Becoming like children

One of my favorite classes to teach is bible to my ELL students.  At first I was somewhat nervous about teaching bible.  I have not taken a bible class since college and was not really trained to teach bible.  Thankfully we serve a God who loves His children and He has prepared me in so many ways to answer some difficult questions that my students ask me.

We are currently going through the Old Testament and I am teaching stories that are VERY new to my students.  It is so refreshing to watch these little six grade students become so impressed about what God has done throughout history.  In some ways, their amazement about God's power has really challenged me.  How is it that we become so apathetic to the stories that God shares with us in the bible?  It is really AMAZING that God flooded the whole earth or delivered his people from Egypt in many spectacular ways or even allowed a donkey to see an angel of God and talk to his master.

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 18:3

One thing I am learning about six grade students is that they cease to be amazed and they ask very deep and thought provoking questions.

For example...
1.  If another angel were to fall from heaven, would there be another Satan or evil in the world?
2. Why did God not allow the children into the Ark?  If there parents did not teach them about God, how were they to know?
3. Why do we hate the Muslims when they are such nice people?  Should they not get a chance to go to heaven?
4. Who did Cain and Seth marry?  (this was a fun one) 
5.  Did Adam and Eve go to heaven?
6.  How did the animals know to go into the Ark?  

My three students 

A frosty little visit

Christmas in Vienna is quite spectacular!  I never seen anything like it.  Almost every street in Vienna has some display of Christmas lights.  The Christmas markets are fantastic and Christmas music is played in almost every store.  Vienna does Christmas well!

Yesterday I got a nice little visit from two good friends!  It was such a nice little treat to spend sometime with friends from back home in my new home, especially during Christmas!  Being with people from home made me real excited to come home and see my family and friends.  Two more weeks!  Hopefully see you there :).

Friends are here!

Touring around Vienna

Christmas Markets

First Kebab experience and a good one at that

Such a fun day!

Christmas in Vienna!

  

A Merry Christmas Concert

Last night our high school choir sang at one of the oldest churches in Vienna, Peterskirche.  It was such a rich experience to hear these lovely voices singing Christmas songs in this church.  Many people from the school attended as well as other Viennese people.

Listen below

(my video skills are lacking.  sorry for the movement.)

Entrance to the Church

ICSV choir

My good friend, Kristi-Anna, leading the choir

An International Bazaar

This past Saturday the United Nations (UN) hosted an International Bazaar to raise money for charity.  This is an annual event that generally raises about 1/4 of a million dollars.  About 1/2 of the world's nations were represented at the Bazaar.  Each country had its own booth and displayed pictures, flags and events from their country.  In addition, they sold many items that were native to their country in order to raise money.  In another part of the building, there was a large room dedicated only to food.  You could buy food from any country that was generally homemade by natives.  It was delicious!  Later in the afternoon, each country did a performance or dance native to their nation (unfortunately my camera died and I did not get a pictures).  It was one of the coolest things I have done since being in Vienna.  I felt like I visited the world in a 3 hour timespan.  

Check out some pictures below!

Over 60 students volunteered to work!

South Africa

This one's for you dad :)

Delicious food!  

  

What is language?

Hello!  Halo!  ¡Hola!  Anyung.  Ciao!  Musta!  One thing I appreciate at ICSV is walking down the halls  and hearing a plethora of languages.  I am so fascinated by languages.  I love that God created thousands of ways for people to communicate with their mouths, tongues, bodies and even movement.  God understands every single sound that we make and can communicate back! 

 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ~Revelation 7:9

There are roughly 6,900 spoken languages in the world.  What a beautiful time it will be when there will be thousands of praises from thousands of languages being used for one God.    

I have many students that can speak anywhere from 2-5 different languages.  Usually they were born in one country such as the Philippines and can speak Tagalog; but are now living in Austria (a German speaking country) and attending an English speaking school.  In addition, their parents might be from another part of the world and therefore allowing these students to speak 4 different languages.  I often hear them speaking all four in a matter of five minutes!  They find it easier to express themselves in different languages.  I am very jealous of this skill that most of them have. 


Many times in class we will discuss this idea of language and what it means.  So often we take communication for granted.  I asked my students what language meant to them and here are some of the answers that I received...


Language is a was of communicating.  It allows us to share information with others.  Without language the world would be a very confusing place.  


Language has helped us develop strong relationships and helped us to be able to communicate what we are thinking and feeling to others.


Language is part of the culture.  It tells you where a person is from.... In addition, lands that were conquered were forced to learn languages that were not their own.  


Learning languages challenges us and our brains.  If you speak more than one language and cannot express yourself in one, you can use the other to express yourself better


It's a representation of the country and people


Language has helped people communicate and create relationships.  Through language, people are able to trade and be distinguished as a nation.  It creates a bond and a border.  

Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble :)

Happy Thanksgiving...gobble gobble!!   I was kindly invited to a fellow missionary's house to celebrate the wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday.  It's kind of funny being in a different country and celebrating your own holiday.  Many of the Christmas decorations were up and I am pretty sure our school was the only institution that did not have work that day.  However, the family who invited me to dinner prepared quite a feast and I felt like I was at home.  They even had ESPN on their television so we were able to watch the Lions and Packers game which completed the holiday.  I was very thankful for their kind hospitality and enjoying this feast with friends.

Earlier that day my roommate, Becca, organized a turkey bowl football game.  We invited both students and staff and ended up playing for about 2 hours!  It was fun to teach our students how to play football and we got quite a few funny stares from the Austrians.  I feel very blessed to have celebrated such an important holiday in such a traditional way.

This weekend I also thought about what I was truly thankful for.  So much has happened in such a short amount of time and God has been so faithful.  Many things came to mind but I just wanted to share a few.

I'm thankful for...

1.  Having a relationship with a loving God

2.  Meeting students from all over the world and learning about their cultures, religions and lives

3.  Being fully supported from faithful friends and family - Thank you! 

4.  To be able to come home for Christmas

5.  To have had a Thanksgiving dinner with new friends

Check out some pictures below!  

All ready to play

                         

 Let the Turkey Bowl Begin!

Fun on the field

Might not look like it now, but I did eventually get his flag

My team... we won :)

Becca hiking the ball

The only time I was a quarter back

The whole gang

And now onto the feast!

 Lovely Thanksgiving dinner

Thanksgiving dinner with some Scottish and British friends :)

A great ending to a GREAT season

This past weekend was our last volleyball tournament and the end to our season.  It was quite a long volleyball season so we were all pretty happy to have some free time and our weekends again.  I will miss seeing all the girls so often and spending time with them.  Since our tournament was in Salzburg, 3 hours away, we were able to spend the weekend there and have some quality team time.  After getting settled in our hostel, some of the girls wanted to spend the night in worship which was so special.  We gathered in one of the rooms and all sang worship songs together.  Not all the girls on my team are Christians so it was another great opportunity to share Christ's love.  It is such a foreign concept to many of my players to have a relationship with their God.  When discussing this concept, I almost have to define the word relationship more than explain who Jesus is and what he did for us.  It was interesting wrestling with the idea of how other religions view our "relational" religion.  I am hoping to dive deeper into this idea in order to better explain the love of Jesus Christ!    

The tournament ended so well.  We ended up taking 2 trophies home and a sportsmanship award!  Our JV team lost to Budapest in the championship.  We'll get 'em next year!

8:00AM and ready to win some games!

In action

Varsity and JV team

JV team with the 2nd place trophy!!!

Showing off our metal

After the tournament we spent some time in the city of Salzburg and visited the Christmas market!  

All the streets were already decorated with Christmas lights!

Entrance to the Christmas market

One of my Austrian students showed me all around

Wishing I could buy all of these to bring home!

Girls trying to stay warm

Yvonne and I

JV Eagles 2011