Living in Linz

Hello again…. Life here is pretty much moving at a normal pace, well as normal as life gets 

The church is really good except our numbers have not picked up since the summer… Over the next few months to a year we will be losing over 60% of our leadership team. Which brings us to a fork in the road which means change and uncertainty about which direction to go…

Grace church has always had a transient congregation so numbers have always gone up and down. This time tho it is our core members who are having to move on due to work commitments.

Please pray with us to know which way God is taking the church. More specifically, that we see new people coming along and for wisdom to ask the right people to get involved in the church leadership.

The weeks just seem to be rolling past and some weeks are more interesting than others and sometimes it is hard to know what people want to know or what is interesting!…

 Anyway here is what has happened the last week or so…

 For Johnny’s Uni course he has spent two weeks in Lithuania, two weeks in Finland and now they are spending two weeks in Linz. So last week and this week Johnny has been very busy but I think that is the way he likes it!

Johnny has been doing some translation work which is now coming to an end… but he got a phone call today with the possibility of more which is really good.

 Last Saturday (1^st October) we had the pleasure of having Brenda and Ron Anderson (the international field leader) came to stay overnight and visit our church. Ron preached and was very good and it seemed to have an impact which was great!

 Lee was sent home from school today he was sick so spent most of the afternoon sleeping and Rachel made him a get well card and attached a little chocolate to it! Sometimes they do the sweetest things and other times they can’t even talk to each other… you’ve gotta love kids  and that is about it for now I hope it was interesting or at least just filled 5 minutes of your day!  

We have had a wonderful holiday…. we had a week in Zell am See with friends from the UK. Which was very welcome after the stress of moving.

We are now in the last week of school holidays and it is a week with mixed emotions.

Lee has to sit his Nachprüfung (maths resit) on Monday 12^th Sep.

We have also been looking at other schools which will be German speaking schools. We are waiting to see how Monday goes please pray because it is going to be hard going for Lee whatever happens and he is feeling the pressure!

We also have school supplies to buy for the start of school and the list is long!

Rachel is looking forward to the start of school meeting up with her friends and she is looking forward getting the tram home on her own! which is a bigger step for me than it is for her!

Johnny has started his practical placement for Uni with Volkshilfe. And it seems to be going well.

Me well in October I am hoping to start a tandem learning with a lady in our church who would like to learn English. I have also been asked if I can help someone with their English for Uni!

Ok so we are on the wind down to school holidays yay! The kids have worked so hard this year. Unfortunately Lee failed his German end of year test but has the chance to re-sit it when school starts in September. Please pray for him… he will unfortunately have to do some German study through the holidays. But all that said, he is doing well and ready for a trip back to the UK!

Rachel is doing well in school… and her broken bits seem to be healing well, she has an appointment next week and they will decide what happens next. It is very hot now and she is ready for the stookie to come off. 

 Our car had it’s first Überprüfung (M.O.T) and failed… so today it has gone into the garage to get fixed 

and they have to keep it over night which will make the school run interesting and early.

 It is just under two weeks until we come back to the UK.  Our first stop is in Northampton visiting 

our friends at Grange Park Church and Lavendon Baptist. We will also be making a visit to the ECM office. Then we will be heading up to Scotland… our first week is our holiday week in Fort William Yay!!! Then back to Johnny’s mum and dad’s where we will have a week visiting family and a week of visiting supporters and supporting churches. We will then head back to Austria about the 10^th of August. We hope and Pray that you all have a fab summer with who and whatever you have planned.     

 Ok what’s been happing well as some of you may know Rachel fell out of a tree last week and broke her arm and after a short operation to put it back in place it seems to be healing well. She was very brave when they told her she would have to have an operation! but in the heat of the summer it makes wearing a cast (or stookie as we say in Scotland) very uncomfortable and itchy, God has blessed us with some cooler weather this week!

It is Rachel’s Birthday next week and she was supposed to have a pool party with some friends but now she is not allowed too so it will have to be a teddy bears picnic instead! We also bought her a trampoline but of course she will have to wait before she can use it! We might let her have one bounce. She has had great fun having people sign and draw on her stookie it is the highlight to having a stookie.

 This week I was doing some washing and as I took it out of the washing machine Lee’s mobile phone fell out onto the floor mmm lesson one check pocket of jeans before they going into the washing machine. When he was younger the only thing in his pockets were snails and stones. The good thing about snails is they go foamy and disappear…. but now he is older I must remember he has other things in there thing that cost money! He has been saving his birthday money and Christmas money to buy himself a computer but now he has spent it some of it buying a new mobile phone! Oops

 In about 3 weeks we are heading to the UK part holiday and part visiting supports and we are very excited to be meeting everyone again! We will be driving over so long journey but totally worth it! But more about that later….

Well last time we wrote we were stuck in Spain. Well not to spoil the ending of the story we made it home about 12:30 midnight Tuesday morning after a very long journey home!

 Let me take you back to Saturday morning…. We got up and checked to see if our flight had been cancelled and they had. This was not good how do we get home now! Some of our friends were flying to Venice but there flight had also been cancelled three of which were heading to Austria and five to Croatia so we all sat down and tried to get a plan together.

First we tried to hire a couple of cars to drive us to Austria but the hire companies by this point were not allowing their cars to go over any borders. Then we got a bit silly and said how about a boat mmm lovely Austria is a land locked country but after about 10 minutes a voice pipes up we can get a ferry from Barcelona to Livorno in Italy so after we thought about it we booked our tickets! But we had to be in Barcelona for 10pm so the race was on!

 We jumped in a taxi and headed for Gandia train station the first of many we would be going to. So our first train was from Gandia to Valencia then at Valencia a train to Barcelona from there we had to get the Metro to the port to catch the ferry to Livorno (in Italy)… but little did we know we were being watched!

As we boarded the metro a man got on just in front of Johnny and made out he had got on the wrong train and tried to get off but kept blocking Johnny from getting on now behind Johnny were two other guys and Rachel who was pushed and knocked over in the kerfuffle. Then just before the doors shut all three got off then our friend turned to Johnny and said, you better check and see if you still have you wallet, but it was gone!

We reported it to the police who apologised and said unless he needed a record made for our insurance there was nothing they could do! So off we went to catch the boat now by this time it is about 10 at night (Sat.) and we had 5 kids who were getting tired. So after about 2 hours we finally got a seat on the ferry this would be our home for the next 20 hours! In fact it took us 24! But we put jackets and jumpers on the floor so the kids could lie down and go to sleep.

 While on board the ferry some of the other passengers decided it would be good to get groups of people together who were heading in the same direction and hire some buses now our group managed to get on the bus to Milan. When the boat got into Livorno it was about midnight (Sun./Mon.) so we headed to the bus going to Milan which took about three hours. Now having arrived in Milan after three in the morning we went to get another train which took us to Venice then another train from Venice to Treviso then from there we had to get the bus to the Venice (Treviso) airport and this is where our group would be splitting up. One family heading to Croatia and three members of the Austria team heading to Carinthia in Austria, both cars had been left at the airport! Our lovely friend Jac had arranged for our field leaders intern to come and get us from the Treviso Airport and drop us at the train station in Villach were we got our last train to Vienna which took us about six hours where we met our lovely friends who were looking after our car for us. We made a quick stop at MacDonald’s for something to eat then it was two more hours until we made it home which we did!  It took us in all 60 hours to get from Spain to Linz!

We have visited some really beautiful place especially Venice and I think we have enough holiday destinations to last us few years! While travelling we saw what happens when people work towards a common goal and those who don’t.   Through our entire trip we felt Gods hand on every plan we made and even when Johnny’s wallet had been stolen we still knew God was there. In our group we got the chance to get to know each other better. We also had some laughs. We shared an experience that will be with us for a long time.

Since February we have had a lot of family staying with us in Linz. Which has been fab and our kids have been spoilt rotten with sweets and other goodies. We have had fun showing family around Linz.

 Most recently we have had my dad come to visit. Which was really good and a bit of a surprise because my Dad hates to fly so we made the most of his visit with us. The ECM biannual in Spain was just beginning as my dads visit was coming to an end so we missed the beginning of the conference but it was worth it cos who knows if my dad will ever fly out to visit us again! ha!ha!….  he may drive…. We will see.

 When we left Austria it was raining and when we arrived in Spain it was raining! But we have enjoyed the meetings and the company a lot. We have met some new people and caught up with friends. Lee has slotted in straight away with friends he made two years ago and Rachel has enjoyed meeting new friends both were really excited about coming to Spain. Lee had told me that he does not feel different when he comes to the biennials because his friends and he are all the same! So this made it clear to Johnny and I that this is not just a time of ministry and refreshing for us but also for our kids.

 Meanwhile little did we know there was a cloud forming and heading for us and I don’t mean a big fat rain cloud. A Volcano erupted in Iceland and the cloud of ash has now brought most of Europe’s airports to a stop. I would just like to say at this point I feel more compassion and sympathy for those in Iceland that are really affected by the volcano.   For us though we now have the problem of trying to get home with flights cancelled trains fully booked and hiring a car just not an option we find ourselves stuck in Spain!

 Yes I know it is a nice problem to have but at this point I would like to go home.

I wish I had a pair of ruby slippers…. Ok well maybe four pairs of ruby slippers so the whole family can get home!…. There is no place like home… there is no place like home… there is no place like home…. Nope still here!!!

This was our first Christmas in Austria and we had a really good time, and as you all know by now we have two new additions to our family Jak and Daxter two beautiful white rabbits.

We spent Christmas eve with a lovely family from South Africa we ate and swapped gifts it was a lovely night. Then on Christmas morning we Skyped my family which was fab seeing everyone and seeing what my nephews got for Christmas. My sisters, my dad and my Aunt for my birthday paid for a flight for me to visit my Aunt and sisters for the weekend of my birthday. It was a bit touch and go if they would make it cos of all the snow!!! But they did and we had a great time together shopping and laughing and eating.

 Life in Linz has got more of a routine to it which is good cos it feels like things are settling down. German is going well I have just started the 2^nd level after repeating the first and I think it was the right decision to repeat the first level I just would have been struggling too much with it all.  Johnny is doing so well with level 5 and he also is doing a tandem session with an Austrian lady who would like to learn English and it seems to be going very well for both which is really good.

 Lee and Rachel are doing very well in school. There is a lot of pressure on Lee from the school to be achieving the top marks all the time. Please pray as we feel this may become too much pressure. Rachel is doing very well and has had a few invites to go and play with some of the girls in her class which she has loved doing!

 The church is going very well we have a meeting coming up on the 30^th about integration (for foreigners in Linz)  and what the church’s role would be in this is. Please pray for this meeting that God would be at the centre of this meeting and that our role as a body would become very clear.

We have just said goodbye to our first visitors from the UK. It is always hard to say goodbye to friends…  We loved having you!!!

 The first course Language school is now finished. We now have a week before we start the next one.  I have decided to sit level one again because I feel I would get more out of it a second time around. Johnny is moving on to level four and his German is coming on really well.

On Saturday at church Johnny preached which was the first time since we have moved to Linz and he done so well. Unfortunately not in German but maybe soon!

The kids have a holiday from school today so it was nice not to have to get up early! The kids have been in the garden raking up the leafs… nothing like a bit of child labour!

 The kids are doing really well and enjoying school. Lee has a couple of big Maths tests coming up and they are important but maths is his weak subject please pray that he will do really well in these they are in two parts and are split through this next month!The weather here is starting to turn cold and lovely the kids are waiting for the snow! We have recently got a new car and Johnny and I are constantly getting in the wrong door to drive or the right door depending on your view point!!!!  But we still have our British car and we will have to decide what to do with it! Life here going a long at a fair pace I can’t believe it is November already!!! And I am getting a little excited cos Christmas is just around the corner!! Yay!! 

It is time to change our right hand drive for a left hand drive. Unfortunately the garages don’t want to take our Honda which brings us to the question…. Would anyone like to buy a Honda???

 What do you do with a right hand drive nobody wants answers on a postcard to…

 Things have been going good here. The kids are still enjoying school and Lee goes away on a school trip on Monday for 2 nights! It is called Kennenlerntage (getting to know you days) it is going to be a little bit like when he went to Kingswood with his school in Rode. They will be hiking and doing all sorts of outdoors stuff and just spending some time with his friends

 At the moment for me the language learning is quite tough going but that is ok cos… well not sure why it is ok I just know it is and that is good for now!

Johnny on the other hand has been recommended to do levels 4 and 5 at the same time. Go Johnny go!!!!