Your Love never fails, though danger and pain may hail, reigns it never will; it will never avail, because Your Love never fails. Your Love never fails. The past cannot haunt me, death cannot stop me, though I die, yet shall I live. I will abide under the shadow of the Most High. Because Your Love avails. The cross is higher than the highest height, and reaches deeper than the lowest depth. Jesus' Love is not inept, His Love never fails. (Ps 91, Rm 8:38-39, 1 Cor 13:8)
So I am coming into Vienna, Austria by train two days ago (Thursday July 9th, 2009) having no Idea what's going to happen, what to expect, or where I'll stay. I prayed a simple prayer on the train "God, give me favor with the people, and that you would meet my needs."
As I left Buchs, Switzerland one of my new friends Edith handed me a piece of paper and said, "Call this number when you get to Vienna, this lady may be able to help you." Edith is a different kind of girl altogether you see, her and one of her girlfriends hitch hiked all over Europe. From St. Gallan, Switzerland, to Istanbul, to the Ukraine, all over Romania, and most of East Europe as well. So to explain her on one level would maybe be to say that in the last few years that she has walked with the Lord, she has fought with the urge to just be a rebellious hippie. So when she gave me this number, I didn't know what this lady would be like at all. Maybe a junkie, maybe she lives in her car and I would get to sleep in the front seat with it all the way reclined backwards. Because you see, Edith has told me many of the crazy people she has stayed with through her travels thus far, and yes, this lady was one of the people that she had met and stayed with while on one of her adventures. As I am arriving closer and closer to Vienna, that evil anxiety begins to rise in my stomach. And as I am trying to keep it at a low level my phone runs out of minutes and I have no way to "top it off" seeing as that the sim card I bought while in Switzerland can only be re-filled in Switzerland, and only takes Swiss credit cards (...what!?). But it prayer, I send a hopeful text message to my dad, hoping maybe I have just enough money on there for one text. And I was right. My Dad (earthly dad) called Richard Bernhard, who called a friend in Switzerland, who charged up my phone with money :) so then bada-boom, I can use my phone again (jeez the worst case scenarios always seem to happen when your worried). So then only a few minutes before I reach Vienna thinking all these crazy thoughts like "where will I sleep, what's going to happen" I remember the number Edith gave me, so I call it and the lady (Miriam) answers the the phone and tells me that she lives in a town called Baden 15 min south of the city and that she would be able to keep me. Now the problem: How in Austria do I get to
"Baden?"
I arrive at Wein Westbanhoff (Vienna West Train Station) and ask about Baden, only to receive greetings from very reluctant, unwilling to help ticket people. Which escorts me into a brief moment of absolute foreigner confusion. So I resort to the next form of help, asking the local Austrians! Some had never heard of the place, others had but didn't know where it was, I also ran into some boys from Ireland who were as lost as I was, then finally I asked the right person who told me exactly what to do and I was on my way in the right direction! I got on a tram and asked a guy my age named Sebastian where I needed to go, we got off the tram, and he helped me throw myself onto the right train just before the doors closed calling out "take four stops than get off!" behind me.
So after all of this miscellaneous adventure I find myself in Baden at around 20:30, but she wont be in town till 22: 30 (these are the time terms that the Europeans use in normal life 20:30 is 8:30pm, and 22:30 is 10:30pm for those who don't know military time :)) Baden is a good sized city, but more on the small side, with a small town feel. I talk ask around for a place to eat and wind up in a place called "Josefplatz," a club/bar/coffee area of the city and sat down for a glass of wasser (water, haha sorry, I just wanted to use the German word) and rest a little bit. Three Austrian girls were were also sitting near me, so I began to talk to them and they invited me to their table, were I learned that "Baden" was named so because the Romans used to use the river (which runs through the center of the city) to bathe, apparently it was high in sulfur, so it has good health effects. And talked about all sorts of things, Baden, travels, Jesus, the politics of world hunger (one of them was going to be majoring in economics) till Miriam came to pick me up.
Miriam was older than me, in her forties maybe; and to my wonderful surprise she was none of the things that I expected, but rather a missionary for Jesus to the Persian refugee's coming into Austria. She is a radical lady who loves the Lord with all her heart. And what I noticed later that night was that I felt safe, as if I were back home in Texas. Her English was excellent, and though she had a small accent, it didn't sound like a German accent. It was so nice to be there, I felt as if I were back home, I didn't feel foreign, and until she would mention it from time to time I had totally forgot that I was in a different country altogether. What was it? I couldn't put my finger on it, things looked, tasted, and smelled so different, but I felt so comfortable. That night I shared my story of how I met Jesus, and told her my heart for the Lord. She is such a motherly type figure, and the Lord is in this woman's house. After we talked she handed me the keys to her house for as long as I was going to be there, and even an all day train pass for the adventure I was going to have the next day: exploring Vienna!
Friday July 10th, 2009 I wake up at 7:30am get ready and tackle the intimidating task: figuring out the Vienna train system, armed with a map, my backpack, and an all day train pass, own that system I did. I traveled from stop to stop, seeing the sights, talking with people, shooting through the veins of the heart of the city, met two other Texans (which makes the Texan count six now) and landed at the last stop, Karlsplatz. Karlsplatz is an area where many of the drunks, junkies, and apparently skateboarding children congregate. I say down at a bench and watch a whole group of people swallow pills, roll a joint, and everyone was drinking, I asked a question to two girls who I thought were completely normal sitting next me me, but when they looked at me I realized that that were almost completely gone on drugs. Heart breaking, I want these people to know Jesus, and everyone like them, and the worst part was that the language barrier between them and I kept me. I wanted to sit and talk with them, hear their life stories, love on them, pray with them, and I'm sure soon I will. Lord, give me that opportunity again.
I came back into Baden to join up with Miriam to go to a birthday party of one of the Persian refugee's. Miriam had been working with refugee's in Austria for over 15 years, so they love her and respect her very much. To be quite honest, I was expecting these people to light a cake, he was going to blow it out, everyone would clap while singing happy birthday, we would eat and boom, be back home within two hours...oh how I was mistaken. Iranian people celebrate with such intensity, they know how to be family, though so many of these people had no family in Austria, fleeing political radicalism, or war torn lives, these people had become family through Jesus. Many were freshly born again, others mature believers, but all from Islamic backgrounds. Miriam said that the refugee ministry was birthed out of a Bible smuggling ministry, when they realized that God was bringing the Muslims to them, they started to concentrate on the refugees. She also shared with me that unlike many of the western cultures who are more likely to be very closed or private about inner feelings and personal matters, the Iranian people shared everything together. They wept together, celebrated together, laughed, and screamed together. So entering to this room full of Persians I was not ready for the experience. hardly anyone was sitting down the whole night! But rather constant dancing, clapping, whooping and hollering, singing together with the booming Farsi music. I don't know if I have ever seen anything quite like it, the dancing was so different, basically you just freestyle on the dancefloor the whole time. So in a scenario like this, if you are sitting down and and doing nothing, it sticks out like an American in the middle of a Austrian Persian birthday celebration! (oh wait!) So everyone urges me to dance...and I do, I dance like crazy all night! I don't know exactly what I'm doing, and I get the feeling that everyone else knows that I don't know what I'm doing, but we all just have fun! Everyone was very inviting, warm, and introduced themselves to me. Everyone spoke either Farsi, or German, or both, but not many spoke English, yet through the whole night I grew so close with the people. All night long from 17:00 to 0:00 when I left we hardly ceased to dance, except once to eat, and another time to give the birthday boy Elohim, well wishes and prayers. It was so great, all of my heart, God granted, and here I was in the middle of Austria, with my new family of refugee's.
God showed me on the way back to Miriam's house why I felt so at home, so at peace. He gave me a scripture "...the peace of God that surpasses all understanding..." I realized, nothing about this place is similar to my home, but that God had put an analogical peace over my heart and mind, feeling secure in Him no matter where I was. I fell to the ground in worship at this realization.
Vine dwelling,
Christopher
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