I had intended this to be a means of mass update on my life for everyone once a month or once a week even, and so it seems, that plan has failed, hugely, but I will take another wack at mass updating. A lot has happened since the last time i wrote so I guess I will enlighten.

In the past three months, I moved into a new apartment, and my MOM came to visit. I love my new apartment it has a kitchen and well right now its messy, but it is really really nice to have my own space. I have no television and no computer there, and that is wah, oh I love it. I never watch tv here can I hear an amen. I find mroe time to do things like read my bible and write in my journal and write down recipes. Although i didnt struggle much wiht the teevision before its all in german, but somehow even when we dont understand what it is saying the television is still rather appealing isnt it? The time spent wiht my mom was stressful but nice. In a way, it made me much less homesick. I thought God really had developed my heart and that i was a grownup and that well yeah i missed my parents and that when i would go home I would be a perfect gentlemen to them but nevertheless, me and my mom still butt heads, we got to work a lot out though, and i think because of that life at home will be far more relaxed, but still now I am not excited to lets say prove myself.

One of my best friends here got married, congrats to Sarah and Reiner. the wedding was really fun and a cultural experience to the boot.

GOD has been working inside my hearta huge deal and woah its exhausting. I have learned that I am so imperfect, that i will never be perfect, and that everytime i think i have perfected something, God will prove to me that perfect is the first thing on the list of things that I am not. Currently wokring on getting to know God better, wish i had spent more time on that earlier, i dont understand how I missed the necesity of that.

Two of my good friends are leaving next week on for detroit and one for england. That will be sad and luckilly i think God has placed another friend in my life that will fill their voids. Praise the lord.

My life here is really filling in, my german is improving, i am making real friendships, I am falling in love wiht the country, i feel like my heart has been super glued to Austria. I dont know what god plan is for me in the future, I really hate that. I feel reassured that I will come back here. but then again what do I know?

I leavein two weeks from tomorrow. two weeks from tomorrow.

I cant imagine what life is going to be like back at home. I am thrilled and my heart is overjoyed kathi is coming to visit in august and although both of us have our best friends and we wont get to spend a world of time together, we are going to the beach together and that blesses my soul.

If you are curious as to prayer, pray for the church here it struggles with the same thing ours can, making others feel welcome in the tight circle, being brave, growth, change. The "hipocracy" here is a big turn off for non believers too.  A few of my friends and I are praying for brother and sisterhood in the church. For me that I continue to be a light and motivated to stand out.

Well flying home in two weeks.

Love and my last piece of chocolate, from my heart

Amanda 

So I am thinking its about time i update this thing. It has been quite more than a month since the last time. I am sorry. I am not quite sure anyone uses xanga anymore. But, oh well. I have been here for two and half months now. I am all settled in now, and I am ready to not go home now. I am quite sure that in two and half more months, I will refuse to leave. i really truely miss everyone at home. And i reall miss having relationships like I have at home. but there is just something about austria. I am making friends. Yesterday was 80 days, and so today is 80 more days tomorrow is 79, and 79 does not sound slike a lot at all. Thats totally crazy.

Everything is going well here, the normal everyday stuff like babysitting isnt soo much fun but, the kids at times really make me smile. the one boy i babysit told me "I love you" the other day, and that was really sweet. hes four. the other kids are older, and so when the weather is nice we can go outside and when we cna do that normally we have a really nice time together.

I have been wokring with a teenage evangelical youth group. 12-16 year olds. I am finally getting to know all of them, and they are finally startingto warm up to me. At first the language things was really hard. I was scared to try to speak german, and they were scared to speak english. now all of them can speak better english than I can speak german and I know it, but they are still scared. SO I have finally just started speaking german to them and letting them correct me and laugh with me about how bad it is. That is really cool hahaha. now that they have realized how awful i am in german, they are not so scared to speak english. We are wokring on a concert called teens in concert, its a kind of outreach for their friends, but i think mostly their parents will come. I am excited because my austrian family will come and see it, so it will be a kind of outreach to them. There is a dancing group that I am getting to help lead, and the girl that is leading it wiht me is such a dear her name is sarah. She is preparing to get married in may, and she takes a lot of time with the teenie group, and she is in nursing school. She is kind and gentle and it has been cool getting to know her. I have a gorup of 6 girls i am leading in dancing for the teens in cencert and we are quickly learning the dances becaue the concert is approaching in 2 weeks! YIKES!

I have started rock climbin and I am really enjoying that!

Also, spring has sprung and it feel so good, my windows are open all the time and I have balcony that i can sit out on and enjoy the sun. There is no humidity here and it is absolutely wonderful!

God is working in my heart a lot and that has been amazing, he has been putting a lot of opportunities and people in my life to teach me so much about who he wants me to be, and what a woman of God looks like. Its cool.

 So alittle over a month now pretty darn cool. i must take this mome nt to mock Josiah because yesterday he said that my time here was half up. And i beg to differ it is not and I have now realized that he is fully incapable of doing simple math. ANYWHO. I just got back form a week long vacation snowboarding in the mountains, and it was compleely awesome! I had so much fun! I almost broke my ankle but all is good anyways. I had such a God moment driving home from vacation, driving past the mountains here covored with snow, oh man they are so beautiful. It was an awful snowy blustery day, but the mountains were still majestic. Driving past he mountains and viewing it form every angle seeing the snow on the top and the rocky forms and everything, was so beautiful. I sarted thinking about how God must have sat there and carved each one, and in his minds eye imagined what the rivers would do to the rocks and the trees would grow overtime. I never really thought about God as an artist like that. each mountain he must have spent so much time on-putting a crease here and molding with his finger there, and pushing up the earth from the bottom and underneath to create the foot hills. How he must have been fascinated with his work. he must have stood on earth in all his might and perfection, and smiled, and shifted his eyes, and stopped in awe of his creation. God must have really had fun sculptin the mountains, and with his omnipresence staring upon them. I bet God thought about rock climbing and snowboarding himself on the mountains he created. Oh man. How thankful i a that he wantes to share with us. 

I go back to normal life this week. A little dull but plenty of time. This saturday i think i am going to start helping out wiht a younger youth group! That is flipping sweet. I am psyched. Although I still can not speak german completely or efficiently for God talk, it will be neat to spend time wiht them, especially as my language improves!

Rev,n my engines.

It has been almost two weeks. A life here is beginning to form for me, and that is very exciting! I have 4 schedualed jobs, and it is a gift from GOD. I will work about 3 hours a day, which is not so bad at all, I will haveplenty of time to still have fun! I am speaking in English to children who live in America for a couple of years, and I am also speaking to children whose parents just want there children to practice english with a native speaker. It is not too bad and boarders on fun....haha. I also am tkaing a german class two nights a week, which is going well. Although the language barrier does pose many problems and i am thankful that most people here speak a little english, so I am trying very hard to learn. My family here is amazing, and everyone is friendly. I have been praying that God will put people into my life to minister to and i am sure he will. I feel like my ministry here is to be a Godloving, loving girl. So i know God will out people that need love into my life. i think i expected something different, but i am thankful for the way it has started out. I went to an e free church   with one of Kathi my host sister's friends, Gabi. She is very sweet. She plays the violin and she reminds of Drea. The church really felt like home, and i realized that God is my home. Where god is I am home. I do not need to be in central PA to be home. That may seem like a simple realization, like duh. But i feel somewhat liberated with that, like Satin can't push my homesickness of my family and friends to a lack of efficiency. It really is beautiful here, it is  unbelievably cold. The walk to the tram and the wait for the bus everywhere i go at first is refreshing and then slightly grueling. I read about Stephen Twigg in Bosnia and I am like gosh, i wish i could have a ministry...but i know i am not on an organized missions trip and I remind myself that God has a purpose for me being here and will reveal it in his timing but nevertheless at times i am still discouraged. very few people here have a genuine faith, Christian youth here are few and far between. On saturday night I am going to a Evangelical youth group. I am excited to check it out....and I am interested to see what evangelism in the austria evangelical church looks like. Gabi is the only christian in her school. I imagine that would be so hard and she stands firm in her faith and beliefs in spite of her aloneness. I am interested to talk to her more and her family, they are very kind. I am rambling a bit. And so that is all for now. Please pray that God will strength to remain motivated, and that he will slowly teach me to have more patience and grace.

I miss you all

Amanda