Visa

Yesterday we went to the government office before our German class in the morning to apply for our Visa. Carrie, our team member met us there to help translate to make the process go smoother. Right as we walk up to the waiting area they come out asking for the next in line....and well we were the line (this was a blessing since its a rather long process and only two employees that can input the request so even if you are the only one waiting you can wait for an hour). While we were there everything went smoothly, we had every document that was requested. Praise God! We paid and were told to pick them up in a week (even though we were expecting for it to take four weeks)! We have had many blessings so far. Please continue to pray that the process goes smoothly as we pick up our Visa and nothing unexpected comes up.

Also be praying. We have invited our entire german class to come over for a meal. Be praying for opportunities to share about God and the words to say considering for many our only common language is German. That is going to be a week from Thursday. Also be praying, some of the guys from class are interested in coming and playing soccer with Seth and some guys from our church tomorrow night. Also a couple from class are interested in coming to an English speaking bible study through our church this next Wednesday even though they are catholic. Please be praying for all of these opportunites that God has been blessing us with as well as language learning. German is going well but we still have a long way to go.

Sorry for the break in updates. We have had a busy last week and a half but a blessed one as well. Last weekend we had a youth retreat that was put on by our team. It was a great opportunity for us to get to know the youth and our team better. This was a retreat that was meant for believers. The theme was our mission as believers. There were many challenging messages given (even though we might not have been able to understand all of them). Seth spoke during one of the chapel times. He spoke with a translator which is very different but he did very well and many of the youth really engaged in the small group discussion groups that directly followed his talk. We lead the games together ranging from icebreaker games to tackle football (american) to Alpha Wolf in the snow on the side of the mountain. A good time was had by all and we began to build relationships with many of the youth. (be praying that those continue to grow)

 Yes this was an excellent series of pictures but if you look at my face on the left...the ball had fallen out and nobody seemed to notice but me (the snow helped hide it) but I was able to return it for a touchdown but just barely...

 There were literally hundreds of amazing pictures taken of this game. There are more that we are tagged in on facebook if you want to look at them!

Once we arrived home (after little sleep) we were back into the full swing of things. With German classes each morning followed by the after school tutoring at the lighthouse. German classes have been going well, we are understanding most of what the teacher says (she only speaks in German). We are doing well with keeping up in class and are working hard at studying on our own. God has definitely been blessing us in our language learning. We are understanding more and more of what people are saying outside of class too. Language learning will be a continual challenge, in our class we are learning high German which everyone here can understand but they speak their own Tirolean dialect. This dialect is very similar but we will still need to learn more after we are done with our German classes.

Please be praying for us as we are seeing exactly where and what God wants us involved with as we are here. We have had many opportunities and need to start narrowing them down. We appreciate all of the love and support that you all have shown us!

Alyssa

German Classes have begun!

We will now be in class Mon-Thursday mornings until summer. Going into the class we were excited about the idea of knowing German but a little nervous about the process of getting there. We had learned a little before hand from living here but didn’t know much. I am blown away with how much we have progressed. We serve an awesome God! We are working hard at applying ourselves and even though we have learned a lot it is still very hard to understand much of what people are saying when we’re not in class. But we are recognizing more and more words all the time and right now at least for me (Alyssa) it is exciting. So far the four hours of German class each day has not seemed like a lot. Our teacher is very good and breaking up the morning with various activities, the time just seems to fly by. I can only explain that as being from God.

Our class is different from any that I have ever been in before in the sense that it’s not English based. I have been in numerous Spanish classes and especially the more advanced classes we rarely spoke in English but our books had the vocabulary translated to English and if we didn’t understand something the teacher would explain in English. This class is not like that. Probably only half of the class can even speak English and there is only one other that it is their first language. There are people from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Spain, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, and Serbia. Our books are only in German, no English. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work but our teacher is very good at communicating what a word or question means with only using German. We are blessed that she does know some English so we are able to better understand but if she has explained and someone doesn’t understand they are supposed to look up the word in their personal dictionary. The class moves quickly but I feel like we are both keeping up quite well. Pray that continues.

Also be praying for our opportunities to be a witness to the people in the class. Pretty much the first question that anybody asks us is Why are you in Innsbruck? This has been an awesome opportunity in the class especially to share with people God’s calling in our lives. There is a couple from Iran that we have talked with the most so far of the people in our class. Be praying for more opportunities to spend time with them, even outside of class. They have never been skiing and since they learned that we are beginners as well they were interested in going skiing with us. So be praying. That leads well into my next story…

On Monday we went skiing for the first time while being here. God blessed us tremendously with skis to borrow as well as extremely cheap used skis to buy. I had gone skiing once before in the states with my family when I was in middle school but it was only a couple days and we didn’t get much passed the bunny hill. This was the first time going skiing for Seth. Our team leader, Dave and his son Jakob (He’s about to turn 7) decided to help us learn and took us to Mutters. I quickly caught on and remembered much of what I had learned. Dave was working with Seth trying to teach him the basics while Jakob and I would race to the bottom (Jakob won every time but I like to think I was competition). Soon Jakob got bored with the bunny hill and wanted to go down the main slope so we all decided to go. Dave gave us a pep talk before hand saying that you can make any slope less steep by zigzagging across it. Seth was not ready to be off the bunny hill but we all went anyway. The next couple hours consisted of Seth falling countless times, poles flying, skis coming off, taking a break for cookies, lots of stops and Seth lying in the snow. At one point Seth thought he may have really hurt his knee but we were getting close to the end so he just tried to go as slow as possible. He did end up walking down the last 100 meters (it was pretty steep). Praise God nothing was broken and his knee healed up nicely in the next couple days…however he is still pretty sore.  He is open to going again and we are excited about maybe going with the couple from German class, it will be nice going with other beginners.

Seth however was not the only one to crash this week. We have bikes that we have borrowed from people. They are turning into our primary mode of transportation. They are very nice to have to get places quickly. So far whenever it has been snowing we have avoided using the bikes just for safety. This Tuesday we rode our bikes to class in the morning and we didn’t realize it was going to but it snowed about 3 inches while we were in class. We didn’t have much of a choice so after class we headed out on our bikes. It was just a couple blocks later we were turning (with a bus following us) and my bike slipped through the slush and I found myself lying in the road. Praise the Lord I wasn't hurt and I was able to jump up quickly and move over to the sidewalk. God really protected me. Thanks to all of you that have been praying for protection for us while we’re here. I think we’re going to make a point of leaving our bikes at home when it is snowing or raining.

Be praying! This weekend is a retreat for the youth kids. This is going to be an awesome opportunity for us to build more relationships. We are in charge of games and then Seth is speaking on Saturday night. Be praying that God will use and guide us while we are there!

The walk along the river to the place where we got our skis (this is also the way we take to church and when we run)

There will be more pictures yet to come and even some video of skiing!

Just going to share a couple God sightings from the last few days. On Friday we were going to register that we were going to be living here with the government and then we would receiver or paper of residency (called a Meldezettel). Once we received this piece of paper we would be able to get cell phones (although we were waiting for Seth’s cell phone to come in the mail since it was ordered online we just needed to activate it then), internet, and bank account.  So we set out early for the Rathaus (government building, a 25 minute walk) when we arrived there and waiting to meet with someone, we realized that we had forgotten our passports. Frustrated we left and Seth walked to a place nearby where we had a bike stored and rode home to pick them up. Once he had gotten them and was about to leave he noticed that there was a man across the road delivering packages. He waited to see if he was coming over to our apartment just hoping that his phone would be there so we wouldn’t have to wait until Monday. The delivery man did come over and Seth right away asked if he had a package for him which he did! It’s funny how God will work some times.

We were able to get registered without a problem and were off to open a bank account. Things went smoothly there but it did take longer than planned. By time we were done we were already late to open up the lighthouse for lunch and hadn’t gotten phones or internet yet. So it was decided that I would open the lighthouse while Seth and Dave (our team leader) would take care of the rest. The process proved to be much more complicated for Seth and Dave than expected. I didn’t hear from them for nearly 4 hours. However at the lighthouse, only one student showed up and her and I had a great time playing games and sharing about our lives. The first opportunity I have had to really get to know one of the students. Praise God! (We did eventually get our phones taken care of that day but are still working on getting our internet)

On Saturday we had the whole day just to ourselves! So we decided to take a little trip to a town about half an hour (by train) up the mountains called Seefeld. It was a beautiful city with the snow falling. We had a great time walking around, shopping and eating. We had some skype calls planned for a specific time which we needed to be back to Innsbruck for and we had checked the train times to know which train to talk. So as we were winding down we headed to the train station a little early. As Seth made a pit stop, I figured I would take a glance at the train schedule just one more time. As I was looking a noticed that a train had pulled up (It was a small train station). All of a sudden I realized that I had read the schedule wrong and that there should be a train leaving in one minute to Innsbruck and there won’t be another one for an hour! I looked at the train that was currently there and it said Innsbruck on it. I was prepared to yell for Seth from the bathroom door and right as I was about to, he came walking out and we barely made it on the train before it began to pull away. It’s funny to me how God organizes even the little things in life. We are so blessed.