Greetings from Vienna! It is always hard to summarize our life and ministry on one page of paper; there is the day-to-day life and then there are highlights. Like anyone, we have grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning to do, but that is not interesting. More exciting are the moments in ministry when we see the Lord at work in our midst, like on Easter Sunday. We had a good breakfast together at 9:00, followed by our church service. It was so special to see the Lord encourage the church body here, and reach out to others at the same time. One of our guys from church was on his way here, when a kind lady, named Rose, asked him for help. She had just arrived from Armenia, and she was bewildered by her hotel that would not let her check in until 3 p.m. Since it was only 8:30, she ended up coming to church spontaneously. Although she had not planned to attend church that day, she was overjoyed to be there and sang wholeheartedly with us. Which was good, because our worship leader had a cold and felt weak in her voice. But everyone sang so joyfully, it really felt like a chorus where we were all on the worship team. And, we were uplifted by getting to help Rose out, and she was blessed by it all as well. It is always special to see the body of Christ encouraging one another. I trust that my reflections about the resurrection were edifying, too.
A Few Outreaches Near Church
Not long ago, we had another “cake and coffee” outreach in front of our church, and two weeks after that we tried something new and spent an hour inviting people to church on a Sunday morning. Both were good experiences in “planting seeds” of the Gospel. Vienna is a city of nearly two million people, and the majority of them have not yet heard the simple Gospel message. To trust in Jesus and repent of their sin is an unusual concept to most of them, and so it still feels like this is “hard ground.” Most people think that they just need to be good enough, which of course they think they are. Please pray that the Lord would open their eyes and bring about change in their lives. This Sunday, we plan on doing an outreach after church; hopefully some people from church will join us as we greet people around our neighborhood and invite them to the next Sunday service. We hope that this will lead to chances to share the Gospel with them.
In other news, the Easter Monday program at The Oasis refugee ministry was great, with quite a good group of refugees learning about Jesus that day. People speaking Farsi, Arabic, English, and Georgian were there. Also, I still preach regularly with Farid, at his small Arabic fellowship in Vienna, and thankfully his liver transplant operation went well and he is almost fully recovered.
Praise & Prayer
- Please pray for our upcoming church retreat from June 7th to the 9th. Pray that the Lord uses the time powerfully in all of our lives and guides our Bible studies.
- Praise the Lord that I was able to preach at a church two hours south of here. It was a good challenge to teach in German, and hopefully a blessing for them too.
- Pray for my family in New Jersey. As a widow since last October, it is still a season of change for my mom. Also, my sister, Kristin, has been having some sort of internal pain lately. Please pray for a clear diagnosis and healing.
Many thanks for your support for us, both financially and in prayer! Hope to see some of you in person when we visit New Jersey in July. Should you be interested in receiving our email directly, please email me at viennnaken@gmail.com. And please keep praying for us, we do need the support in prayer!
Blessings,
Ken & Michi Meyer