Stift Klosterneuburg

On Tuesday, our team had an awesome opportunity to experience what we've been learning in class (We've been taking a "Local Area Religions and Christianity" class from a missionary who has been here over 40 years!):

we got to visit Stift Klosterneuburg, a very old and large Roman Catholic monastery located just outside of Vienna.
Even though its huge, it's only 1/4 as large as Leopold III intended it to be! This is a drawing of the original plan:

Beautiful grounds!
An amazing painted ceiling.


It was so great! A priest named Daniel gave us a special tour and he was great- definitely seemed like a Jesus-loving believer. :) He was very honest and had an awesome perspective about Christianity and really knew the heart behind all of the symbols and traditions of his faith. It was so cool to see firsthand what we've been learning in class.


The picture below is a treasure to the monastery: the Verdun Alter, an amazing etched story board depicting the Types and Ante-Types of the Bible. Daniel did an amazing job of going through each one and describing the stories it depicted.

They even had some multi-colored priestly garments on sale for only 245,000 euro!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience. The monastery is only 30 minutes away, so we're looking forward to keeping in touch with the priests there and learning from all they have to offer. It was some great fellowship with them as well, and really interesting to hear of the different ways people love Jesus.

First graphics project!

Whew, it was a busy weekend! Jeff and I got to help out my church by making a "Geschenkkatalog" (gift catalog) for their new building project. It was 79 pages of different items people could tear out and donate money towards. It was quite a project, but thanks to Jeff's stellar Adobe skills it turned out quite nice! It was a challenge because it was all in German but I learned so much about the new programs and am excited for future endeavors. :) Here is the cover:

I didn't do the background (got it from an awesome free Christian graphics site: http://www.creativemyk.com/) but I hope to learn to make things like it. :) Thanks again to all who helped get this wonderful mac for me! It's been a great help and tool!

God is as faithful as the Seasons are to change!

Herbst ist heir (Fall is here)!

It's getting quite chilly, but I'm enjoying the turning leaves and the fall festivities of Austria! It's harvest season so there's much talk of grape picking and all the restaurants are filled with "Sturm"- half-fermented grape juice and "Kurbis-suppe" (pumpkin soup). My favorite sight so far was when I passed a big group of people outside, sitting at a big table placed right by their field, enjoying good food and Sturm in the early evening.

Another favorite time last week was "Lange Nacht Der Museen"- the Long Night of the Museum. All the museum's in Austria were open until 1 am and you could visit as many as you wanted with the purchase of only one ticket! Me and a few teammates had a great time.

The armor display was my personal favorite. :)

God has been so good! This has also been a great time of connecting with more Austrians and God has provided for new friends! Below is a picture of some of them. I have been hanging out with my friend Lia (on the far left) often at our favorite cafe in Stockerau. It's so great because she speaks excellent English and is a believer, so we're able to relate in a really meaningful way. It's also great because she always asks how my German is going then we speak in German for quite a while and she helps me with different questions I have or with pronunciation. She is so patient!

The girl on my right is name Corrina, and I have become friends with her and her family through the Stockerau church. I went to their house for lunch after church and it was awesome getting to practice German and also be able to answer their questions about what I'm passionate about and how I'm interested in being involved in their church. They hooked me up with some graphics projects to start working on and said they'd be thinking how else I can help. They also invited Jeff and I to join their family skiing after Christmas!

Another fun thing for me is pilates! Last night quite a few teammates joined me and we had a great time!

I think the boys especially had fun. :)

Water Aeorobics, Kristallnacht... and much more :)

I have recently undertaken the glorious endeavor of... swimming! We have an awesome "Wellnessoasis" right up the street from our apartment so I've started to swim laps and such for exercise.

In case you were wondering, scenes like this:

also occur in Austria! :)

I beheld such a sight as I swam laps nearby, and as I was treading water the lady teaching the class invited me to join them (all in German) next time: "Die erste mal ist gratis!" (the first time is free :). She soon realized that I wasn't a native speaker and then got really excited about me teaching her English and her teaching me German! And so, this Thursday I'm going to go have coffee with her! Her name is Christine and she also lives in Stockerau.

Haha, so there is a somewhat comical example of how God is continuing to be faithful and connect me with people here! Since returning from a lot of travel, things have been somewhat slow in jumping back in here, but God is definitely leading. Today I spent most of the day at Mercy House of Prayer, participating in the prayer watch then helping Vicki (the leader of MHOP) with some cleaning. We've been praying a lot for the Jewish people, especially as the Feast of Booths is going on right now! Today Vicki also took Emily, Jadah and I (we will all be working part time with MHOP) to see the Jewish district of town, and the synagogues that were destroyed during Kristallnacht. It's sobering to think of what happened just about 70 years ago, and then to see that there are so many policemen and cameras in that area to protect the Jews. Antisemitism is still a very real thing, and many Jews still live in Vienna.

I would appreciate your prayers as I seek to build relationships here and also start getting involved in the youth group at the Stockerau Gemeinde (church). I will be meeting with the leaders of my church on Monday, so please pray that God leads me into the good works He has prepared in advance for me to do!

*Grace and Peace