Churches and More Churches (Sunday, October 2, 2011)

Whew! We're still in Vienna and we just keep going! The kids, overall, have been handling the mixture of jet lag and continuous motion pretty well.

Jeffrey and Lisa Schra continue to be the consummate hosts. They took us downtown to the Stephansdom this morning, and we took a good look at this gorgeous cathedral. There is a spot on the outside of the church that has "O5" chiseled into the wall. It's the code used by the resistance group during World War II, after Austria capitulated to Hitler. There are names inscribed on the outside wall of the Schras' apartment building as well, the names of the Jewish people who lived in the building before they were deported during the war. In this bustling, lovely, modern city, it's sort of shocking to be reminded that they too lived through the horror of Nazi rule not so long ago.

The cathedral has a bell tower, which is bell-free at this time, and you can climb to the top to get a great view of the city. I was tired as we started out, and already feeling out of shape, when I realized that at the top of this 300+ step climb, there is a gift shop, and some employee(s) make their way up this tower every day. Ugh. I need a job like that. The view was spectacular, and we couldn't ask for better weather in October--sunny, high 70s/low 80s (if we're working out the celsius/fahrenheit thing correctly).

We walked around the center of the city a bit, watching a Chinese clown performing incredible balancing acts in the street. We went past the winter palace of the Hapsburg family, who ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Vienna hit its golden age in the late 1800s, and the buildings are glorious.

We got on a tram to go to the Prater, an enormous city park. On the way we hopped off briefly to see the Hundertwasser-KrawinaHaus. It was designed by an architect who wanted to counter the idea that everything in Vienna needed to stay stately and pristine in the 19th century style. It looks like something Dr. Seuss would have dreamed up, and it's fantastic. If I ever figure out how to hook up my camera to Brian's computer without the cable I should have brought, I will post a picture for you.

On to the park, where Oktoberfest was getting a good start on the last day. We ducked into a big tent where a group of musicians played traditional music. People were dancing in the aisles and smoking everywhere. I tried taking a couple of pictures of couples dancing, and you can barely see them through the film in the air! Allison couldn't take the smell and the noise too long, so we ducked back out after a few songs and tried some Austrian sausage. What a joy to have tour guides who speak German and give us good advice! The park was alive with people out for the day, and people in costume for Oktoberfest were everywhere. Including, oddly, one man dressed as a native American ready for some sort of celebration. Not sure if the red plastic sunglasses were also native American.

The park is the home of the world's oldest amusement park, with a ferris wheel from the late 1800s. Much to Allison's chagrin, we did not make our way over there. Instead we went back to our room for an hour and a half of downtime before church.

The Schras' church meets at 5 pm on Sundays. It's a church plant from the Baptist church, made up of mostly college students. It's a very international crowd, and they were celebrating 10 years of existance. Since the service is long, and the sermon in German, the church set up some gear for the kids, and as soon as the sermon began, they all headed out for a good hour and a half of gleeful running around. Meanwhile, it brought tears to my eyes (not a hard thing to do, quite honestly) to see these college students, including a hefty number of Afghani people, singing with all their hearts--in German, in English and even in Farsi. We were given a little headphone unit that allowed a man in the back to whisper English translation of the sermon into our ears. One girl gave her testimony in Spanish, a German woman translated into German for her, and we eventually got the English version, which didn't always quite match the Spanish I could pick out originally, but definitely got the point across. We ended with a song by Chris Tomlin, "God in the City" or something like that. I heard him sing it at a concert with my kids, and all I could think of then was the center city segment where our church is, and how God has plans for that part of our city too. Then singing it with people who want to share the love of Jesus with the people of the city of Vienna, well that just gave me a whole new insight into it all. The Holy Spirit is present in this little church, and it was a blessing to be part of it for a day.

Another late night crashing into bed, but so good.