Ministering to the Community

A quick update from Klosterneuburg.

One of the areas that I really worked to see the church in Klosterneuburg become involved in was, in the community. We had taken up conversations with the mayor and others in the community. Well, our co-workers and the church have continued down this path and the Lord is opening doors. Read what Joe and Brenda have reported on this. I was very excited to read how the Lord is going before the church and giving His church a growing presence in Klosterneuburg:

“I´m sure you remember before we came home on Home Ministry we started building a relationship with a children´s home near our meeting place. The home is actually a house that´s been fixed up and has eight children living in it along with two or three workers at all times. The home is very nice and is just what you would wish for children that have been removed from their families. The girls have canopy beds and the boys have rooms decorated for boys. We were very pleased with how well the children are cared for. The children are all 10 and under.





My friend, Margit (right), and another woman from the Kagran church are working at the home. It was amazing to all of us that they found work at the Klosterneuburg children´s home that´s so close to the community center where we meet for Sunday worship. It made us all feel that God must have some purpose in mind. The home just got a male director, who Margit found out once attended an evangelical youth group. Joe went with Gabi and I this time when we went to the home and was able to have a nice long talk with the director. He´s religious and open to talk about God. In fact he wants moral and religious exposure to be a part of the children´s lives. He has encouraged the workers to talk with the children about God and pray with them. You can bet we were all happy to hear about that.





Joe came up with the idea that we could pray for each child in our weekly group on the child´s birthday and give them a birthday present. The director thought the idea was good and was open to us visiting the children every once and a while. Above is a picture of the director (left) and a few of the boys in the home.




Please continue to pray for the ministries of Klosterneuburg.

Hello dear family and friends

Hope you had a great step into the New Year. We ended the old year with Katya emptying the contents of her stomach on mom and dad’s living room floor and Marika joining her later at the great white bowl.

However, by the next day and into the New Year they were fine again. We really enjoyed our visit with ‘Oma and Opa’. Our kids loved being with them and Connor was ready to put down roots right there.

Mom is doing well through her Chemo, though tired from it, she presses on and continues to be a help to my dad as he continues to battle his Parkinson’s. Her latest tests revealed a good prognosis and so we are rejoicing with her that things are going in the right direction.

We also got to spend time with Tim’s brother and family in Hide Park. It was great to connect with Jim as he is working toward full time ministry as well. In addition the cousins were able enjoy each other for a few days. While there, Tim was humiliated by his Nephew in a Video game but seems to have recovered.

Our visit with Tim’s older brother was sadly short-lived as he came down with a sinus infection. Our kids love uncle Dan and so missed him.

We are eager to see where the Lord takes us this coming year. Tim has been tasked with redeveloping the whole process for preparing our new appointees for the field. I am working with a team to reimagine this process and we will launch it for church based teams, short term and long term in March.

We are also developing a broader coaching process throughout GEM with a vision to train toward coaching in Europe as well.

As promised we want to update you on how our year

end support raising effort is going. At this point we have

received $1,375 I special gifts toward our need for 2010.

We would appreciate your prayers as we look, in faith, to

how the Lord continues to provide for our needs. He is

good and He is trustworthy.

Prayer requests:

Please pray for…
Tim who has torn his Achilles and will be seeing the doctor on Wednesday. We’re hoping he does not need a surgery.
Jennifer as she seeks out some pain management doctors to deal with the chronic pain she has been living with for over a decade.
Pray for Tim’s friend Hadschi in Austria who is really struggling with his relationship with God as he deals with his wife having left him to not return.

Also check out http://marburgerexperiment.wordpress.com/