Johnstein!

As many of you know and/or remember, we were not planning to return home to the states until Christmas of 2011. After prayer and discussion, Rebecca and I decided that we should spend Christmas with our family in So Cal. A couple of reasons for this decision: -We are still needing to raise support. We feel it would be more beneficial for us to go "back" to raise support with positive motivations, rather than being "asked" to return by our school/sending agency. -We really would like to see our friends and family! Although we really feel encouraged and validated in our call to serve here in Vienna, we miss our loved ones. We will be arriving at LAX at 6:15 PM on December 23rd. We will return to Vienna on the 9:15 flight out of LAX on January 5th. After the 25th, we would love to be able to connect with as many of you as possible. Breakfast, coffee, lunch, dinner, dessert, just hanging out, walking around, whatever...Rebecca and I just want to be able to see an...

Hey everyone...It has been an amazingly busy couple of weeks. Since Justin's class' cultural celebration, we have been very involved with school events. I hope I can remember them all as I list them...and this is in as close to chronological order as I can recall: - Fri 15 Oct. - Helped the Junior class cook and serve dinner for the first big fundraiser of the year. - Sat 16 Oct. - Had dinner with the pastor of the church we have been attending and his lovely family. We had lots of fun watching football/soccer, talking theology and politics...They from England and its interesting to get a bit of insight to British politics and the British outlook (at least his version) on American politics. - Sun 17 Oct. - Laundry and Church - Mon 18 Oct. - Rebecca went out with a friend and I went to a support raising support group with some of the other missionary staff at the school. - Tue 19 Oct. - Rebecca went to the consulate to get an important document ordered for Justin and...

As I mentioned in last week's prayer request post, this past week was Spiritual Emphasis Week (SEW)...This year the school invited Scott Davidson and Chad Martin (along with Scott's wife Katrina). Scott and Chad have a blog/ministry called "2 Guys and a Bible" and have started a more focused ministry called "The Redemption". They are both involved in church ministries in the States (well, the Davidsons are in Canada..) During SEW we have chapel every day and there are various activities planned for the SEW team to interact with both staff and students in order to get a clearer understanding of what God is doing at ICSV. We have had a great time getting to know Scott, Katrina, and Chad and have been very blessed and encouraged by their ministry here. They focused on Jesus (usually a pretty good topic) and how He is Supreme, The Redeemer, and a mighty warrior. They finished off this week with a more focused discussion, splitting up the boys and the girls to ...

So, apparently I have to turn on the heat in my class...I have yet to actually do this, so my classroom is pretty cold. Not uncomfortably so, but enough that my students have resorted to bringing blankets to class.

Enjoy our pictures from the ICSV Staff Retreat!

Hi everyone! We hope you are all doing well. We are just about to head out on our very first ICSV staff retreat! We will be going to a retreat center run by one of the local churches in Vienna. As we prepare to leave, there are a couple of things that we would love to have you, our prayer support team, lift up to our Savior. 1. Safe travels for the staff this weekend. Also, that we will have a Spirit led, Christ-centered time of devotion and fellowship. 2. One of Michael's students, Max, had to miss school today (Friday) because he had to travel to Germany to be with his father. His father has become very ill. God has put this student on our hearts for a variety of reasons. Just yesterday, during a presentation about his culture, he told the class that he is an atheist, but being at ICSV has got him thinking that maybe God DOES exist! This young man is searching and aching for God's Grace. Please pray that he will be open to the Spirit's lead and that Max will experienc...