What were you doing at 16 years of age?

On Wednesday the ministry activities included an open house where "teenagers" could come and play games, do puzzels, play ping pong... The last few weeks not many people have attended this ministry, but yesterday the room was packed with excitement. Everyone of us were in full interaction with 2 or 3 refugees at a time. I wish we could post the great ping pong game that Sue and Dave played with the refugees!! Lots of laughs were heard and great stories were shared.

In the evening there was the "Wednesday Night Program (also could be called Bible Study night). Once again the room was filled with men willing to hear more about the truth. Luke 5:27 was being taught... so you might ask how do you teach a bible lesson in so many languages? Well for this bible study it takes bibles of every language to be first passed out. It was awesome to see God's truth in so many different languages!

Once again as a team we were going to be able to show these men God's love through our actions by singing, by serving coffee/chai, by serving cake, and by helping each other out. Once the evening was coming to a close a few of us started to work in the kitchen cleaning up, washing dishes... to our surprise a few of the refugee men joined us too. One young man started to help dry dishes, and the other men teased him a bit for being in the kitchen but then they realized that was the best place to be becasue we were all having fun sharing stories.

The young man drying dishes said he was 16 years old and that he had traveled with out his family to Austria because he needed to start a new life here... the young men had the same story, one after another. See they are sent her to start a new life, to hopefully get asylum, get a job and then bring their family here. For such young men, these are big burdens on their shoulders. To hear their stories of how they struggled to just get to Austria, the danger they encountered... then to arrive to Austria and still struggle daily. There is no wonder that faith, patience and hope is low on their list. What is strong is their perserverance... so we ask that you pray for them, pray that they stay strong, but that God can use the Oasis to plant the seeds of faith, patience and hope in their young hearts.

God Bless
The Austria Team