Sunset in Austria

Today I have just two pictures for you. I took them from the flat roof of our house. (Which you could see in the previous post)
One of the pictures captured the sunset over the trees in my neighborhood. By the way, the sunset takes quite a bit longer over here, since we are more north than Dallas. The nearer you get to the equator the faster the sun goes up and down.


The second picture is the view of Mum's flower hill in the garden, as seen from above:

(As usual you can see the pictures in full resolution by clicking on them)
By the way: Please feel free to leave me a comment after you read this post. It would interest me to see how many people are reading this blog. Thank you :)

Day 7 - Childcare

Today was quite an interesting day. Since my parents are gone for some well earned vacation me, my sister and my two younger brothers discussed how we would take care of the two little ones, Robbie and Eric. Robbie is 3 years old, talks a lot, is very interested in everything, but has veeery stubborn. Eric is a real Mummy-boy, that's all I can say. He doesn't know me well enough and so he doesn't trust me :( He is just 1.5 years old and so he of course didn't understand that Mama is coming back.
Well, today in the afternoon and evening I was responsible for cooking and for taking care of the two little boys. With Robbie everything went well so far. We played some soccer together, extinguished some "Brennnesseln" (translated stinging nettle. It is a plant that causes short strong pain when touched, since it has poisenous stings. It's quite harmless if you ignor the pain) after Robbie stumbled and fell into them. While we were cutting the "Brennesseln", we found a small wasp's nest. The wasps were not to happy about our presence and so I had to take care of them with a torch and some bad perfume. (Makes a nice flamethrower due to the alcohol in it)
Eric was another story. It was almost enough that I would just look at him and he cried. (He cried a lot today) The only one he trusted in his Mummy deprived state was my brother Gabriel and he was so kind to take care of him for most of the day.
That was almost it.
Here's a picture of the house, so you can imagine how it looks like:


For about 10 minutes we had also some quite heavy rain today. It poured down pretty bad, but it was over as sudden as it began:



By the way: Today was Friday and with that the 7th full day that I experienced here in Austria after I left my home for two years: Dallas, Texas. There would be a lot more to write about the whole change and I intend to do so, it just might not be in daily intervals anymore. If you have any questions or you would just like to say hi, please feel free to do so in the comments or just write me an Email.

Day 6 - The price

I have to apologize, but I forgot to take pictures of the house and of my siblings today. I will try to do so tomorrow.
I uploaded some other pictures on my laptop though and one of those I asked Oleg to make on one of my last days at CFNI:


Today was a somehow weird day. After the initial shock of being back home in the strangely familiar, but yet new environment I begin to realize more and more that I am really here and here to stay. With such a big change it always takes at least a week or two for the mind and soul to realize what happened. The body is being moved in a couple hours, but who takes my identity of who I was at CFNI and redefines it in this new environment? Only time can do that job. Well, now I am more and more beginning to feel again, after the last weeks that were so hectic that I basically had no time whatsoever to feel, but ran just on Adrenalin.
One thing that I am now beginning to understand and that every missionary has to know is the price you pay by leaving an environment for an extended period of time. Yes, there is an initial price you pay by leaving your safe and secure home where you knew what to expect and where you had people to relate to. The real price you will pay though once you come back.
I was gone from this social network here in Austria for almost 2 years without any interruption. What I now begin to understand is that life here didn't simply stand still while I was gone. As they had to my friends and family were simply going on with life. And they did so in many different directions. Much of what was once my environment to relate to does not exist anymore. Friends moved out of town or got married, churches quit, christian organizations changed, life went on. What I now realize is that it is very hard to just reconnect with what you left. In regards to many relationships I will have to start over. (or give up on it) The friends that I had when I left are not the same anymore and the friends I had in America are not with me anymore. That is a quite lonely experience and I understand now just a tiny bit the difficulties that so many alumnis had that went out from CFNI, especially to Europe.
How will I cope with it in the end? Only the future will tell...
I will try to hope for the best. At least, after all, even when I seem to be alone, God is with me and he is the one whom I need the most right now.

Day 5 - Shopping with Robbie

Today was a quite uneventful day. In the morning I went to a doctor friend of ours to check on my general health condition. (We will see how bad that cafeteria food really was for me) It costs nothing to do that because of my insurance and it is quite useful, since you know afterwards if you are lacking something in your diet.
After that I went shopping with my little brother Robbie. I'll add a newer picture of him tomorrow. I needed to buy some nice shoes, since I left the old pair I had in America. The shopping experience was quite interesting. Everything is ridiculously expensive over here. Well maybe not ridiculously, but definitely more expensive than in America. I was looking for a nice pair of running shoes too, but decided not to buy one, since the average price was 100€, which is about 140$. (I have to say though that I went to one of the nicer stores)
Well, to come shopping here as a tourist is probably not such a smart idea. You are far better off with Ross and Marshalls in America.
It was also interesting to have a 3 year old with me at all times. It requires quite an amount of concentration to make sure he doesn't do something crazy. He is a really nice and cute boy though and very smart for his age, just very active too.
Tonight I fixed my surround sound speakers (Somebody broke them while I was gone) and that was almost it for a whole day. I like it that I can take it easy for right now. It is nice after all the stress of the last couple weeks.
That's it for today. Gute Nacht (Good night as the Austrians would say) I promise I will finally sort all my pictures tomorrow and upload some nice ones.

Day 4 - Church life in Austria

Technically the church service was already on Sunday and today is Tuesday, but since I didn't write about it yet, I think I should fill that gap.
Additional to what I saw on Sunday in church, I also had a talk today with my longterm friend and Mentor, the pastor of another church here in Strasshof and his wife. They are from Germany and their insight of now 10 years pastoring here in Austria was also very interesting.
Okay, first of all I have to state that a usual church experience is quite different over here. The background usually is the Catholic church and back in the day, but still nowadays there is at least one traditional church building per town.
Here you see the church in my hometown Strasshof:

Those Catholic churches are nowadays in a quite bad condition. They don't have enough attendees, not enough priests and many of them have already been closed down. Hardly anybody amongst the youth and young adults regularly goes into such a church. It usually is only the older retirees that go to church and many of them simply out of tradition. It's just the thing to do on Sundays.
This traditional and very formal experience of church is what the people usually have as background if they come into a evangelical church. This now causes a lot of problems. Usually the people have a very hard time at being open in church. They don't have a clue on how to worship, they see it more as something, where you just sit in quiet meditation. If you want you can sing along, but that's it. To raise hands in worship is strange, to clap a bit weird and to jump simply crazy.
Of course they usually have no clue about the Holy Spirit, his presence and gifts. To speak in tongues is rare here in Austria, even among the Pentacostals of the Evangelicals. Prophecy, gifts of healing, words of knowledge, prophecy are all nearly extinct. The evangelical community is very small. The city of Vienna with about 1,7 Million inhabitants has about 20 churches with an average size of about 60. The Pentacostal churches in Vienna are probably around 10 and of those are quite a few international ones (English speaking, African, Rumanian, Russian etc...)
The biggest church in all of Austria is a church of Rumanian immigrants with a size of about 3000 and there is no other church anywhere near. (At least to my knowledge) One of the issues in Austria is also that the regular people are very closed towards foreigners. They might now know how much they actually do it, but for anybody from another country it is quite obvious that foreigners in Austria are not given the same trust and respect as locals. I personally have the advantage that I speak German as they speak it in Austria with hardly any accent. On the streets I am usually thought of as just another Austrian, which is very good for me. Would I have a thick Swiss accent, I would automatically be associated with all the prejudices there are about Swiss. At the very least people would think me incapable of truly understanding their problems and issues.
(I have to remark though that this is of course a generalized description of Austrians. There are some that have lived for a while abroad and that have gained a larger understanding of the world community we are as humans. The same prejudices against foreigners can by the way be found in almost any country. I have experienced it quite similar in the US, although not nearly to the same extent as in Austria)
These issues make it hard, very hard for Missionaries and not without reason Austria is amongst ministers commonly called the Missionary graveyard. It is very easy to become disillusioned, disappointed and simply burned out after years and years of heard labor and toil with little to no fruit.
It is sad to say, but the Austrian church is just very weak. About 80% claim to be Christians, but only 4% go to church regularly and to my estimation only about 2% or less are real Christians that know God. Especially on the countryside of Austria it is still tradition to go to church as a family, but the people never truly give their life to God and they are not even told they need to.
Just as a sidenote: 4,3% of the people are part of the Muslim Religion.

So, this is the state of the nation. So don't complain too much about the situation in your place. It could be worse. At the same time I have to remind myself not to complain too much. Right now we only face public ridicule, rejection and lack of government and legal rights. We are not yet under strong opposition by the government (Probably because we are too small to be recognized)
I could talk much longer about the individual problems in my personal church, but I think this is enough for today. Austria needs Jesus and it needs an awakening in the existing churches, a reformation of the 21st century. I personally want to see the power and might of God present with mighty signs and wonders, so no man can any longer reject the reality of his sovereignty. (See John 20:27)

Day 3: Cold climate, hot climate cultures

Since I was very tired yesterday evening I skipped the daily blog that I decided to do this first week after my arrival.
Well, this is going to be just a short entry, but I would like to comment on something I noticed here in Austria.
Yesterday I went jogging/running in one of the small woods around "Strasshof an der Nordbahn" (My hometown)
On a sidenote: By the way, it was already after sunset and I think I saw a rabbit and some deer running away as I made my way along the track that forest rangers had cut. It is absolutely safe to run around in such small woods, since there are basically no dangerous snakes, no bears, no wolves, hardly any poisenous spiders etc... The only thing that can happen is that you get lost, but in such a case, just keep going and you will reach a street sooner or later, the woods are usually not that big. Well, I actually got lost and was running for about an hour, instead of the 20 minutes that I wanted to. (Just to your knowledge, there are actually some bigger forests if you get deeper into the countryside, but even those are hardly dangerous)

But now to the main topic:
It is one of those things that stood out when I switched cultures from the American way of life to the Austrian one. One of easily recognizable differences is the approach to strangers. Whereas in America you can talk to pretty much anybody on the street, as long as you are polite, in Austria that is fairly uncommon.
Let me give you an example:
On Wednesday when I was in the airplane to London Heathrow I was surrounded by Americans and as you would expect it, my neighbor and I talked a little bit. We were stuck beside each other for several hours after all.
On the plane from London Heathrow to Austria there were mostly Austrian passengers. Now on this flight I didn't speak a single word with my neighbor and he did neither with his neighbor. Does that seem strange to you? Well it isn't in Austria. Usually it is only uncivilized and inpolite (probably drunk) youth that will randomly talk to you in public. (Austrians usually need to get drunk to overcome their inner threshold) Of course there are exceptions to the rule. For example if a train is coming in late, it might be that some of the guys waiting seek to relieve their frustration and so they talk to you. (Especially the Austrians from Vienna love to complain, they even have a unique dialect word for it, that doesn't exist in Germany. It is called "raunzen" (pronounced: rountsn))
Another illustration for this distant closed behavior would be the Greetings. Over all it is still polite at least in the small towns to great a stranger should you meet him on the street, but it is also quite acceptable to not greet at all and to just ignore each other. Yesterday I actually greeted two people on the street (since I was used to do so from America) and both of them didn't even greet back. I don't think they were so terrified on seeing me that they couldn't move their lips anymore. To not greet back is inpolite according to the inofficial codex of proper behavior, but it obviously happens.
As we see in those examples, there is quite a difference in how people treat each other, between the US and Austria. Since the above was rather negative on Austria I want to bring out a positive side about this behavior too though. Whereas in America it is quite easy to make friends, or at least aquaintances, those relationships usually have hardly any depth. It was quite strange to me when I came to America that most (not all) of my relationships with US citizens never got beyond the surface. I really tried, but most Americans are apparently not really used to talk about their innermost feelings, or they at least have a very very hard time doing so. In Austria that is different. It might take you quite a while to gain somebody's trust, but once he trusts you, he will be open and frank with you. (There is another aspect though through which Austrians seldomly tell you when they are mad, since that would be too direct and inpolite for them, but that is another story)
I hope I could bring some insight on the differences between those seemingly so similar cultures. Sorry that the entry got so long, but I have to say that it by no means did the subject justice. To all of the above I have to say also that it is a rather generalized view and the individual experience will probably not include all of the mentioned aspects.

Day Nr. 2 - A pleasant surprise

Today, Saturday, was the second day of my new life here in Austria. It was a fairly casual day until the evening. Dad, the two small guys and me went shopping together (Grocery shops are definitely smaller here)
We had to go to the next town to do that (which is 10 minutes by car) and I drove. It was quite interesting, since I had driven only about 5 times during the last 2 years, but it came back quite quickly, especially since I drove the car I made my driver's license with. (A Skoda Felicia, an eastern brand that does not exist in America)
In the afternoon we celebrated Dad's birthday and for the evening my sister invited me to go to Vienna with her, just to hang out. Well, we went, but in truth she had prepared a surprise party for me, where surely 15 friends of mine had shown up. I really had no clue and was quite speechless. It was very nice to see so many of them again. With most I had had a hard time staying in contact with over the two years. Probably since we both were busy and had full lives (Especially my last semester was quite overloaded) The more I was surprised that so many came just for me.
A note for all you people from other cultures that read this blog: It might be hard to make Austrian friends, but once you have them, they are very loyal/faithful.
To welcome me back and to fully integrate me back into the Austrian culture my sister had chosen a quite famous and traditional "Schnitzel" restaurant. The food was delicious indeed, not even anywhere close to that stuff they call food in the cafeteria. (Thank you Jesus! No more cafeteria)
Here is a picture of an average "Schnitzel" (A typical Viennese dish)


Since I now came back to stay in Austria they in a joking way naturalized me as Austrian citizen. (Just for the record: I am still Swiss :-P )
I got a T-Shirt with the Austrian flag on it and everybody signed on it. My friend Markus (whom some still might know since he visited me at CFNI in spring 2008) even gave me an Austria scarf, like the soccer fans take them to the stadions. And to top it off my other friend Lydia had brought some face paint, with which she painted an Austria flag on my cheeks.
Well, here's the proof picture:

I took it just about half an hour ago in my room. it shows the T-Shirt, scarf and face paint.

Day 1 - Arrived

Hello my dear friends all across the globe.
Yesterday night at 10 pm European time and 3pm US Central time I arrived in Vienna. The flight was long, very long. It took us about 9 hours from Dallas to Heathrow, but then I had to wait for an approximate 10 hours. I decided to take naps on the benches there, since there was absolutely nothing to do. Yes, they had a bunch of duty free shops, but they were either ridiculously expensive, or not simply not interesting. My hand luggage was also very heavy. I packed about 10 kilogram (22 pounds) in each the notebook bag and the backpack. There was not much walking around possible therefore.
Well I survived the waiting and at around 6pm (London time) finally my flight to Vienna was ready to go. In Vienna I finally saw Dad, Gabriel, David and Nathanja. Mum stayed at home with the little guys Robbie and Eric, since it would have been too late for them. Today I didn't do much. I am still quite in amazement that I really came home. It was a loooong time, probably too long. Quite a lot has changed.
The counter culture shock is quite interesting. I never realized how much cussing the Austrians actually have in their dialect of German (words similar to shit, idiot, crap, stupid, ass and even the english "What the fuck" are commonly used. I hope you just didn't fall over because I spelled them out.)
Well I probably could write a lot more about that, but I will hopefully get to do so tomorrow.
Tonight I went to a worship night where the band of my sister played. It was nice, I met quite a few new people and re-met people I hadn't seen for 2-3 years.
It was a good experience, but I was definitely exhausted after such a long time of little sleep and the whole jet lag experience.
Okay, that is it for today, more tomorrow. (I will also try to post some pictures)