all apologies

I don't really keep up with this thing like I should. Sorry!

Life in Vienna is beautiful. I love the city and I'm learning to love the people. Work at the church is crazy and hectic but it's so much fun. My roommates are from all over with all these different life experiences and living with them is a joy. There is a serious sense of community in our little tribe.

I don't know what else I should tell ya. Maybe I'll think of something later.

3 weeks have gone by.

I have now been in Vienna for three weeks and I love it. I am so busy it feels like I have been here longer.

Still no computer but I do have keys.

We had kid's camp and it went really well. Rainy and cool but the kids enjoyed it anyway and they had a good time of meeting with the Lord.

Last week I started secretarial duties.


This week, I'm in and out of the office helping with day camp.

In August I start language studies.

I'm dancing on the inside.

I can't believe it, it's ok if you don't. I finally arrived. No problems, kind of a tall guy sitting next to me on the long ride over and he kept elbowing me in the ribs. Only three crying children! On the short flight from Dublin to Vienna I had a plush exit row seat with the seat next to me empty. It was heavenly. There is something about the take off of a plane that if I'm a little bit sleepy I'm out like a light. I fell asleep both take offs and slept for over an hour. Good for the second flight because it was only 2 and half hours long. Bad for the first one because it was 7 and a half hours long.

I walked around like a zombie Monday but refused to go to sleep. Went and got groceries for the week (not by myself of course, are you crazy, I can barely make it from the church to my apartment and they are connected to each other). Slept like the dead the first night, helped out with stuff all day yesterday. Last night I barely slept at all then I helped out with stuff all day today and went to this mall thing and got dinner and icecream, again not by myself because of the above mentioned problems. Tomorrow it is grocery shopping and getting things ready at the retreat center for kid's camp. Friday I don't know what I'll be doing yet, not Saturday either. Sunday I know I have to be at church by 8:30 (or maybe it was 8, I should probably check that) until 2:30 and then I head back up to the retreat center with the American team that is helping out as counselors. The kids arrive Monday.



I won't have email at camp so there won't be any other blogs for a little over a week.



I do have a desk though in the office and I will be getting some sort of computer eventually. I don't have keys yet either, which makes leaving the apartment by myself a bit difficult.

Yeah!

I fly out Sunday the 24th arriving Monday the 25th (my older sister's birthday)!

WOOPS!

It's been awhile since I posted anything new, not because I've been Oh-So busy but because I update my MySpace and forget to update this one.

Well, since I last posted I received an email saying the missionary I'll be working with would try and get my budget decreased. This has finally(!) happened after a week and a half between him and World Missions. They finally got everything squared away and in the proper columns and I should have my approval by Tuesday at the latest. I will then buy my plane ticket, hopefully for sometime next week, although that may be too quick, I need to discuss with my missionary before I make the purchase.

So hopefully I'll be posting in just a couple days about when I'll be leaving and then after that it will be about my first experience of Vienna!

I'm excited!

7-11

My schedule has been crazy but praise God money is coming in slowly but surely. I have $711 in monthly pledges still to raise, I just bought a set of luggage (which a friend then offered to pay for, freeing up my money to go toward Vienna!), I have no idea what I will do in 2 weeks if the money hasn't come in. Both my jobs are ending at the same time. They needed a time line and I gave it to them 4 months ago.

WE'LL SEE!

I believe God could bring in all the money I need tomorrow, not sure if that will actually happen but it could.

VCC video.

To see the video my friend did for me please go here:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2026094433

Down under the $1,000 marker.

Let the good times role! The fundraising is going well and the monthly pledges needed are down under $1,000. I had a few services over the past couple of weeks and a check was sent to me by a church that felt bad they couldn't pledge but wanted to do something. I was given a little bit of cash by the father of the doctor I babysit for. Wait that's totally not the best part, he's Jewish! I'm also still waiting for news from a missions committee on how much their church will be pledging, sweet!
This week I'll be helping with the youth at my church Monday through Wednesday. We have a guest speaker- Youth Alive missionary Keith Robinson who is challenging the students to go out and live like Christians. Last nights service was awesome and the next three nights should be just as amazing.
Friday and Saturday is Fine Arts down in Indianapolis for the youth, so that's where I'll be most of my weekend.
My friend put together a video for me, hopefully I'll be able to put a link to it so the four people who read this blog can check it out!

I'm not really sure where that line is.

In the past week I have had several considerable contributions toward God's ministry in Vienna. I am now very happy to say I have half of my monthly support raised. On Wednesday I went to a service in Indianapolis with my former pastor. It was great getting to see them and getting to see the little church they're building. It's little now because they have a congregation of 50 but they have already put a plan in place to put a larger building on the land and have the current building that is going up be a working building for another ministry.
I also had some friends who wanted to sow into missions and I was the lucky recipient.
And the final straw over the 50% mark came from a last minute service I booked for a church that is functioning without a pastor right now. They have a ministry that is working with them sending in preachers and they went ahead and brought me in. For a little flock they have big hearts and gave more than I really imagined possible for a congregation of 13. I wanted to hug every one of them and thank them profusely and then lead them in a little 50% celebration dance. I'm fairly sure at some point in there the line of professionalism would have been crossed. I wish they had taught us these things at my prefield orientation way back in June.

On Wednesday I also had three more services scheduled for the upcoming two months. It makes my schedule a little hectic but I'm really thrilled with it.

So close!

Only to 50% of the monthlies but still, a big milestone. I went to a small country church today (it's ok for me to say that, that's what they called it) and for the size of the congregation they gave huge! They also support a large number of missionaries with really substantial amounts for the size of the church. It was a blessing to see what they are giving to the kingdom all over the world.

I also had two surprise pledges on my monthly statement from World Missions. I feel kind of silly because I called one of the churches Friday before my statement came and left a message asking them for support again. I have to call tomorrow and say, oops; but they never told me! SO, I have 972.90 of the $2,077 raised. That's 46.8% which is getting very close to half way!!!

Ka chow!

I now have 100% of my cash budget raised! Plus, I have three more services scheduled. One actually guarantees no money but it's an inner-city church and I'm interested to see what they do. Both of the other churches are smaller. I am not sure how missionaries actually get into the larger churches because I haven't had any luck so far. All of the really large churches in Indiana that I have called are all in building projects or set their budget six months ago.

But that's not the point, I have faith the smaller churches of Indiana can get me to Vienna just the same as the larger ones could.

My monthly pledges are unchanging but everything could be very different in a couple of weeks if several people and churches that have said they would pledge send in their forms. It could seriously be a $200 swing and that would put me over half way...

43 cents

Shazam! I want more unofferings. My church pulled through for me and the congregation gave $2,975.43. Don't know where the 43 cents came from but I kind of like it.

I have done two days of ASL, once with the 3s, once with the 4s. It seems like it will go pretty well. The classes will have to be tailored for each age group but generally I can keep it the same and that makes preparation simpler and my life a little easier.

The Midwest is being blanketed by a winter wonderland. The drifts are ridiculous and everything around my house closed early today. I still have to work tomorrow, maybe, if it stops snowing. It wouldn't be so bad but the plows seem to have disappeared?

splattered canvases

I had a bad week, as far as phone calls and potential supporters go. I called, no response from a lot of the churches. A few nos, and I found out that a pastor who had been interested in helping me is no longer pastoring the church I was in contact with. I also found out from my senior pastor that though I'm doing a three minute presentation on Sunday there will be no offering taken up for me. After I called and talked to him he did decide to give people the opportunity to contribute to my getting to Vienna but no official offering. I'm meeting with the missions committee next week and that has something to do with them taking up an offering. I'm really confused and have no idea what is actually going on. I'm just going to smile and do my best and pray that God works things out.

I'm starting my new job teaching ASL at the daycare on Monday. I'm really excited but a little nervous. This also takes away Tuesday and Thursday mornings to make calls and when I start at the doctor's office my time will seriously be minimal for making phone calls. I know it will all come out right, but it's looking like a bit of a mess. I wonder if this is how Jackson Pollock felt?

Batting .016.

I got another church service today. Yeah! And as a bonus it is local so there are no long drives, no worries about being out in February. So the last two weeks in February I have two services, it's pretty awesome to see that things are swinging again.

I also secured another job. I will be teaching American Sign Language at a daycare three mornings a week to three different classes. I'm really excited! I like working with kids, I like ASL and the pay is really good. AND it leaves afternoons open those three days for me to continue trying to raise support and be able to volunteer locally. I think if I'm going to give two years to Vienna I should give a few months to Northwest Indiana.

All right!

So, I've hit the phone circuit hard this week and called 120 churches in the past five days. Ok, technically I only attempted to call 120 churches because several of the phone numbers I had were incorrect. But overall it didn't go horribly. I booked a service for the end of February. I had several pastors tell me to call back in a couple of weeks after they had figured out with their board whether they could do something or not. I'm really hopeful.

Earlier this week I posted a blog on Myspace that covers the first half of the week's calls. It's here for your enjoyment.

here's how the numbers breakdown:

33- Number of churches where I did not get to talk to a living person and had to just leave a message at the beep.

9- Number of pastors I actually got to talk to. This is where it's always the most interesting.
There were a couple of the general, "No, sorry, we're all maxed out."
One pastor was in the middle of something, promised to call me back, but hasn't yet...
But I had a couple of really awesome conversations. Both pastors said there was basically nothing they could do for me. One asked me my age, how long until I needed to be over there, rank, serial number... Ok, it wasn't that out there but it was pretty funny. He just kept chatting away. The other was really encouraging and actually knew who I was and had read the letter I sent him! He didn't think they could do anything but he seemed like he might try and he told me to call back if I still needed support in few months.
One pastor answered the phone and sounded like he was baking a cake. Seriously sounded like pots and pans were banging in the background.
I asked one gentleman if the pastor had received the letter and he says, "Oh, yes, he has." Then tells me he's the pastor. A little unusual.
One phone call ended up with me a little red in the face because the pastor that is now there was not the one I sent the letter to. The other had resigned and the new senior pastor was the one who took my call. He was very nice though and said he thought they probably did have the letter and he would ask his secretary about it.
Another pastor said he had to meet with the board and it didn't look good for me because they preferred to meet new missionaries and they were booked through October.
Number 420 for the day told me the chances of their being able to support me were, and I quote here, "Slim-to-none."

6- Number of secretaries I talked to. One, promised to check and call me back, I'm still sitting by the phone...

4- Number of phones that rang with no answer. Invest the money, buy a $10 machine.

3- Number of phones that went to fax machine. Although I'm not sure one was the fax because instead of the dulcet screes of the fax machine it was this funny three tone beeping.

3- Number of phone numbers that were wrong. 2 were just disconnected, "we're sorry but the number you are dialing no longer exists," kind of calls. One though was awesome... curmudgeonly... old... man. Yeah! It was pretty great!

1- Number of pastor's wives I talked to who handle missions giving who sounded hopeful and then had to call me back today and tell me there was nothing the church could do right now.

1- Number of times I got called Becky!

CH-CH-CH- CHANGES!

I decided to dye my hair for the first time! Well, really my younger sister decided to dye my hair ;) It's very different and I'm still getting used to it but it's a good color. I just hope it holds up.

That's a lot of stamps!

Well, Happy New Year! I know I'm a little late but I've been a little lazy about my blogs so far in 2007.

I am excited about the 120 letters I've sent out in the past two weeks. I'm praying I have some positive response from the churches that I'll be calling next week and the week after. It's a lot of my least favorite thing- talking on the phone, but it's entirely necessary and I'm resigned to the fact that I must do it if I ever want to get to Vienna.

I've been really excited about going to Vienna the past couple of weeks. Ever since I got the time frame for potential departure it's really boosted my desire to get my butt in gear and get out of the country. Plus, I really miss being involved in active ministry. Right now I'm helping with the youth group at my church but I sit around and make sure kids don't kill each other, break things or make babies. I miss teaching the children's classes that I had been involved with before I started itinerating and since the youth pastor couldn't depend on my being there every week I am not getting to teach a small group with the youth like I did in the past.

I'm also really excited about an opportunity I've been given to make money to put toward Vienna. The daycare director at my church found out I knew American Sign Language and offered me an opportunity to come in as a consultant for the daycare and teach their teachers how to sign so that they could use it on a daily basis in their lessons with the kids. This is an amazing opportunity and I'll get to do something I love to make money for Vienna.

I'm also looking at becoming a substitute teacher in a local high school because I really need the cash to try and finish paying off my credit cards. Plus I have way too much time on my hands and find myself being lazy and lackluster about most of what I do. Subbing would be convenient because I could decline the work if I already have something scheduled for that day. The downside is if you do that too many times they stop calling you and I'm fairly sure any class I was in charge of would find me less than intimidating.

Finally, I'm thinking about volunteering one day a week either with a local food bank or something. I'm not really sure but I do know I need to do something here since I'm willing to give the next two years of my life somewhere else.