Wow, how do I even describe today? It has been an awesome day even though the weather is cold and rainy. I will begin with something that happened just after breakfast today. I have made friends with a couple from the Ukraine named Zhenya and Natasha. They are beautiful people both inside and out. Zhenya has full time ministry in two different churches in the Ukraine. They have two children: a boy and girl, 7 and 8 years. So, after breakfast, we were gathering dishes together to be washed when Zhenya says to me "Our God is an awesome God!" I repeated that to him and Natasha. He put his hands on my shoulder and said, "Carol, I would like to give you a blessing". Then he proceeded to say a blessing over me that was so moving that it brought me to tears!
After breakfast, we went to our church service where the service was led by the Russian group. They did a fabulous job of leading us in music and Vladimar, a fine young man gave his testimony about serving God. After that, the Uzbekistan group sang a beautiful praise song. I have no idea what they were singing but it was truly beautiful and many of us were brought to tears knowing the persecution they daily try to avoid and still they continue to be so in love with our God. The speaker for the service was Dr. Detlef Bloecher from Germany, an older man who had speaks very fluent English and taught an entire lesson on the first 3 verses of Psalm 96. He was very inspirational and motivating challenging all of us to remember that our main purpose is to praise God. I cannot describe the beauty of so many nationalities worshiping together. At the end of the service, we all sang Blessed Assurance in our native tongues....awesome! That is what heaven will be like I am sure...but then we will all understand each other!
After the service, we gathered out front to take a group picture. Then we prepared the tables for dinner and got ready to go to Baden. It is a beautiful town in Austria that is a spa resort community since there is sulphur springs there much like at the Greenbrier in WV. Most of the stores were closed so we wondered the streets, visited a park in Baden that was beautiful, and had some delicious ice cream!
We returned to the Haus to eat dinner and set up for breakfast for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will be busy getting back to work on cleaning.
As my new Christian friend Vladimar likes to say, "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord."
Oh my what an experience you are having. Wish I was there to share them with you. What a great way to serve the Lord, I'm so very very proud of you.
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