Jungle Gym

Winzig und Groß zur gleichen Zeit

Last Tuesday we had the opportunity to spend most of the day with our friends the Hübners. The kids enjoyed playing in the sand box in their back yard while we grilled and ate. Then they played most of the afternoon in one of the largest parks in Vienna (the largest I have ever seen). At some point during our day outside Carli got something in her eye. She didn't realize it until after Kim had put her to bed and she woke up with her eye hurting. Her eye continued to hurt throughout the next few days, but only off and on and without any redness. We could see nothing in the eye and thought whatever it was would simply go away with a few eye drops. When on Friday she came out of school with a wet paper towel against her eye, we thought she probably needed to go to the doctor.

Once we finally made it in to see the doctor (2 hours after signing in at the emergency room desk in the hospital), the eye doctor discovered "ein winziges Stück Eisen" (i.e., a tiny piece of steel/metal), which we could only see through a microscope. After numbing her eye and removing the piece of metal (after Carli eventually realized that the doctor was NOT going to give her a shot in her eye), he had to drill around the area where the metal was to remove the rust. With some ointment in her eye and a rather large patch, the doctor sent her home. Carli and I have had to return the last two mornings for the doctor to check the healing, and tomorrow she gets to take the patch off and should be completely healed.

During the two plus hours Carli and I spent in the waiting room, we noticed that many people were hurting much more than Carli was. I explained to her that we were having to wait longer because there were many people who had more serious problems that needed to be seen ahead of her. Carli had brought her backpack with a coloring book and crayons to pass the time. As she noticed the many people hurting more than her, her compassion motivated her to color pictures for a few of those hurting there. Those who received pictures were very grateful and may have had the first reason to smile that day.

Sometimes the opportunities God presents to impact the lives of those around us come at the most unexpected times and often require to look pass our own "needs".

Cousin Fun!

I have been wanting to post some pictures of when my sister was here, so here you go...

Giant trampolines on the Danube river.

Schönbrunn Palace

They rode their first bumper cars and had a blast!

Here is Kinsey at the Parliment building. It shows you just how big the fountains are!

They all became pretty comfortable riding on the U-Bahns!

Guess What?!

We went to the Magistratsabteilung 35 yesterday and picked up our Niederlassungsbewilligungen!!

(In English that means that we went to an office and picked up a little card with our pictures on it that says that we can stay in Vienna without having to leave the country every 90 days! i.e. our residency permits/visas)!


Big answer to prayers!

My Hubby

Can I just brag on my husband for a minute? I truly believe that God has been preparing him for mission work in German-speaking Europe his whole life. He is amazing with the language and the ability to start conversations with people. When we first moved here, he immediately had to use German in difficult situations. He made appointments to look at housing, he signed papers and had meetings to get what we needed to move into our house, he bought us a car, he got our kids into the schools that they are in, and the list could go on and on. Just the other day, we went on a walk and met an older man who clearly needed someone to talk to. We spent over an hour with this man and Josh listened so patiently as he talked about anything and everything. My favorite part of the conversation was when this man said that American presidents are just marionette puppets for the mafia and it is really the mafia who controls America! I have called him a chameleon many times because he is able to deal with difficult situations with such ease. I know he can do this because of his amazing faith and trust in God. I can't wait to see how God is going to continue to use him here in Vienna.

Hospitality

When my sister was here, we were shown amazing hospitality from one of our neighbors. A family that lives two houses down from ours invited us over for dinner one night. They made it a point to have us over while we had company. This same neighbor has been so generous with his time as he has helped us make some repairs on our car (after the driver-side mirror got knocked off by a passing car)! When Josh offered to pay him for it, he refused, and said "We're neighbors!"

For dinner that night, they grilled kabobs and we ate in their backyard while the kids ran around and played. God also provided the opportunity to talk about our faith. We are continually amazed at how God is blessing our new relationships.

We are still here!

I know it has been a long time since our last post- sorry about that. My sister Kari and Steve and Kinsey were all here for two weeks, so I have not spent much time on the computer. They just left this morning so we are all a little worn out. I will write more later about the fun things we got to do and see while they were here, but for tonight, I wanted to write about something we did when I was a kid.

One of my favorite childhood memories had to do with rain. From time to time, when there was a big thunderstorm going on, my parents would carry us to the car in our pyjamas and we would go drive-thru Braum's and get ice cream. We would then go and park the car and eat the ice cream while we listened to the rain hit the roof of the car. Still to this day, when it rains, I crave ice cream!

And it just happened to be raining today, so I passed down one of my favorite memories to my children. Since there are not any Braum's in Vienna, McDonalds is the next best thing (not really the next best ice cream, because we are surrounded with amazing Gelateria's- it's just the only place with a drive-thru)! The kids had a blast and we enjoyed the new memory we made with them.