A Most Horrendous Morning

So yesterday morning was one of the roughest I have ever had. Matt and I both woke up early so we could get to school earlier than usual to get some work done. Matt left before me as he was ready to go by the time I was ready to blow dry my hair =)

I got ready and left the house at 7:05. As I am walking from our apartment to the strassenbahn (street train) stop I watched a strassenbahn come and go. Normally I would hurry to catch it, but I was NOT feeling well at all, and I was exhausted. So I took my time knowing another one would come in 4 or 5 minutes. Shortly after I get to the stop, I realize there is a message under the time, and that the minutes counting down to the next train had not changed. Great. I should have then and there started walking or returned home to get my bike. However, feeling completely nauseas, those ideas wentout the window. Then I noticed there was no longer a countdown to the next strassenbahn at all, just a message. Oh how I wish I knew more German!!So I waited....and I waited some more....and I waited longer....

I waited 40 minutes. I realize I should have given up a long time ago, but I was feeling so sick and tired. Depressed, I weighed my options and decided although riding a bike would require more energy, the pain would be over sooner than if I were to walk. As I walked home I looked over my shoulder every few seconds just to make sure a strassenbahn wasn't coming.

I got my bike out, and began the cold ride to school. After pedaling my little heart out, I arrived at the school at 8:15, feeling completely miserable and only 15 lovely minutes before my first class started. Then I looked into a mirror...yah, the hair was totally destroyed by the wind and bike combination. Great. What else could go wrong...

And the moral of the story is: Don't live in a place where you have to depend on a strassenbahn to get to and from places. This was definitely not the first time this had happened, just the first time being by myself. Although the strassenbahn is normally dependable and on time, it randomly flakes out on us.

Thoughts of a 6th Grader on God

This is the response from a 6th grader when asked about whether she feels the Bible is truth after a lecture on Biblical Archeology. (excuse the grammer mistakes)

"It's kinda hard to tell if the Bible is true, 'cause what we read are weird miracles that have happen and are hard to believe. Because I really haven't seen a miracle like the one where Moses halves the Red Sea in today's life. But yes the Bible is true not just "they all say," but because my heart tells me so and I've noticed that things we do on earth...compare to the things we should do that are listed in the Bible...they are better, way better but no fun to do but their make lots of sense why we have and should not do something like that. If you think about it, the Bible is very right and very true."

"Think of a puppy. As much as I love them, I wanna know more about them...it's just like the Bible. I always use to think reading the Bible was a waist of time, and I still think that way sometimes. But when I pick it up and start reading the first few sentences, I feel like I know nothing, like I should study the Word of God even more"

Yummy Dessert!

You may remember, but in November our senior class had a pancake breakfast with an auction to raise funds for our senior trip. Since the class pays for the sponsors to go, I felt I should attribute. So I auctioned off 8 desserts, one each month for the rest of the school year. I was quite surprised at how high the bidding went, but alas, the Pacheco's (Oscar and Christian were a huge fan of my baking...) won out.

So far I have made them cherry fried pies, triple layer chocolate cake with a mousse frosting, Christmas candy, cinnamon rolls, and lots of cookies to boot!

Today I spent 2 hours making their February dessert. I had a lot of fun working on this. I found strawberries on sale for 60 cents, which is an amazing bargain. So I had strawberries...what could I do with them...I finally decided on a Chocolate Strawberry Torte!

It is a two layers chocolate cake, with whipped cream (I made from scratch, unfortunately we don't have cool whip here...), strawberries, and a chocolate glaze, and repeat for layer two.

I wish I could of tried it because it looked amazing! They came by and picked it up, which I am so thankful for because it wouldn't have been fun to carry on public!

Anyways...here's a pic so your mouth can water like mine did!

A Drink for a Dry Spirit

Last week was our ski week, and we joined a group of 7 other teachers to travel to Barcelona, Spain on Sunday through Wednesday. It was a great trip, full of fun times seeing a new place. Not to mention all the sunshine and warmer (60 degrees) weather, which compared to Austria, was amazing!

I am not a good sleeper, I typically do not sleep well at night for several nights in a row until my body becomes exhausted, and then I sleep well for a few nights. On the bad nights, I average 4-5 hours of sleep. When we travel, it is even worse, I hardly sleep at all.

Well in Barcelona we stayed in a hostel because it is the cheapest option. When I say we, I mean all 9 of us in ONE tiny room on cheap bunkbeds! The first few nights I got a couple hours of sleep, but our last night there, I could not get to sleep for the life of me. So I finally got out my ipod and put on some of my favorite worship songs.

So many times when I cannot sleep well, I just fight it and fight it and fight it. But that night in Barcelona, (definitely not on purpose) God got my attention. Maybe that is why I could not sleep in the first place.

As I laid there listening to those songs (and the different breathing styles of the other 8 people in the room!) I experienced God in a powerful way. God has always moved me through music and song, and this time was no different.

My spiritual food is so very limited here in Vienna, and my spirit was dry. I miss our church in Dallas where I could experience God through worship and studying his word every weekend. Needless to say, I was starving for a personal encounter with my Savior that I had not felt in quite some time.

I laid there for several hours listening to the same eight songs, basking in the presence of God. I could raise my hands in worship, I could cry at the feeling of God being so near. I could actually hear God's quiet whisper as he spoke my heart. God revealed several things to me that night, about my ministry here in Vienna and what He wants me to do. He also gave me peace about something that has been heavily weighing me down.

Wednesday morning when I got out of bed, my body was exhausted, but my spirit was overflowing.

Funny the places and times God reveals himself to us...

Ski Week!

One of the fun things about the Austrian school system is that the students are required to learn how to ice skate and snow ski. The ice skating they can learn here in Vienna, but the skiing they have to go into the Alps. So they take a week off of school, and each Austrian school takes week long ski trips.

This works out super nice for us because we get the week off of school as well. So this past week, we have not had any school for Ski Week! It has been a much needed break for us, as our lives have been so busy. It has been great to sit back and relax, watch movies, read books, and just enjoy some downtime.

We have 4 weeks of basketball left, and then hopefully our lives will return to "normal!"

Elementary Chapel

This year I have taken on the role of Elementary Chaplain, which means I provide the lesson or teaching for chapel every week. I decided to begin in the beginning with creation and work our way through the Old Testament chronologically. We have not gotten very far yet due to the fact that we meet only once a week.

Yesterday I was speaking about Moses receiving the 10 commandments from God. I decided to focus on the actual commandments, talking about what each one means. My big point was for them to remember the greatest commandment, "Love God, Love People," and if they follow these two commandments, then they will be following all of the 10 commandments. I figured its a lot easier to remember 4 words compared to 10 commandments!

Anyways, here are a few pictures from chapel.

This is most of my audience!

These are my primary helpers...I think he got bored!!

These are all of my helpers, who helped me demonstrate how Love God, Love People includes all of the original 10 commandments God gave Moses!

Blog Design

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The Plight of the VCS Athletic Program

So as a coach of the soccer and basketball teams, I deal with many things (circumstances) that I don't think coaches in the states have to deal with due to the culture of the USA. Here are two examples JUST FROM THIS WEEK (note that there is about 1 strange request like these per week)!

After our game on Monday, a young man asked me if he could miss practice on Tuesday so he could go shopping to get a suit in order to go to a ball with his girlfriend. Now what US high school basketball player has the boldness to actually tell his coach that is why he is going to miss practice. To top things off, you have to know that we had just told them the practice would be over by 5, and stores do stay open later than 5 here. It was just a surprise to me that he would WANT to miss practice to go shopping for a suit.

Then just a few minutes ago, a player walked into my room (its a game day) to ask me if we "needed him to play in the game tonight." He is in the starting 5!!! How do you respond to such a question? His reasoning was that he was invited to go to the Austria vs Germany soccer game tonight. Well the soccer game starts at 8:30, our game will be over by 7, be he felt he needed to be able to "get ready" for the soccer game.

It is just really hard for me to believe that players WANT to miss practices and games and its like no big deal to them. Us coaches here at VCS deal with this on a weekly basis.

Please Join us in Praying

For those of you who haven't heard this part of my story...I felt called to full time missions when I was a sophomore in high school, and began getting involved with any kind of mission work possible. During my junior year of high school I began looking for a short term missions trip. So my aunt put me in touch with a doctor from the Saint Louis area who went to her church, and who was willing to take me on. Anyways, I spent part of two summers with Steve being his assistant in Port au Prince, Haiti, and the surrounding area. This ministry still takes up a huge part of my heart and is a big reason why I am a missionary today. My plan was to get medical training and join Steve full time with the mission work in Haiti. Although Steve was thrilled when we decided to come to VCS, and supports us in our ministry, he still gave me a hard time about not joining him in Haiti.

Anyways, he has been having a lot of health problems. Doctors have found several growths on both of his lungs. He was told these types of growth are usually cancerous or will eventually turn into that. It is a very aggressive form of cancer and there is no cure. Obviously, their prayer and mine, is that it is not cancerous and that the growths will stop growing. He has also had his gallbladder removed. It was covered with polps and needs to be checked out as well. He had 2 stents put in last March when he was just hours away from a massive heart attack. So Steve has some very serious health problems and we need to continue to pray for them and for the Haiti mission which worries them greatly.

Steve mainly works by himself, but has partnered with many Haitians for his ministry. If Steve can no longer continue the mission work, then there is a good chance it will stop. Steve also takes a trip once a year with a group of doctors into West Africa to do medical missions there as well.

Steve invested in me in huge ways, has mentored me and played a big role in who I am today. Needless to say, this news is very hard on me, so please join me in praying for Steve, his wife Terri, his family and his ministry in Haiti. They have an amazing ministry that has saved the lives of many, both physically and spiritually, and I would hate to see it come to an end. Also, selfishly, I ask that you pray for me as well, as dealing with these situations when you are an ocean away is not easy.

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was Matt's 26th birthday. Unfortunately, we didn't have the day off to celebrate. However, a group of the senior boys bought a nut (almond) cake (it was good, but interesting-and hard to explain) and some soda to celebrate. So during their 4th block study hall and Matt's planning period, they had a birthday party! It was really sweet and thoughtful of them.

After school we had a basketball game against one of the other international schools in Vienna. Our basketball team has not been playing to their potential, we have definitely been in a slump. But last night they finally picked up the pace and played basketball on their level, and it was fun to coach and watch. We were down by 11 in the middle of the second quarter and came back to lose by 5. Even though we didn't win, it was still a great accomplishment for them to get out of their slump!

We grabbed some McDonald's, which doesn't happen often at all for us for dinner, and then we headed home. Once we got home I made some Peanut Butter Chip cookies, Matt's favorite, for his birthday "cake." I put 4 cookies on a plate, with a candle in each, sang happy birthday solo, and called it a party!