Calvary Chapel Vienna
Greetings from Austria! We wish you all a wonderful start to the New Year. As we look back on the Christmas season, we are thankful for what the Lord has done. Our Christmas Fest at church went really well. It was a lovely time of praise, and after dinner, I shared a message about Jesus bringing His Light to this spiritually dark world. One story from the evening. . . . Two summers ago, my pastor Chris was visiting from NJ for the missions conference and stayed at a small guest house in that part of Austria. He got to share about Jesus with the owner, Doris, and she even prayed with him at the end of the week, to know the Lord. I met her back then too, but then we lost touch. I recently re-established contact with her—she has an apartment in Vienna too. Praise the Lord, she was very happy to attend our Christmas Fest, and again and again she expressed her gratitude for the fellowship. But, since she recently became a grandparent, she said that she might not be able to attend church much. May the Lord keep working in her heart. It really is one soul at a time here, so pray for Doris to really follow Jesus. And on Sunday the 31st of December, we had a smaller turnout at church, so I taught with everyone in a circle, and then we prayed in small groups. The Lord has put the calling of the Great Commission on my heart, so I hope that we disciple more people and have more outreach in 2024.
Evangelism in Vienna
In early December we had our monthly street outreach, with the combination of live painting and open-air preaching. This time, I translated for Stefan from German into English as he preached about Christmas with four short messages & paintings. One message addressed the question, “What did we forget?” Many Austrians party and celebrate with gift-giving, but do not rejoice that Jesus came to be our Messiah. We had some good conversations that day, and we were encouraged to hear that an Austrian woman who we met at last month’s outreach actually attended church in the meantime and is considering Jesus further. In my experience, we hardly ever see anyone attend church the Sunday after an outreach, so this was a joy to hear about. There is often an apathetic attitude towards Jesus here, and a distaste for the Catholic church, which means that most people turn down the idea of church in general. Please pray for breakthroughs in evangelism, and that the many Austrians who have left the Catholic church become motivated to seek out the truth about Jesus. Ninety-nine percent of the time, we are “planting seeds,” but we sure do hope that we would see more people trust in Jesus and lead lives that bear fruit.
In closing, please email me at viennnaken@gmail.com if you would like to get in touch and/or receive our updates via email directly. Even though you might be far away, through prayer you are truly part of what the Lord is doing here in Vienna! Please keep praying for us, we sure do need it.
Blessings, Ken & Michi Meyer
Read Ken and Michi Meyer’s complete Christmas 2023 report by clicking on this link.
Prayer Requests
- Pray that our vision of discipleship and evangelism becomes a reality. Our church family became smaller in 2023, and we desire to grow in depth and breadth this year. May the Lord work in our hearts, and reach the lost here in Vienna.
- Pray for my family in NJ: my Dad is nearly bedridden, and that puts a big strain on my Mom and sister.
- We financially support a Christian family in Afghanistan. Pray for Abdul, his wife and two children to be kept safe from the Taliban and grow in Jesus.