one week completed

even though kendra has being doing a great job of it, i think it's my turn to take a turn at this blogging business.
so we have finished our first week. i don't know about all of you readers, but i am thoroughly impressed at how well we are doing with our blog. consistent, detailed, we put pictures... honestly it's just some good stuff. hope you're as impressed with it as i am.
haha, anyways..
today was just a really great day. my favorite day since coming, actually. i feel a bit wasted by the end of it, but let me tell you how it went before i fall asleep
it started out bright and early with a nice big breakfast (altho it wasn't AS early because we change our breakfast time to 8:30. so a little extra sleep is what gave this day it's happy start. kendra and i had planned for our only free morning this week we would take a hike to a castle in baden, so by 9:30 (maybe closer to 10...) we were on our way to baden. it took us a bit to find the castle, but we did after very little effort and we brought a little lunch with us that we picked up at a bakery. so after a very short steep hike up a hill, we arrived at the ruins of Raunstein castle. it was bitter cold as we were wandering through the castle and it even started to snow a little bit. unfortunately, my hands were too frozen to mess with camera and settings and such, so i didn't take as many pictures but here are a few.

(i will add these later)

it was such a gorgeous place. we were the only ones around and it was adventurous as well as relaxing to climb around up there. the view was lovely and we ate our lunch on top of the highest point of the tallest tower overlooking all of baden as well as the valley and mountains in the distance. just a really lovely time.

so that took up the first few ours of our day. we met julie in traiskirchen for a prayer walk. at that point i had just gotten to the oasis and thawed off my poor frozen feet and i really wasn't looking forward to going back into the cold, but it turned out to be another wonderful time. the prayer walk is something julie does fairly often, from what i gather, and it is when she walks around the laager which hosts up to 2000 refugees. the camp is protected by fences and video cameras all around it to keep anyone from getting in, and the stories julie was telling about the goings on in there broke my heart. girls getting taken advantage of, drug rings, and the like. it made me thing about how even if the government allowed people to go in there, i know my mom would never be ok with me going in there. and yet there's girls my age in there, and younger. some with their husbands dead or in prison and they are alone with their children. it also occurred to me that kendra and i come to austria and we are having a fabulous time, enjoying the beauty of the country, the culture of the city, the people we meet; these people come to austria and i'm sure their impressions are not nearly the same. such different circumstances.
so we took about an hour walking around the laager and praying for the people inside. and afterwards i had a really great talk with julie too. what a lady :)

we then started preparing for the wednesday night program, which is pretty much a wednesday night evangelistic-type program, but they refrain calling it that because to some refugees it has some negative connotations. there are some songs, a short speaker, tea and coffee and pastries. i don't know why, but it is my favorite program that the oasis puts on. i suppose because they're not really giving away anything, so it's not like people are rushing to get something, it's just people who want to come. maybe they wanted the coffee of the pastries, but they're still there and it's a more relaxed atmosphere (for me anyway). i really enjoyed last night because the only lady for azerbaijan was there last night with her two sons, so it was good to see her again, and while the program was going on in the main room, i got to go back and hang out with the kids! it was only the two of them and i don't speak any turkish or russian (the two languages that they speak) but the great thing about being with kids is that you don't have to speak the same language. so we made puzzles, we drew, the two of them were both really into the jesus film, which was playing in turkish, and they even made the connection that the coloring book that we were drawing in was telling the same story as the movie. the younger brother was the hyper one that wanted to run around and play with balloons (which we did) and the older one was much more serious and he wanted to watch the film and flip through national geographic magazines (which we did). anyways, i was in the back with them the whole time, and we had fun. i love hanging out with kids! so much better than trying to talk to grown ups (no offense, grown ups).
so i actually have a few pictures from tonights program

here's one of my two new friends and their mom


here's one of a few random guys from kosovo with david (australian teammate) that saw me with my camera and asked me to take their picture.


well, that was wednesday. i might have sounded a bit unenthusiastic about it, but that's only because i am so tired as i am writing it. sorry! it truly was a great day. hope tomorrow at the pensions will be just as well.

goodnight all!
becky