Our time in Austria has been beautiful in more ways than one. Austria is a beautiful country and a balanced schedule has given us chance to enjoy this. We have loved swimming in Austria's lakes and climbing its hills. We've also enjoyed some excellent food during our time here, and can heartily commend Austrian barbecues having had about 6 of them during our stay!
Each week here has had a different focus. During our first week we had some cultural training and worked with a local church in Linz. We did some street outreach: talking to people as well as connecting them to the local church through invitations. It was an encouragement to see a Nepali family we invited come to an event run by the church and get connected with people in the church who could speak Nepali.
The children's programme we ran at the Sunday evangelistic service...
In our second week we worked with a different church alongside a short-term team from Finland. We helped the church run a three day event called 'Parkfest' in a local park...This was a fantastic opportunity to connect with the local people - especially since lots of the people came from the Balkan countries we had just visited...Lots of Kosovo and Bosnia flags were face painted! Each day around 60 children came to the park to play games, do craft activities, eat cake, play football, and hopefully build up relationships with the local church members.
At the end of the week we had the opportunity to run the church youth group for around 20 teenagers. Our theme was 'Where do you put your trust?' and Toni had the chance to give the message (for the first time...)
Our final week was spent working with the beginning of a church plant in a nearby town. Again we talked to local people and tried to build up awareness of the church's presence in the town. We were encouraged by how open and willing to talk people were.
One of the hardest things in Austria has been the heat - so...naturally, we found an excellent way to cool down!!
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