Leadership Akademie Video

Here is a video from the Leadership Akademie team project that I mentioned in our last post. If you would like to see more pictures of our team at work check out our flickr page.

Celebrate: Our Week in Pictures (2.23.14-3.01.14)

The celebrations started when Naomi dressed up at school for Fasching or Austrian Mardi Gras


Then our team celebrated after we helped to pull off a weekend conference called Leadership Akademie.

And finally Naomi celebrated her 3rd birthday!

Jim and Brenda’s Visa

On Tuesday afternoon December 31st our team gathered to help Jim and Brenda fill out their visa application and pray for their visa process...

Shortly after we finished praying we got a call that people were already lining up at the visa office a full 38 hours before the office opened much earlier than the last time we had to stand in line with our team mates.

So because of the type of visa we must apply for we all took turns standing in line for Jim and Brenda until it was time for them to turn in their paperwork on January 2nd!

It takes a team: update

Adam and Kasey with Liz at a BBQ two years ago

For those of you who remember our team braved the cold for several hours at the beginning of the year to ensure a place in the visa line for our newest team members Adam and Kasey. This month Adam has gotten confirmation that he has been approved for his visa. Kasey‘s visa situation is still a bit in limbo. She had forgotten to sign her application which means she will need to come and resign it in person. Fortunately, though it sounds like she will still get it! The plan is that they will come with the Student Ministry team from Denton Bible Church and stay. Pray for them to get the rest of their support raised, and that all the details works out for Kasey’s visa when she gets here

It Takes a Team

The line waiting to get into the immigration office

Earlier this month we had our new teammates, Adam Spencer and Kasey Krominga, come to Vienna and apply for their residence permits. They are still raising their support, but Lord willing they will be ready to join us sometime this year. We made sure they got started on the process early so they don’t have to go through what Liz and I did.

Having recently gone through the whole process we knew what to do to get them ready. We helped them get all of the documents together and walked them through the steps of the application process. You may remember that the residence permits that we apply for have a quota on them making them highly competitive. The competition is so fierce that you have to be here in Vienna on the first working day of the year in order to have hope of being approved. Each year there are more and more people applying and you have to get there earlier every time. The first year we did it, we showed up 2 hours before the office opened and were around number 30 and 31 in line (60 is the maximum amount of  permits that are given each year).  Last year we showed up an hour earlier and were still about at the mid-way point in the line. That year people started lining up the day before and were keeping a list to make sure that the first ones that showed up were the first ones that actually got in.

With this in mind we planned to show up at 4am  (4 hours before the office opens) to stand in line. However, since Liz and I don’t live too far from the visa office I decided to walk up there on Sunday around 3:00pm  to see if a line had already formed. Sure enough a line had formed and I asked if I could put Adam and Kasey on the list. The lawyer who was keeping the list said yes, but that someone would need to be there the whole time to stand in line for them. I quickly called the team and we organized a schedule to stand  in line for the next 17 hours! When I got Adam and Kasey on the list at 3:30 pm they were numbers 20 and 21. Adam came to relieve me at 6:30pm and by that time the number was up into the 50s. So this year the quota number of 60 was already met 12 hours before the office was scheduled to open!

Be praying that the Lord would give us wisdom as we look at the future. The good news is that this residence permit will continue to be issued, but the competition for it keeps getting stiffer each year. Pray that the Lord would grant Adam and Kasey the permit this year and that He would show us how to proceed if we add any other team members in the future.

The Loss of a Coworker

I was praying today and thinking about an article I read about the hardening immigration policies in Austria. We had to leave the country over a week ago because our application for a residence permit was dismissed. We found out on a Saturday and left in less than a week. It was and is stressful, but I am so thankful that we are able to leave voluntarily this way. I was thinking about those immigrants and asylum seekers that don’t leave voluntarily. Why don’t they leave? Some don't want to leave because they fear that they will not have work, or not be able to take care of their children, maybe even children they decided to have while in Austria. Some may even be going back to hostile situations, not even sure that they will be able to live or survive.

I was thinking about this not because we had to come back, but because I found out that a friend of mine is being deported. Uche and I have been meeting together every week for the last six months or so. He came from Nigeria over six years ago when he was only a teenager. Uche can't read. I met him when I went over to his friends house to lead a Bible study. He was the sweetest guy. He had a gentle and trusting way about him. I could tell he had a heart to serve. He loved the Lord.

Uche really wanted to participate in the Bible study. My friend and I who were co-leading did our best to help him, but Uche quietly stopped coming one day. My friend decided to teach him to read. When he left on furlough six months ago, I took over. Uche and I became friends. I enjoyed getting to know him. I enjoyed the challenge of teaching him to read. He is reading short words and sentences now but I wish we could have read the Bible together. That was his goal.

I don't know why Uche is being deported. He certainly is not the model immigrant. His German wasn't great. He sold newspapers to make money. "Schwartze Arbeit" is what they call it, "working black"-illegally. It is very common. He was a refugee. He was accepted into the system, but he either didn't take the systems help or the system just didn't' help him much. I'm not trying to blame anyone. I'm just sad for my friend and wish that he could have been better off for his six years spent in Austria.

I'm also sad that another believer will be leaving a country where the evangelical population is so low (some estimate as low as .5 %). In many ways I am losing a coworker in the gospel. Please pray for Uche. Pray that he will be able see God's hand in this and that he would use this time to grow in his faith. Pray also for more workers for Austria, weather they be nationals, missionaries sent by large congregations, or missionaries sent by persecution as the believers in Acts 8:4 who were scatterd and went everywhere preaching the word.

A picture of our Bible study. Uche is on the far left.

Summer Team

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.