Our Flat!

We are finally done unpacking!!! A few more little things to pick up from IKEA before it is completely done but for the most part we are all done :) So here you go...photography done by Josh :)

Our kitchen

Our front door and foyer area

Our guestroom/study

Guestroom
Our bedroom
My dresser :)
Our huge closet that was given to us for free!

Dining room table all ready for our Taco night with the Stocketts

The foyer looking into the living room

The living room

Living room

Hallway to the bedrooms

Now that you have seen it I bet you are all booking tickets to come visit us :) Just kidding but now you know there is always room for you, we would love to have you visit!

How Great Is Our GOD!

Well, one week down and we are both so excited to be here. The students have blown us away this week by how respectful and responsible they are. We have our problems with students that do not speak English but it is something that we will work on and soon be able to reach those students as well. Just wanted to share a little story that happened today at the end of the school day.My students were in Art class so I was running around trying to get things ready for Monday so I do not have to think about it over the weekend. I had just finished planning and was getting ready to run upstairs to the copier to make some copies when everything just started to hit me. I started thinking about this weekend and all the work we have to do to finish our apartment and how we are having friends over but we have no food to feed them so I need to go to the market Saturday but we do not have any cash on us (everything is done in cash over here) and we can't go to the bank to get cash because by the time I realized all this the bank had closed (it closes at 3 here). (I know this is a run on sentence but it will give you the effect of how fast my brain was going). So needless to say I was having a little bit of a panic attack, not a bad one but just a little one, and Josh did come along after he was done with classes and explain to me how we would get everything done (thanks darling!) After almost being on the verge of tears I gathered my things to get the rest of my work done. I also just needed to be around people and the Elementary secretary and I are close so it would be good to "run" into her. So as I started up the stairs I had no idea that middle school chapel was going on and as I rounded the corner to head up the stairs all I heard were about 50 middle school students singing the song "How great is our God, sing with me how great is our God!!!!!" I almost hit the ground. It was so beautiful listening to these students sing about how great the God they serve is. It was also a great little reminder that our God is GREAT and He is bigger than any little panic attack I have :)So I guess that is a little longer than I thought but wanted you all to know how we are doing and what is going on in our everyday lives.

Love ya :)

Two Days Down :)

All dressed up for the first day :)
The sign outside my door!

So we are two days into the 2008/2009 school year and so far so good. Josh's first day was slow with only one middle school gym class because elementary gym does not start till Thursday. Although it was slow class wise he was able to get a lot of work done with planning and enjoyed walking around the halls meeting the students. He also had to do 9th grade homeroom because we are the sponsors of that class. As for me my days have been really good. I now have a class size of 15, a new girl was added to my class after school on Monday. So far the class has been really sweet. It is a big difference between VCS and the other school that we taught at because these kids never talk. During snack time these last two days I kept telling the kids they may talk to their neighbor in a low voice and not one said a word. It was a little weird but I bet in a few weeks I will be wishing they were quite again :) So I have had half days these past two days and I will have another half day tomorrow and then will start full days on Thursday. I am excited to start with the full days because I will then be able to get working more on the curriculum part of it all. I think my kids are enjoying class, which is a good thing. I can always get them smiling and their little hands are shooting up like rockets to answer questions that I ask. The few parents that I have seen after school have all said that their kids are enjoying school. These comments bring a smile to my face because they let me know that I am doing the right thing :)Not much more to say about school but I am sure all that will change when we are in full days and a few weeks into school. Thanks for all your prayers about our first days, we really felt them :)

First Day of School

Tomorrow is the first day of school!! We cannot believe that it has finally come. We are so excited to start but there are also a lot of nerves that come into it. I (Beth) have a class of 14 4th graders. Three of them are non-English speakers and three are moderate English speakers, so that will be interesting to deal with. I also will have a student who is Islamic and three that are Roman Catholic and a hand full of students that do not claim a religion. What an amazing opportunity I will have this year to tell them about our great God! But it can also be intimidating especially with those students that do not speak English. Josh is very excited to start teaching gym. He has had his fair share of obstacles to work around like the fact that there is no gym, but that will not stop him and he is ready to start. Tomorrow he will have one middle school class in the afternoon because elementary students do not start special classes until Thursday.We have also found out that we will be the freshman class sponsors! We are really excited for this opportunity to form close relationships with the students of the freshman class and then stay their sponsors until they graduate. Another opportunity is that Josh and two other guys from the school have found an Austrian basketball league to play in twice a week. They are really excited because this will be another opportunity to share Christ to those on their team. This is a group of Austrians that have not been reached through our school because of the high competitiveness that has not been able to be reached until the three of them came along. We and our school director are really excited about this chance to win some more souls for Christ.Our house is almost set up, I know I promised pictures and they are coming but not quite yet. Below are pictures of my classroom, there are none of Josh's because as we said earlier he does not have a room :) More to come soon...............

I'm 24!

Oh right, today was also my birthday. A little weird waking up for your birthday in another country but also really cool. So here is how I spent my day for all of you that are sitting on the edge of you seats :)
We finally got to sleep in this morning and get some much needed rest :) Then we spent the morning shorting through some more boxes and Skyping my parents which was great! Then in the afternoon we went to one of the other teacher’s house who lives on the river and spent the day eating cake and hotdogs, and playing games. They even gave me a Burger King crown to wear in honor of my day :) We also got to watch the Olympics which was fun, we cheered a lot :) It was really a great day spending time with our new family and really seeing how much they cared to make my day special. We love them all and are so blessed to be apart of the team. This will go down as one of the better birthdays :)

Me and my Burger King crown :)

The Container Has Arrived!

Praise the Lord! The container with all our belongings arrived this week and everything is in perfect condition. We are so thankful that God protected everything on its long journey. Now we have the fun job of unpacking everything and putting it up in our apartment. With each box that we open it seems like Christmas to see all of our pictures of family and friends and all of our decorations that we have collected over time to make our house a home. I promise once we get everything in order we will out up pictures of our new home.
Here are some pictures of the container arriving :)

All hands on deck to unload the container :)

Josh bringing in one of our bins

All of our boxes in the hall of flags at school :) :)

Here comes our bed!!!!! Everyone says we are so smart for bringing the bed :)

A much deserved cookie, brownie, and drink break after unloading everything :)

One Week In!

Well, we have been here for a week now and it seems like we have been here much longer...but in a good way. We love everything that we are experiencing and love all the new people we are meeting. God continues to be faithful to us in so many ways that we can't even describe.

Yes we miss you all but by the grace of God we have found a new family here that has welcomed us with open arms and we are excited for our time here with them.

Soon I will be posting pictures of our apartment but at the present state there are boxes everywhere so it is not picture ready.

Ok funny story, well maybe not funny but this is one of the new things we are learning while here. Austria is very into recycling and each apartment has about 5 different bins to throw things out in. They range from bio, glass (dark and light), plastic, metal, paper and then everything else (ok so that is way more than 5 :)) So because we have not figured out what they want in the bins like for instance what they consider plastics we have not thrown anything out. I know that sounds really gross but we have been told that if you throw items out in the wrong bin they will stop picking up the trash at the apartment. So Josh and I have decided that we do not want to be the reason that the garbage is not picked up. Long story short we now have made tonight our garbage night and have set aside the whole evening to figure it all out. Sounds kinda sad I know :)

Well have to head back to another meeting but will work at keeping this more up to date, love you all!