half time

well... i have hit the half way mark. 4 weeks down and 4 more to go, it has gone by so fast. loving it. missing mnd. anxious to get home. soaking up all i can get :) this last weekend we had a travel weekend, where folks went to Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, camping and other places... i took advantage of this guy, Hans Peter's bed and breakfast up on one of the mountains... the deal was that you work for 2 hours a day and you can stay there for free... i thought that sounded nice. we get so busy with assignments and outreach and projects that it is hard to set aside a good block of time during the week... but lets just say when i thought of a sweet bed and breakfast up one of the mountains with a sweet view, it was actually an old BARN, with a bunch of rooms in it... up on one of the mountains with a sweet view... plus a group of 16 elementary kids staying there for a weekend retreat as well... but i did have some good time of quiet and solitude, i was just a little bummed with the accommodations.. oh well.

Hans peter just wrapped up his series on revelation... 25 hours was not enough time, but it has changed the way that i see the bible. he did such a great job of painting a picture of scripture in its entirety through Jesus... the word of god is truly living and active, it is such a pleasure to meet with god through out the day. i got some mail today from the CBC youth team (thanks rene), it was a note of encouragement from my Ensenada team this year (thanks for all the nice words guys... we should get together before people start leaving). each person had a page with their name on it, and everyone else writes encouraging things about that person from the week. and then they sent each persons page to them as a reminder and encouragement from the trip. it was a real treat, brought back some great memories!

i have decided to take advantage of an opportunity to travel to Romania with some other students from tauernhof to do some outreach in an orphanage and a gypsy village...among other things. i had a week after school to do some travel, but i dont know if i would ever have a reason to go to Romania again... so thats what im going to do... and i am not one to turn down a chance to serve right? plus, i would just miss my megan too much if i was off seeing cool place like Venice, Rome, or Paris... :)

austrian life

this is dani and heidi's house, my family group moms :) it is vary austrian!


randy, michelle, and amber... family group time.


this was the "bed and breakfast" i stayed in over the weekend... hans is a cool guy.


i worked for 4 hours on friday as my payment for staying there. the wook was soaked and full of knots... not too bad.

the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few...

each week we have to pick a passage out of out assigned new testament reading and do a sort of reflection on it... here is a glimpse at one of the things i have been wrestling with...

Matthew 9:37-38
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Something stuck out to me the first week, when Martin was speaking; he said something along the lines of “how do you suppose you can go far off somewhere and be a pastor, or a missionary and spread the good news when you cant even talk to your neighbor?” This has really spoken to me, because the last few years, I have felt inadequate or unprepared for ministry, and then I got thrown into the ministry where I realized that I COULDN’T DO IT…alone, but Christ through me... I am never going to reach a certain level of knowledge or wisdom where I feel like, ok; now I’m ready to serve God, because I am always learning and growing… and still feel like I know nothing. I thought that I had to go to bible school or something first, get my “training” and then I would be ready… God can’t use me until then… “the things we think disqualify us from ministry, qualify us…” Rob said that this week, and it took until the end of the week, for me to realize what that meant for me. I have often felt incompetent to preach, or bring Gods word to people (my disqualification). That is exactly what qualifies me, because it shouldn’t be me, but God through me. All the time I have tried to do it on my own, it wasn’t in the spirit; but when I surrendered, it was amazing how God used me.

So how does this passage apply to me? It is true that we need senders and we need goers. What I mean is even the 12 relied on people to put them up for the night, and put food in their stomachs when the decided to leave everything and follow Him. However, while many take this task seriously, and do so as an act of worship, there are majorities who use this as the easy way to not have to “deny themselves and take up the cross daily.” The Harvest is SO MANY… and the workers… are few… I can see God using me in so many ways, in my hometown or across the globe. I feel that few people feel that tug, or the desire in their hearts. “He will give you the desires of your heart,” and when you are walking in his spirit those desires are not of your own, but put there by him. So I feel if it is there then, that is something that you need to act on. God opens and closes doors, and he puts us through seasons. I see the need out there, and I also see the need right next door… We need only walk through the doors he opens for us, and keep on going until he closes it or opens another…