More goodbyes

This is a post I wanted to write last week, but we've been swamped... sorry for the delay!

Although we were excited to move back to Austria this month, that also meant more goodbyes. We know living the life as a missionary will always involve a lot of goodbyes alongside the many hellos, but that doesn't make experiencing it any easier. We were blessed with a wonderful community in England and we're thankful to have spent time there.

Here are some of the things we said goodbye to last week...

Friends from church and our fellow WorldVenture missionaries

Our German tutor, Ulla

The opportunity to teach and preach in English!

Some wonderful kids

Baby sheep! (Many pastures had lambs just born before we left)

Not pictured: 

• Assembled furniture 
• Delicious cheddar cheese
• A proper cup of tea
• A (temporary) sense of stability!

The Timeline!

Now that we have our visas, many of you are probably wondering if we are heading back to Austria soon. Receiving our visas this early was very unexpected and caused us to reevaluate our timeline for staying in England. We want to balance honoring our commitment to the missionaries here with getting back to Vienna, where we believe God has truly called us. We also want to be financially responsible. We've paid for our apartment here in Lichfield through the middle of March and that is not refundable.

In order to determine next steps and timelines, we spent time praying and discussed the situation with our field leaders in Vienna, as well as our teammates here in England. We then determined the following schedule:

• February 20 – 23: Visit to Vienna to pick up our visas and begin our apartment search
• February 23 – March 13: Finish out our time (and our apartment rental) in England
• March 13 - 31: Return to Vienna and continue searching for an apartment. Stay with teammates (no rent!) and possibly meet with a language tutor.
• April 1 – 5: Participate in the Austria WorldVenture team retreat in Grundlsee, Austria (we last attended this on our Vision Trip in 2011 and we're excited to be back!)
• Sometime in April: Move into a long term apartment and have our household good delivered from the US! Begin language school at the end of April.

We are eager and excited about these next steps. The thought of having a home to “call our own” is very exciting to us, after nearly 2 years living a transitive lifestyle. I am so excited to have our container delivered - it will be like Christmas to see our of our household goods again!

Please pray for patience these next few months, as we walk through the final steps towards being settled in Vienna. I tend to be eager about planning and sometimes I push forward too fast. Please pray that I wait on the Lord and his timing for finding an apartment and getting settled. We want to land in just the right place, a neighborhood where we can reach out and stay for the next 3 - 5 years.

Exciting things are ahead and we're just one step closer to "home"!

Contextualizing with Tea

The tea station at our church here in England

If you've read about or studied missions, you've probably heard of the term "contextualization". It's a long word for a pretty simple, yet important, concept. Contextualization basically means looking at a culture and asking "how should and can the gospel be expressed here?".  When we take Christ's message of salvation into a new culture, we do not compromise that message...but what we do need to change is how it is communicated and expressed based on the unique cultural context. How Christians express and live out their faith differs from country to country, dependent on cultural values and traditions, and this affects what Christian community looks like.

For example, things like translating the Bible into the common cultural language, engaging in (non-sinful) cultural traditions, wearing traditional dress and playing culturally-relevant music can be ways that missionaries engage in contextualization. In Austria, it can mean allowing time after each church service for eating and socializing together, as relaxed time to develop relationships is highly valued in Austrian culture.

Tea is always served with sugar and milk.

Here in England, one way that the missionaries contextualize is by offering tea to everyone who comes into the church service. This may seem like a small gesture, but it carries with it an important message. In British culture, tea is a popular drink but also something that brings people together. Social gatherings always involve tea, and offering someone tea is a welcoming gesture of hospitality. When we offer someone tea at church, it invites them in to be a part of the community. It says "welcome" and it makes them feel comfortable, giving them something to enjoy that is comforting and familiar.

When we get back to Austria, we look forward to exploring the culture and discovering new and creative way to contextualize. Our goal will be to plant a church that is distinctly Austrian, so that when people walk into a church gathering or service, they feel at home and welcome.

How does the church in your country contextualize?

Finding Routine

I think one of the hardest things about moving around and living in different places is a lack of routine. Constant change is taxing for the brain to handle and it can make cultural adjustment much more difficult. Having a regular schedule is comforting - it feels like home. Discovering a routine means learning the way to do things in a new place, so you don't have to think so hard about it anymore. Having a routine means you can focus your mental energy on other things.

After a couple weeks in England, we are finally finding a routine and, therefore, feeling more settled. With our semi-weekly tutoring sessions, church bible studies, a weekly team meeting, church services, and study time, our schedule is filling up! We are thankful for this regularity. We were also able to get an affordable 3-month gym membership, so we can stay fit (and mentally healthy) while we're here.

Here is our weekly schedule right now:

Sunday: Prep for church service; Set-up at 3:30pm; Service from 4:30 - 6pm
Monday: German study in the morning; Tutoring session in the afternoon
Tuesday: 10:15am bible study; 7:15pm bible study; prep for Wednesday team meeting; German study
Wednesday: 10am Team meeting, with occasional afternoon team prep work
Thursday: German study in the morning; Tutoring session in the afternoon
Friday: Sabbath (rest day!)
Saturday: German study; prep for Sunday

What do you find comforting about your daily or weekly routine?

Photo credit: dhester from morguefile.com

Christianity Explored

Adding stickers to what seemed like 10,000 CE postcards

Our Lichfield WorldVenture team is gearing up for starting a Christianity Explored course in the local neighborhood! Similar to the Alpha course, Christianity Explored is focused on helping new believers or people who are searching. It offers a safe place to ask questions and explore the basics of Christianity and what we believe.

We will be starting a 7-week course in early February and in preparation, we've been distributing postcards all over the neighborhood. Our teammates are really focused on their local neighborhood (which they call an "estate"), especially since the church meets in the community center. Last Wednesday, we spend an hour or two adding course information stickers to many, many Christianity Explored postcards. Then we ventured out, dropping them in every mailbox in the neighborhood! We each had a zone to cover and were out there for about 2 - 3 hours going door to door.

Although it was a tiring day, we're praying that a few people from the area have interest in the course and see it as an opportunity to get their questions answered in a safe, welcoming environment.

Would you pray with us, that God stirs the hearts of some local people to come and explore Christianity with us?

Our New Apartment

Welcome to our new life in England! Check out the video below, as Bethany takes you on a tour of our new (temporary) apartment.

Things We are Getting Used To... (Part 2)

Now that we're in a new place, we thought we'd share with you again the things we're getting used to...

New team mates and friends!

We have joined Jeff and Sarah Fry with Darwin Park Community Church (the area is named after Charles Darwin's grand father Erasmus who was born here and was kind of a big deal).

Tea!

We are drinking more tea than ever now that we are in England. We have even learned how to prepare it properly. The trick is in the wrist.

Self-directed Studying

This new stage means we do a lot more self directed studying and working with a tutor twice a week. It is a good chance to work on things at our own pace!

 Space Heaters

We are making it through the winter with the help of these little guys. English buildings tend to be a little colder than we are used to, but Bethany is layering on the socks and powering through. 

 One Comforter

After 3 months of separate comforters in Austria, we are back to one again. It is so interesting how different places do things!

Pull String Lights and Shower

Here is the light switch and power for the shower in our bathroom (more on that below). It is easy to whack them in the dark when you are trying to turn the lights on. But they add a certain exotic feel to the bathroom.

Push Button Shower

Lastly we have our push button shower. It is electric (I think) and you control the heat with the dial in the middle. It works, but it is an interesting system for sure!

To see our first installment of "things we're getting used to" when we moved to Austria, click here

New Teammates

We have been in Lichfield, England for a week already, and we're setting in well. Much of that is thanks to our new team members, Jeff and Sarah Fry. The Frys have welcomed us here, helping us learn our way around, lending us a car, and inviting us over to their house often for meals and fellowship time. It feels like we've known them for longer than just a week!

The Frys pastor a small church plant in Lichfield, and even in a short time, I feel like I've already learned a lot about what it looks like to live the life of a church planter, just from observing them. No matter the size of a church, things can be challenging and sometimes messy. We are all sinful, so church life is complicated! Their church has been going through a difficult season recently, and watching them handle it gracefully, wisely and biblically is teaching me a lot. I am confident we'll learn so much from them in our three months.

As much as we will learn from them, I can also see how God sent us to Lichfield to support and encourage the Frys. We've been able to pray with them and offer an outside perspective on some of the situations in the church, which they say has been really valuable. They've been doing ministry on their own for the last 8 years, so they are excited to have team members here to work with them. We are planning on helping with music in church and at bible studies (as soon as the guitar they have is repaired) and assist with teaching. We'll also be helping with logistics for Sunday evening services and a few special events. I'm excited to partner with them and support them, even if it is just temporarily.

When we were preparing to come here, I was feeling uncertain about what to expect. But God has really given me peace about being here and confidence about how He will use our time. I'm so thankful we serve a creative God who uses all things for good!

Our team posing at the movie theater, after a trip to see "Les Miserables" together

Another 3 Months

It seems like our lives have been stints of 3 months for quite awhile now.

We haven't been stationary for much more than 3 months in a long time. In the States before we left for Europe, we bounced around the country as we said goodbye to people and places and raised support. It was a lot of transition all the time. So...coming to Vienna was a nice change. Compared to our last year, arriving in Vienna felt like our first semi-permanent situation in awhile.

But now we have closed out those first 3 months, and we are on to our second to last section of the journey here in Lichfield, England. We're so new here, I had to look up the spelling of the town. We are excited to see what God does with our time here, but it still a bit difficult to adjust yet again to a new place. We can't wait to learn from our co-laborers here and to get involved in the ministry they are doing. We are so thankful that God has walked with us on the journey, and we know that He will continue to provide all that we need.

The transition here was hard. I think it was the combination of a quiet Christmas away from our families, lots of free time to think about that, the stress of our visa application process, and having to pack up and move again. All of that made for an emotional last week in Vienna. I think Bethany and I are both thankful that we made it through the last week, and we can begin the settling process in this new place.

The constant through all of this has been God's faithfulness. Even though transitions are tough, it's been evident that God's hand has been in each one. We've had places to stay, needed resources, and supportive team members and friends at each juncture. He has gone before and paved the way in really clear ways. We're so thankful.

And so, the adventure we call 'following God' continues!

What is the adventure that God has you on right now?

Want to Hear Us Speak German?

Here is our most recent video update! We decided to do it in the little German we know (with subtitles of course.) Enjoy!

Feeling Settled

Exploring Schonbrunn Palace in the evening

Having been here for 6 weeks, I am beginning to really feeling settled in Vienna. We know the neighborhood here well, we are enjoying exploring the city, and we have a routine to our life again. We are progressing in the language and each day, I find more confidence to speak to people with the little German that I know. The feeling of being settled in one place is comforting and it's something I had missed while we were on the road this last year.

But with the feeling of being settled here also comes some angst. The more we feel drawn to Vienna and the more we fall in love the with city and the people here, the sadder we are to depart in January for 3 months. When we first started talking about going to England awhile back, I was excited to experience a different country and I thought being in a place where English is spoken would be refreshing. But now that we are here and finding some momentum, it is hard to think about leaving. I'm afraid of losing the German I've learned and I'm weery when I think of starting over someplace new. Plus, we like our neighborhood here in the 20th district, and we know that we'll have to start over in the spring when we return to Vienna, learning new streets and a new routine.

I know that God has a plan and that it includes 3 months here and 3 months in England for a reason. And I am truly confident He will use our internship opportunity to help us grow and give us opportunities to serve. Plus, it may be good for us to focus on studying the German we've learning so far, letting that sink in for a bit before continuing on with more difficult grammar. But I am praying that my heart follows along with my head on this one. Instead of trying to shut off the emotional attachment I have for this city and neighborhood, I am instead praying that God grows my heart for Vienna more each day here. And that coming back to Vienna will be that much sweeter when April comes.