Dan's hair cut!

So today we embarked on a new journey... Regan cutting Dan's hair with only scissors and a clipper. And what do you know, it didn't turn out half bad. No nicks, no bleeding, relatively painless. All with a second hand clipper set we bought from some missionaries who returned to the states for the bargain price of 4 Euro! What an adventurous life we are living!

We have submitted our Resident's Permits (Visas)!

On Friday we went to the Immigration office to submit our visa applications. We prayed before we went in that we would find favor with the officials and that everything would go smoothly, and so far so good! All our papers were in order and they had no complaints. At this point we are now going to be waiting for the next 3-9 months (approximately) to hear back from them as to whether our applications have been accepted or denyed. Please pray that things continue to go smoothly. We feel confident that God wants us here and know that it is completely in His hands.

Below are some pictures of Dan and I waiting to meet our team leader's wife, JoAnn, to go to the immigration office. It was snowing and pretty chilly that day!

Ladies Night at the Oasis

I just got back from the monthly "Ladies Night" and can't even begin to express what a great night it was! There were over 40 women who attended from Chechnya, Afghanistan, Albania, Iran, Armenia, Iraq, Tajikistan, and Moldova (I maybe forgetting a couple others). Most of the women are Chechnyians and almost all of the women who attended are Muslim. Since Valentine's Day is coming up the theme was God's Love and the room was decorated with hearts and candles on the tables, and many different kinds of heart shaped cookies that were made by an Austrian woman who volunteers at Ladies Night (they were delicious). We started out the night with some music, then a message by one of the women on the Oasis team (that praise God seemed well listened to!), and then a craft. It was such nice time. I sat with a group of Chechnyian woman and we had lots of fun trying to communicate without a common language. We did pretty well though, we learned each other’s names, ages, where we are from, if we are married/have children, and laughed a lot in the process! The other highlight of my night was when I heard there were Moldavians present. I went to one of the two women and asked her if she spoke Romanian and then proceeded to have a 5 minute chat in Romanian before she went home due to a sore back. It was so much fun! I am not sure who was more excited to be able to speak Romanian with a new friend! I was so happy that I still remembered some Romanian, but I will have to study up for the next time I see her! It was such a pleasant surprise! Pray that I can build a relationship with these women. Pray also that God will provide Christian women as volunteers to translate for each language group on Ladies Night. Just wanted to share my wonderful evening! Know that your prayers make a huge difference in the ministry, so please keep the prayers coming!

We're Here!

We are officially in Austria! We arrived Tuesday, February 5th at 4:30 pm Austria time. Our trip went really smoothly; thank you everyone who was praying! We were able to pack everything we were taking for two years into six suitcases and were praying they would all make it to Austria safely (when we came to visit last August our bags were delayed for 3 days). When we arrived at the Vienna airport and went to the baggage claim our six bags were #1,2,3, 4, 5 and 6 off the carousel! We were so excited! Our team leaders picked us up, we got checked into the missionary guesthouse we are staying at for this month, and went to dinner with some of the team. We have discovered that we have all the right adaptors and converters for our electronics, wireless internet at the guesthouse, and there is a websight that works for us to watch Lost online outside of the US, so we are happy campers! And the best news of all is we managed to keep ourselves awake until 10 pm and slept the whole night through! We are praising God for all His provision and safety! Thank you again for lifting us up in prayer!