The Speal!

Hello hello!

Life is busy and full of changes!

Tomorrow after language school my team and I head to the bus station for a 13 hour bus ride to Bosnia. We will stay for four days...
1. Because we have to leave the EU since we've been here for 90 days
2. To check out the Operation Mobilization team there and survey what ministry they do there
3. Eat lots of good Bosnian food!

We will return on Monday and finish up our last week of language school and then on Friday head to Prague to celebrate one of our teammates birthdays! It's super cheap to travel around the EU, so we decided to take advantage of that.

On May 11th-19th, I will be going to Poland with three of my teammates and Robert and Ulla to do outreaches in schools. We'll be working with AIDSlink, and AIDS awareness program. I'm really excited about this! More info to come!

In the middle of June, we will go to Hungary for a week to apply for our Hungarian visas. We will return to ministry then head back to Hungary for the month of July and most of August (potentially) to help the OM team there with the many youth camps they have going on.

At the end of August, we have our two week break and my parents are coming to see me (and Europe, to celebrate their big 25th annaversary!!) :)

Then comes September, and we'll jump into ministry full time!

Please continue to pray that God guides me into the ministry that He has for me here!

Love to you all and I'll be back soon with pictures from Bosnia!

--Kenzie

Good News!!!

Visa update!

Cory, our team leader, and Robert, our Team Supervisor just got back tonight from Hungary where they met with another OM Team about the possibility of us getting a visa from Hungary. Since Hungary is inside of the EU, we could still stay in Austria with a Hungarian visa.

And the word is... it's too good to be true! There are no laws against people getting a visa in Hungary and then not living there, and there hasn't been a single American who has applied for a Hungarian visa and has been denied. So, though nothing is final yet, our team will go to Budapest, Hungary for a few days in the middle of June to apply for our visas and then, hopefully, we will receive visas a month later! At this point we are planning on going to Hungary again for the month of July to help out with different youth camps that the OM team puts on. There's an empty house they have that hasn't sold yet that we will be able to stay in! Then after serving there, we will be able to return to Vienna to stay. :)

Thank you for your prayers! Like I said, it's not guaranteed, but its looking really promising. :) God is good!

Shining Bright among Red Lights

This world

we live in

so dark.

The abnormal and dysfunctional have become normal functions.

In God's established way, order, He rested and said, "It is good."

But now man is in unrest and has rebelled against God's established way and order, and in the brokenness, in the darkness man says, "It is good."

But it is not good.

It's a crazy phenomenon to taste of God's heart, to learn His ways and to love them, to embrace truth and to believe it, and then to see with my physical eyes what is completely backward to it.

It hurts. Its hard. Its complicated.

Last night Ulla took us girls to where the prostitutes are in Vienna. I was seeing Proverbs 7 before my very eyes, girl after girl on street corner after street corner, the city alive with traffic of wayward men, boys, teens...

But some, even many of these women have no choice. I saw with my own eyes Nigerian women who were abducted from their homes, their families, pronounced with a curse from their Vodoo tribes and sent away to Europe with no rights, no money, no papers, no choice. Women of value who are forced, day after day, to sell something that should never be sold.

Ulla and other missionaries go out to girls such as these. They give them tea and chocolate and talk with them, love them, care about them.

I want to love these girls. I want to be their friend. I want to offer them hope. I want to share joy with them. I want to give them flowers. I want to show them that there's another way. I want to stand in the gap for them, oh Jesus that you would deliver

justice.

Please pray. There is such a huge need. There is such an incredible opportunity. But this is the Devil's bedroom, this is the land of darkness. Has God fashioned me for this? Has He put in me what it would take to shine in places such as these? Is this what He wants for me during my time in Austria? Please pray. I am willing, I am wanting, but I am aware that this isn't fun and games, and that the only help is the presence and power of God. This is land and work that I can only go to and engage in if it is of the Lord's will- there's no middle ground. Please pray that God directs my paths.

Visa Update

Still no news about our visas.

The weekend of May 1st our team will take a trip to Bosnia (Operation Mobilization has a base there so we will be staying with them) as we must exit the EU since we've been here 3 months.

We can then legally come back for 3 months, and if we don't get visas by then, we will have to exit the EU until January, when we can come back legally for 2, 3 month periods.

Please pray that God makes a way for us to get our visas!!! As I connect more and more, and especially consider ministry with the prostitutes, I'm seeing the incredible value of uninterrupted time here, as time builds trust. May God's will be done, but I really have a burden to continue to press in and ask God to make a way!

Connecting

Today was so great!
God has been really faithful to connect me and I'm experiencing Him leading me into the ministry and relationships He has for me here. It's really exciting! I feel like my gears are synchronizing with the "machine" of the Body of Christ and Kingdom of God. It feels good. :)
After language school Jeff and I checked out some city bikes (their free for the first hour!) and rode around Vienna. We found ourselves in Stadt park and had a good time talking there. It's so great to be outside!

Then I met up with a friend at Starbucks I met at the retreat we went on in March with the college students from a church in Vienna. Her name is Z and she's from South Africa and is so full of life! She's here with two other missionaries planting a church, so it was so great to share stories and connect about what God is showing us about Austria and what He wants to do here. I'm really excited to be her friend!

After a great time with Z, I took the trains to go to a prayer meeting for Herzwerk, a Christian organization here that ministers to prostitutes. God's really been stirring in my heart about this ministry. This problem is so rampant, so full of darkness, brokenness and bondage. This ministry is such an incredible opportunity to build relationships with the women enslaved in this work and share with them about Jesus. Please be praying for God's continued direction and clarity for me, as I'm continuing to get more information about this ministry and consider if this is the ministry thatGod has brought in store for me to be apart of. I'm praying about coupling this ministry with the Houses of Prayer here in Vienna. I really have a heart to partner with God in sowing and preparing the way for God to work.

Now I'm super sleepy but excited! Love to you all. :)

House of Prayer

Last night I visited a House of Prayer in Vienna that one of my teammates found on the internet (check out jesusfreaks.at). I spoke with Klaus and Mona, the couple who are heading up the house of prayer and have also planted a church. They call themselves Jesus Freaks and the style of the House of Prayer as well of the church is very laid back, fluid, and creative. I liked it!

The vision of the House of Prayer is to pray for unity among the churches in Vienna and to one day have it open 24\7 with people taking shifts so that prayer will be going on all the time. They´ve set up different stations in the prayer room with creative ideas of how to pray. For instance, there is a corner that has a canvas with broken glass on it that says, brokennes brings about unknown beauty and then there´s a really soft rug to sit on, letting you feel the comfort of God as you pour out your brokenness to him. And the cool thing is that Klaus and Mona are all about others coming with creativity to mold and shape the prayer room and add new things! They´re just looking for more help.

I´m interested in this house of prayer. God has been teaching me a lot about prayer and I´m inspired to really sow seeds in prayer with faith, knowing that God will answer. Someone shared a story about Billy Graham the other day, how all of the work and preparation for ministry is in prayer.

Will you join me in seeking God if He wants me to serve in some capacity at this House of Prayer during my time here? I really want to spend this time strategically and in a way that will best advance God´s Kingdom. Please be in prayer that God will connect me with the people and ministries here that are most strategic for His Kingdom and glory!

I´m learning so much! God´s been really faithful to connect me with more and more people so I feel like I´m gaining ground here! Lots more to share but I´ll save it for another post.

Love to you all!

Frohe Ostern!

"What is the way to an Austrians heart?"

My new Austrian friend Yasmin paused thoughtfully and responded: "I don't know really... maybe love. They have everything they want-- wealth, security, but they're grumpy and pessimistic... happiness I think is what they want, and joy. Life is so routine and mundane here- they want something interesting, something optimistic."

(Yasmin and I today at a park in Vienna)

I've been considering a lot why God has me here-- wanting to discover His mission that I might walk with Him to fulfill it. He keeps bringing me back over and over and over that the mission is...

Jesus....worship of Him in spirit and in truth.

Out of all the things Jesus could have prayed for in His final time with His disciples, he chose to pray that they would "be one, as We are one" and this not only for those 12 disciples, but also for "those who will believe in Jesus through their word"...Jesus prayed this for us.

It is in this unity, this oneness with Jesus and the Father and the Spirit that every pleasing act of faith, every demonstration of love, every good work and fruit is birthed, for it is "no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

Austrians need joy. Austrians need love. Austrians need GOD because these things belong to God and cannot be found outside of God, not even in a girl like me... unless I KNOW HIM and am FOUND IN HIM, not having a righteousness or a joy or a love of my own, but rather that is BY FAITH.

"Apart from Me you can do nothing...the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine...by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples" --Jesus

Spring is here. I'm praying for spring in my heart, spring in my life, that I too might abide in the Vine, that my life would be an offering of fragrant blossoms and fruit unto the glory and praise of God.

Encounters

Team Austria has been undergoing the season of sickness. :( One of my teammates has been battling bronchitis for the past five days... another one got very sick during German class today, so much so that the staff of the Deutsche Academie called the ambulance (healthcare is different here-- there isn't a charge for things like that, thankfully!). It was quite an interesting afternoon! Both girls are doing better now and are being well taken care of. The rest of the team has all had some sickness like the flu or something- sick enough to not be able to go to class. So far Jeff and I are the only ones who haven't been sick, but I must say we've really enjoyed taking care of those who have been. :)

God's really been working in my heart this week about loving my team. I've had to repent and change my mind about some ways I've been living, and God has met me in that and changed my heart! I'm very thankful, and have really been enjoying time with the team this week.

We hosted a party our here in Stockerau last Saturday and 14 new friends of ours from a church in Vienna came out to join us! It was fun!

I've also enjoyed connecting with...

***a Chinese couple that I met at German school

***an Austrian named Yasmin who I met at a church I visited (she hosted me for a traditional Austrian breakfast yesterday!)

***neighbors of ours (now that the weather is getting nicer, people are outside a lot more!)

***new faces I meet on the trains or subways

Please continue to pray that God connects me with the people that He desires!

Well, I think it's time to get some sleep! Tomorrow is my last day of my second month of German school. On Friday our team will join the OM (Operation Mobilization) Team for a week retreat in Germany! We will get to visit a concentration camp on the way there, so that will be very interesting. Other than that, we're still in the process of trying to get visas and seeking God on what He has for us during our time here. To be continued...

thanks for your prayers and love! Blessings on your day. :)