whole team here in Austria, get her updates from her website and she is a writer and is journaling about her process. It remains to be seen how the treatment will go but the doctor is thinking that it might go into remission and even coming to Austria isn’t still out of the question.
All I know is this all happened so fast and Krishana is reacting with tremendious trust in God even when she doesn’t understand why. If you think of it today, please pray for Krishana, that her treatment would work, the cancer would go quickly into remission and that her body will cope with the chemicals in as much of a positive way as possible. And that she will be encouraged through this by her friends, family and her faith in God would be strengthened.
you can follow her story and progress at www.tandemliving.org
Field Leaders Meeting
Well Christy and I got back from a Greater Europe Mission Field Leaders meeting. It was my first time as I have been. Now that I am working as co-field leader I get to go to these semi-annual meetings for a few days.
I didn’t know if it was going to be a good time and worth the few days out of my schedule or not but I found it to be very good. I was able to see and talk with others who are in the same position and dealing with similar issues.
We all had read Bill Hybels “Too Busy Not to Pray” before coming and after our worship times had a short discusson about our prayer lives. It is nice to know that other leaders are also concerned about cultivating their spiritual lives.
We had all taken the Birkman assesment. It is a helpful tool to understand each other and we will be using this instrument in our local teams as well.
The last focus of our time together was having our Annual Development Reviews and talking about the coming years strategic plan.
I won’t bother you with any more details but wanted to let you in on something I am invovled in and is new.
