Two Years

Posing with our team leaders at the airport on October 6, 2012

Pushing our carts of luggage through the Vienna Airport

Two years ago today, we stepped off a plane and arrived in Vienna. Two years! It is one of those things that seems like yesterday and seems simultaneously like so long ago. The longer we are here, the farther away our life in the States feels and the more Vienna feels like home. We have gone through so much change since the fall of 2012 - learning a new language, acclimating to a culture, finding and being blessed by a new community and church, making a home and expanding our family. No wonder our "previous life" feels like a distant past!
Through all of this, the Lord's hand has been so clear to us. He has directed and guided us each step of the way and continues to bring encouragement into our lives. We still feel very confirmed and certain that this is where He wants us to serve, and it has been exciting to get more and more involved in practical ministry over these last few months. From finding an apartment and getting settled, to discovering and being welcomed in by our church, to picking up German...God has blessed every step and we are so thankful. We look forward to seeing what the next two years in Vienna will bring!

Nate's Second Sermon

He's at it again! Nate preached his second sermon in German this past Sunday! This time, he co-preached with a university student from our church, so Johannes spoke for the first 20 minutes and Nate closed out the sermon for the second 20 minutes.

Having his first sermon out of the way already, the second time around was a a little bit less pressure. Plus, there was less content to prepare and only half the time to speak. However, co-preaching also meant meeting with Johannes and coordinating how their messages would fit together and provide a well-rounded picture of the 2 Corinthians text. Johannes hadn't preached before, so Nate also spent some time helping him prepare and giving him feedback and tips on how to preach effectively. It was a unique challenge, but one that brought another opportunity for growth for Nate.

I was thankful to have heard most of his sermon, because Ellie was quiet enough to sit at the back of the sanctuary with me for awhile. (Sometimes her joyful shrieking relegates me to the "baby room".)  Nate's message was about discerning the will of God and his three main points were:

• God is faithful
• God gives us the holy spirit
• God gives us community

Here are some more photos of Nate in action!

The Meat Counter

We are coming up on the 2-year anniversary of being in Austria. In some ways, that seems and sounds like a long time; we feel very at home here and have learned so much in terms of the language and culture. We have found friends and a community of both German and English speakers. We are in the midst of serving and done with our official language study phase. Our life in the States before this feels like a long way away.

And yet, we are still babies, learning how to crawl. As I watch Ellie figure out her body and how to move around, I see a lot of similarities with our journey. Each opportunity to learn how to live and serve here builds on the previous one, much like a baby strengthens her muscles and learns how to put movements together. Before we know it, we will be full-out walking!

Sometimes, it feels like I am walking already...but then I have an experience that reminds me that I'm still learning and I'm still reaching new milestones. This week's success: the meat counter.

When we first moved here, everyone would tell us hilarious and embarrassing stories about trying to order meat at the supermarket. Not only are you attempting to use your new language skills to order food, but you are also figuring out how much to order in kilograms instead of pounds. This makes for some entertaining accidental mix-ups. (Similar to the time I tried to order 100 Kilos of dried cranberries at the market. That's 200 pounds, people.)

In an attempt to avoid making some of these same mistakes, I have been avoiding the meat counter. Today's supermarkets have plenty of pre-packaged meat options, so it hasn't been difficult for me to just look at a package and decide if it's the right kind and amount of meat that I need. But this week, I took a sample of a new lunch meat at the counter and really wanted to order some. Thankfully, the man asked me how many slices I wanted. Now, slices are something I understand! I ordered 15 slices and felt accomplished. That gave me the confidence 2 days later to order ground beef from the counter. I wasn't sure how much I needed, so I asked her, "Can I see how much 250 g is?" And that was a good way for me to judge if the amount was right for my chili recipe.

Even after two years, I am still experiencing small little victories like this. They remind me how far we've come but also how far we still have to go. We are always learning and with God's grace, we hope to keep a learner's attitude the whole way through.

[Side Note: sorry for the slow down in our blog posting lately! Life has been chugging along and keeping us busy. We will try to post more often in the weeks to come!]

Photo credit: Seemann from morguefile.com

Nate's First Sermon

Nate reached an exciting milestone this past Sunday: he preached his first sermon in German! It was an exciting accomplishment and a testimony to how God has been working and equipping us for ministry here in Austria. I was extremely proud of Nate, watching him in front of our congregation preaching the word. Speaking for 30 minutes in German after only having arrived here a year and a half ago is something to be very proud of and Nate's hard work and dedication in language learning has paid off. As I watched him, I could really envision how God is going to use him here to impact many people, and it excites me to think of our future in ministry.

For this month update, Nate put together a brief video talking about his experience preaching, including some clips from his sermon. Take a look and enjoy!

A Big Step Forward

Last Sunday, Nate took a big step forward in his language accomplishments and role at the church. He served as the "moderator" of the Sunday morning worship service, i.e. the point person who provides introductions and transitions. He welcomed everybody, facilitated times of prayer, read announcements, and most importantly, gave a 5-minute devotional. This was a HUGE accomplishment for him in regards to his progress in German. Although he spent a lot of time preparing his remarks, it also included quite a bit of extemporaneous speaking, and he did a great job. To be able to speak in front of a crowd that much is a great milestone to reach and demonstrates his comfort in and grasp of the language. I really enjoyed seeing him up there and was proud of him for being able to fill this important role at church, after only being here for less than 2 years.

His devotional thoughts were also good, though I thought I would share them with you. Here is a rough translation of the devotional he shared with the congregation:

"I have just begun reading a book* about failure. Normally, we think that we should try to avoid failure at all costs, but this author sees it the other way around. She suggests that it is only through failure that we truly learn. When we accomplish things successfully, the list of things that we do is relatively short and we are not given the chance to grow.

The more I think about this idea, the more it seems true to me. When one thinks about the how he learns something, it is always through trying and failing. This makes me think about our daughter, Ellie, and how many things she needs to learn and find out on her own. But no one believes that failure is pleasant. No one wakes up and thinks, "today, I'm going to try to make mistakes as much as I can!" Of course not!

Last week, I was in the States to attend a conference and this idea was constantly on my mind. The head of our organization posed a question during one of our sessions about failure. He said that the gospel gives us a model for how we should understand failure. And this indeed depends on our beliefs about the idea, that our relationship with God is broken and that we could never pleasure God through our own strength and ability. We need to accept failure, in order to truly understand the gospel and to accept the grace of God. We must be honest with ourselves and God about our weaknesses. We are saved through grace and not through our own striving. "

*Book credit: The Upside of Down by Megan McArdle

B1 Test (AKA Saturday Morning Adventures)

Today we took the B1 German competency exam at our language school. Here is the explanation of the levels. It went pretty well, and we felt good coming out of it, even though it was a formal test. We won't know how we did for another 10 days or so. Here are some thoughts from today and an explanation of why we decided to take this formal exam.

The first reason we took this test was because we needed it for our visas. I think we have between two and three years to get to this level of German to meet the visa requirement, but we figured that it would be good to get it out of the way while the grammar nuts and bolts were firmly fixed in our heads. This leads into our second reason for taking the test. We wanted to get a bench mark for how far we have progressed in the language. Language learning is something in life that is hard to pin down. Often times you grow and grow and don't really notice the growth that has happened. There aren't that many times that we have something like this to take the pulse of our progress and so we jumped at the opportunity.

Last fall, I wrote about speaking like a child and preparing for our A1 exam. That feels like so long ago and it is amazing to see how we have grown in the last nine months. Like any student studying a subject, the further we go into German, the more we realize how much we have yet to learn. 

Ultimately, language and culture are tools that we use to effectively communicate the gospel cross-culturally. We really love German and Austria, but we are not here just to learn the language and culture. We are here because we have a loving and good God that wants to have a relationship with Austrians in German*. And we believe wholeheartedly that the time we are investing now in language learning will bear fruit in the future as we seek to be a witness to Christ's message and to encourage Austrian believers to do the same.









*I am still blow away at the language diversity on this planet. The fact that communion with God is had through so many different languages and variety of cultures completely astounds me.

Celebrating our third milestone!

It's that time again...
           we've hit another milestone!

Just yesterday, we received verbal commitments of support that have brought us to 75%!

As we reflect back on the journey thus far, it is truly incredible how God has provided and carried us to this point, 3/4 of the way to our total monthly support goal. When we first saw the numbers a year ago and realized the task ahead, it was difficult to imagine how God would get us there. But sure enough, He is faithful and He is working. There are days when we doubt and struggle, when we forget that God is in control and worry about where the funds will come from. There are days when we think, "Are we going to run out of contacts? How will this be possible?" But God is patience and gracious to us, and He reminds us who He is through His encouragement and provision. We are so blessed and humbled.

Thank you to so, so many of you who have helped us get there, whether that has been through financial commitments, prayer, or practical provision in our lives. We have a great team surrounding us, and God is using you to be his tangible presence and provision in our ministry. THANK YOU!


Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

It's time to celebrate!

We are excited to share that...  we've hit a big milestone in our financial support! 

Photo credit: nasirkhan from morguefile.com

Yesterday, we received several new financial commitments towards our ministry in Austria and...

we have passed the 25% mark!

We are officially at 28.5% of our support. We are so thankful for all of the friends, families and churches that have partnered with us financially thus far. We are trusting that God will continue to raise up a great team of prayer and financial partners, allowing us to head to Austria in 2012. Praise God for his provision!

We decided early on in this process that we would celebrate each milestone along the way, at 25, 50 and 75%. Partner development (or support raising) can be a long and sometimes discouraging process. It is important for us to celebrate along the way and focus on God's provision, continually being encouraged. We haven't decided how to celebrate yet...but feel free to make recommendations!