Austria Trip Photo Gallery w/ Comments

We've been home for a few days now and have had a little bit of time to process what God just brought us on during our October 5-16 trip to Austria. Thanks for your prayers! We definitely felt them. It was a great trip...just exhausting.

-Brad did a great job preaching in German at the Evangelical Reformed Conference in Western Austria...at least I didn't hear any mistakes! Ha! We were very encourgaged by the believers from Austria, Holland, Switzerland, and even Liechtenstein who came together for the weekend. Here's some pictures:





-It was also good to catch up with the Sondereggers who lived in South Florida for a couple of years and have now returned to Austria.

-The leaders of World Harvest Mission who joined us were very helpful and encouraging...and we laughed a lot together! Our time spent with them only further confirmed in our hearts and minds that WHM is the right sending organization for us. (Though our trips on the Viennese subway brought us closer together than we might have wished!)



-We really loved praying, evangelizing, worshipping, getting to see the city, and just hanging out with our potential teammates. (Bear with us as we withhold their names for now)...We are super excited that one couple will be heading to World Harvest's assessment week in December, and the others are still in the process of discerning God's call for mission.




-God again confirmed in us that Vienna is really ripe for the Gospel, as we met a family new to the faith who live just outside Vienna, as well as a student searching for Jesus and looking for a Gospel-teaching church, and as we met with several other people on the streets...

-We decided that we will probably live in the heart of the city very close to the university, that Brad will attend the university both to build relationships with students and to study the culture and history more. We also decided that our kids should go to a bi-lingual school so that they can get to know German more quickly. The day we looked at housing and schools was the most draining day for me...just realizing how dramatically our lives are going to change was a bit overwhelming (for the good I suppose).



-Seeing our friends the Dossetts and Dali and Tabea was also very helpful with giving us insight and direction with housing and schooling decisions.




I definitely left Austria more excited than overwhelmed (and of course Brad did too)...but as we came home to our sweet but needy children and I started to realize all the things that have to happen before we leave, the enormity of it all is starting to set in... Now we need to continue support raising and getting our house ready to sell... I also really need to get a handle on German as well as purposefully start to work with the kids in German. Thankfully our burden is carried on the shoulders of a capable Savior!

All to say, it was a GREAT trip, and we saw God answer many prayers and confirm our calling to Vienna again...But PLEASE keep praying for us!