Austria Calling!!

The sun is shining in the window as I am trying to type another blog entry. It is the second time I begin this one (or actually three if you count the one I already wrote in Norwegian). My consciousness has been bugging me over this one for some time now… It is hard to gather all your thoughts, feelings and experience and try to convey it in a coherent way our daily life down here. Things are different and so much alike (ix different: my toilet paper is scented and my kitchen looks like someone did a really bad plumbing job). There are some really positive differences too – the weather! It is soooo much warmer here than in Norway this time of year. It is already around 20 degrees and I’m loving it!

We miss all of you, our friends and family! We hope that you had a good Easter holiday and that you let the message of Easter touch your heart!
We had a great Easter. We visited some of my relatives in Schladming. We had four wonderful days with lots of sun and mountains. It felt good with some days off after a rather hectic month in March. The Easter weekend we stayed at home in Guntramsdorf. We had a barbeque, made some lamb, went for walks, had visitors and played board games. We also attended two church services, one where our cell-group was responsible for the service and one in the Lutheran church in Mödling. It was interesting to recognize some of the liturgical elements from Norway. We also met a Swedish man; - it is always very nice to meet other Scandinavian people here.

In March we had a team from Grimerud (the main YWAM base in Norway) come stay with us. It was a team of four wonderful and resourceful women. It was a blessing to see that they quickly were able to find ministry opportunities and did a very good job in helping us here. They did a lot of evangelism and shared Gods word on several occasions. They were also able to minister with another mission organization down here, working towards immigrants. They blessed us with times of prayer and worship together and were also a great help in setting up the office, washing and sorting through old YWAM things. (THANK YOU SO MUCH!)

At the same time as we had the YWAM-team here, we were working our way through the paper-mill – applying for “permanent resident” papers, health insurance and importing our car. We had many trips to different offices (all German speaking) and phone calls to Norway.

The same day as the team left, we finished our German classes. Both of us did very well, however Per Eirik did a bit better than me. I think I was able to hide behind a good Norwegian accent and very good husband. Has my German improved? Well, yes… it is better than when I first arrived here. Please don’t tell any Austrians that, – every time I tell people I think I’ve gotten better – they start talking in lengthy sentences and expect me to understand.  I don’t have a very big vocabulary yet. Please pray for me!! We are taking a break from the German course now, because we see that the amount of work in the next few months will increase and we won’t be able to use the time needed to fulfill course requirements. We will start up again in August (they are quite expensive so pray that we will have the finances to cover them).

We hope that you all are doing all right. We have our ups and downs, and appreciate all cards, letters, drawings, pictures, e-mails and prayers we get. Today we were really happy when we received a gift from Norway with some magazines, chocolate, and lickerish. I danced around on the kitchen floor! Please, if God gives you any thoughts, bible verses etc. for us, don’t hesitate to send them to us. We appreciate all encouragements – big or small. If someone would like to come for a visit or come to help us, you are more than welcome. We can rent rooms here for a very reasonable price of 15 Euro’s a night.

We still need financial support, so please pray that God will provide more people that are able to support us financially.

- Pray for Austria and the Vienna area.
- Pray that God will send people here to the YWAM base that would like to work in Austria.
- Thank God for all the support we have received. Thank God for the people who pray for us, and for those who support us financially.