Happy (late) Easter, dear friends!

We are officially halfway through outreach…and I am just now sending out the final blog from lecture phase! Gotta love procrastination! But when ministry calls, blogging takes a back seat. I have done my best to catch up, however, and you can expect to find an outreach blog posted very soon!

Week 7a: Mission (Kim Sungwon Kim)

Week 7 was all about the history, importance, and relevance of global missions, especially in Europe. Originally South Korean, Kim flew to us from YWAM Kiev, Ukraine, to share the vast experience and expertise he gained while leading international missions. 🌎

Week 7b: Evangelism (Sam Haiser)

On Friday of week 7, my passionate friend and local Agape (Vienna’s Campus Crusade) leader got the team pumped to evangelize, emphasizing not a certain method or tactic but the importance of simply gushing our love for Jesus. When a cup is full, it can’t help but overflow! We then left the limits of the classroom and practiced our new skills on the streets, making some wonderful friends in the process. God is good! 🙌

Week 8: Relationships (Harry and Ani Höllermann)

An iconic duo, our base leaders Harry and Ani taught on platonic, familial, and romantic relationships. They discussed biblical models and principles and helped the team identify common misconceptions and pitfalls. We are now better equipped to maintain relationships that reflect the respect, honor, forgiveness, and love of God Himself!

Week 9: Holy Spirit (Jan Torland)

For our final teaching week, YWAM Norway’s base leader and YWAM Austria’s pioneer, Jan Torland, dove us into the depths that are the Holy Spirit. We explored the person, character, forms, and power of the Holy Spirit as well the communication and closeness we can have with Him on a moment-to-moment basis. (Don’t be alarmed—Jan finds the floor an ideal destination to demonstrate dying to self. 🤣)

Bible Reading Weekend

We try to read through the entire Bible during DTS…that means 66 books in 5 months! To conquer a chunk of the Old Testament, we escaped Vienna for a weekend to camp out in Franziskanerkloster Maria Enzersdorf, a monastery settled in the fringes of Vienna. With a dramatized audio recording, stockpot, thousand-piece puzzle, and big o’ bag of Legos, amazing things can happen. (Kinesthetic, fine-motor activities facilitate focus and word processing. #undergrad) Andrew especially enjoyed the icons of Mother Mary x-raying him from every wall. To help me, Sebi joined the excursion when the other DTS staff could not. All in all, binge Bible reading has never been so fun.

Intercession

We love to talk to God. We love to seek His will for His Church and His world. And we love to thank Him with prayer chains! (It’s a literal chain. See below.)

Worship

One of the best ways to worship God is to shift our focus from our fears to Him! In a symbolic act of faith, we wrote our fears on paper, tore up the papers, stuffed them into balloons, blew up the balloons, turned on some worship music, jumped, and blasted those spiritual parasites into spiritual confetti! Whoo!🎈🎊

Local Outreach

Rebekah and Alexa did a wonderful job sharing testimonies at the homeless ministry.

Our team joined HELP-FCJG for a day of prayer and worship followed by street evangelism through testimonies, music, and a skit. The skit walks through the motions of mundane, everyday life without Jesus—working, eating, sleeping, watching TV, playing sports, partying, and so on—until everyone suddenly drops dead. (Hence the bodies on the pavement.) Makes for a great segue to sharing the Gospel. Thank you for including us, HELP! We love your love for Jesus.

Team Building

To both test and strengthen our team before heading to outreach, I surprised the students with a trip to Montezuma’s tomb! Boys versus girls, we defeated the escape room in a tie with 5 minutes to spare, both genders opening the final chamber at the exact same moment. Stressful but fun—just like outreach! 😂

Sendoff Dinner and Mini-Graduation

The Thursday before we embarked on outreach, Harry and Ani invited the team over for dinner and a small graduation to celebrate our Danish students, Nathalie and Martin. Because the Danes own a construction company in Denmark, they needed to return home upon completing lecture phase. Nathalie and Martin were a joy to have, and saying goodbye was bitter, especially for the other students, but we are excited to see the plans God has for our Danish friends and hope to cross paths with them in the future! It was a lovely night of eating, reminiscing, and laughing together. So thankful for my lil team and home base…and for the outreach to follow!

Miscellaneous Photos Worth Viewing

Too cute not to include…especially Andrew running away from DTS with the friendly neighborhood vacuum cleaner, Henry. #whoyougonnacall

Brownie points for those of you who read to the end!

I hope you enjoyed these final chapters of lecture phase! Be on the lookout for the first installment of outreach. Thank you as always for the love and support. You rock!!