Missions Textbook 11
Start Over near Vienna

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

A Letter from Floyd

 

Dear Friends,                                                                                              May 1, 1989

Since we returned from visiting relatives and ministering in some churches in Canada over Christmas and New Year’s, and in California in February, we feel we have turned the corner and are on our way back to Europe. The last five months have been filled with missionary conferences, holding a birthday party for our teenager, and speaking almost every weekend. Home schooling has gone well. The boys should be ready to enter Vienna Christian School this fall.

One of my most profitable ministries in Portland has been spending time with a young believer named Rich. We are reading through the Gospel of John the way I would do it if I were reading it with an unbeliever. And now, Rich is starting to meet with Mike, an unsaved friend at work, to read John with him. Craig is another young man who is starting to do the same thing. An evangelism retreat with our home church seems to have sparked new interest in starting evangelistic home Bible studies.

On May 22 we plan to drive from Portland to New Jersey, visiting a few churches on our way. We will depart for London on June 6, spend a week there in some meetings, and then drive down to Graz.

We have received a number of phone calls from Austria urging us to return and begin encouraging the saints in the churches we’ve planted. We will spend the summer doing that in Graz, and Mureck, and Wildon, and Judenburg. In the midst of this summer ministry, we will probably be living in Graz, but looking for an apartment in Vienna, where we want to start new evangelistic Bible studies and plant another church in the coming years. Speaking at a family conference in Northern Ireland in July on church planting should sufficiently complicate our lives and round out a very busy summer.

Our most pressing prayer requests: that Erich and Michael will make a good transition into Vienna Christian; that the Lord already has an apartment for us in Vienna, and that He does not take too long showing us where it is; that our summer ministry might be used to greatly encourage the believers in the churches around Graz; that the Lord would have a number of evangelistic Bible studies already lined up for us to start this fall in Vienna; and that the Lord would start a church from these studies within the coming year.

Thank you again for your prayers.

In His Service, Floyd and Christine Schneider

Graz - Briefly

Dear Mom,

We had a fairly uneventful flight – a few bumps, little sleep – and our friends in England picked us up in London. Floyd had to immediately drive for two and a half hours – right-hand drive – to Cambridge, where we stayed for a few days with friends of John Lennox. Floyd gave several meetings on friendship evangelism, including to a group of Cambridge University students. Floyd has written a book on evangelism that comes out in August in Great Britain.

We took the ferry to Belgium, and Roger and Karolyn [my sister] were waiting. They had found a lovely, tiny hotel for the first night. (We were exhausted and not over jet lag.) Then we drove to Graz.

We are house-sitting for Bernd and Karin, who are at home for the summer in Canada. We’ve been spending as much time as we can with Karolyn and Roger to catch up on the year. That first Sunday, Roger and Karolyn hosted an open house so that everyone who wanted to see us could. It was really overwhelming to feel so much love and welcoming. We even met a few people who have become believers since we left last spring. It’s so exciting to see the Austrians continue to share their faith. It was a good decision to leave and move to Vienna.

Starting Over – And Learning the Hard Way

Note: At this point in our story, my letters to Sue have run out, except for a very few. I don’t think I had stopped writing. I think Sue must have put them in a different file, and she overlooked sending them to me. This second installment of our life in Austria is based on letters I sent my mother and on a more complete set of letters that Floyd wrote to all our financial supporters. I also have letters Sue wrote to me. From these three sources, I have been able to put together a timeline. Also, because Erich and Michael were older, they have remembered details as well.

Things don’t always work out the way we plan them. I have often thought I should write a book on hospitality, based on all the places we have lived and beds we have been invited to sleep in. After staying in Graz a short time, we had to move up to Vienna so we could begin searching for a place to live. We house-sat for two weeks for another missionary couple from Vienna Christian School, and after they returned, we moved into Pepe and Gertrud’s beautiful, balcony apartment in northern Vienna. They were gone for two weeks as well, and they gave it to us until we could find our permanent home.

Floyd really wanted to live in the country; he was tired of apartment living, surrounded by hundreds of families. He wanted a bit of space and a yard. Houses within the Vienna city limits were very expensive, so we looked in some of the smaller towns outside of Vienna and on a train line. We eventually found a pretty house in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, a small town on the Danube River, only about 10 miles from Bratislava in the present-day Czech Republic.  The landlady was renovating and updating the house, and it would be ready before school began. She quoted us a price, but we didn’t sign any papers.

On moving day, Floyd, Scott Walt, my brother-in-law Roger, and a friend of his rented a truck and drove to Graz (three hours away) to pick up our belongings. They then drove back to Bad Deutsch-Altenburg (‘bahd-doytsch-ahl-ten-burg.’ Try saying that three times quickly!), picking up the boys and me along the way. They unloaded everything into the house, and left us to unpack over the weekend.

Dear Mom,

At the moment, I am sitting in a house that we were going to rent, but now we are not so sure. The landlady seemed so nice that we moved in before we signed the contract, thinking that she was taking the risk that we might not show up. However, the day after we moved in (the day before school began), she told us that she wanted three months deposit and was raising the rent $100 because of all the renovations – which weren’t all necessary. [Floyd had talked with some of the laborers on one of his visits to the property. “You used illegal, Turkish workers, and they are not that expensive,” he told her.]

We gave her an ultimatum – the original price or we move out. Karolyn and Roger “just happened” to drive up that evening with a truck full of our things. They spent the night and the next morning when the landlady came to “discuss,’ we were moving out. [Scott and Roger’s friend came to help.]

Floyd told her how important openness and honesty were to us and how upset the boys had been – going to school, not knowing where they lived, and not trusting the landlady. We told her that we were not over a barrel – that the truck was outside, we had friends to help us move, we had a friend with a large basement for storage, and a family with whom we could live for a few weeks.

She then admitted that what she had done was not right. She wrote up a detailed contract and lowered the rent almost back to the original price. Today, Floyd is in Vienna, having a lawyer-friend look at it. The house is quite large with a big flat yard. It’s about one hour from the boys’ school by train.

P.S. – We didn’t take the house, mainly because of Floyd’s schedule. In Graz, he had meetings and Bible studies anytime between 7am to 10pm and usually popped in for meals and to spend time with the boys. He finally realized that if he lived one hour east of his “work place,” Vienna, we’d rarely see him.

We are now staying with missionary friends who have one big, extra room. They live near the school and their two boys go there as well. We are praying that we’ll find a place soon. Michael still would like a yard.

We lived with that family for five weeks. Just as it was in Graz, it was very difficult to find an inexpensive, furnished apartment that was offered legally. Eventually, we found one on the west side of Vienna, near the U-Bahn – the subway. It was quite small, with two bedrooms, the toilet room was painted completely black, and the bathroom was completely dark red with no windows.  We had a view of a huge recycling station and three intersecting train lines, where trains rumbled through all day and most of the night about every twenty minutes. A big advantage was that the U-Bahn ran on the other side, and the station was nearby.

We called Scott and Roger again! Scott laughed and said, “Next time you plan to move, let me know so I can plan to be out of the country!”

Life – Not on Hold

While our living situation was cramped and far from ideal, much was going on. We wanted to do what we had done in Graz: start evangelistic Bible studies and plant churches. We were now disadvantaged by our language ability. We could no longer plead with people to teach us German; our German was fine although we were struggling with understanding the new dialect. Dialects exist in North America, but they are usually not that disruptive. In Austria (and many other countries) local dialects can differ from valley to valley. The German language is being homogenized by television, but many Austrians are actively fighting to retain the dialect of their home village. So we talked with people and listened and gradually our ears became accustomed to the new sounds.

We had never sought fame; we had never thought that fame would be an issue in our lives, but our move to Vienna brought to us a strange new dimension. Some people who had been in the Bible studies in Graz had graduated and moved to Vienna. They wanted the Bible studies to continue as they had in Graz. There were also people – Austrians and also missionaries – who had heard of our ministry in Graz and wanted us to join with them. Finally, there were people who had never found a Bible study or church that “suited” them, and they were not attending church at all. Perhaps we would be the answers to their discontent. And while we were at it, would we please plant a church in the Vienna area?

Floyd met with them all. We really did not know quite how we were going to reach people in a new area when we could not use a language deficit with which to ask them for help. Having believers to begin with seemed like it might be a good idea. There is so much overlap in many of the stories at this time that I am not going to try to blend them. I will tell them one by one, but you must keep in mind that they were all going on simultaneously.

We’re attending the English-speaking International Chapel until we get something Austrian going. I’m enjoying being just a pew-sitter. I haven’t been a “pew-sitter” since I volunteered to help with Children’s Church at 12 years old. Anyway, we’re studying the gospel of Mark in adult Sunday school class – great teaching, using William L. Lane’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark – and I’m realizing that Jesus never did what was expected. – at least from a human perspective. Was Jesus ”grown up?” Did He feel it?

Attending a Bible study – that we didn’t have to lead – in a gospel other than John – was a real treat. The time at the international church gave us a much-needed rest. We enjoyed our time there, the boys were going to Sunday school with friends from their school, and the Bible teaching was very good. Later it was easier to slip out when we were ready to plant another church.

So Glad We Changed Our Mind

Do you remember the American missionary family that arrived at language school in Prien am Chiemsee, West Germany on the same day we did? Well, after we left and moved to Graz, they stayed on in Prien for several more courses. Then they moved to the Province of Salzburg and began to work with a Swiss missionary family, Walter and Esther Mauerhofer and their children. Walter had a unique ministry, which I will explain more fully later.

Walter had worked alone for seven years and saw around 80 people come to the Lord through his evangelism methods and Bible studies, but he did not know how to form them into a church that would be led by Austrians. The couple from Prien had training in starting and leading churches, so Walter invited them to work with him. Another eight years (the same eight we had spent in Graz), and they had planted several small churches in that area with a total of around 600 believers!

At that point Walter and his family were ready to move on, for they had taught the people in the churches to evangelize their own people, and the churches were, for the most part, running smoothly, led by Austrian believers.

We had just moved to Vienna, when the American missionary called Floyd and told him that the Mauerhofers were moving to St. Pölten. Vienna had been the capital of Lower Austria (downstream from Upper Austria), but the capital had just been moved to St. Pölten, a city of 50,000, about an hour west of Vienna. The reason they called was to ask Floyd if he would be willing to work with Walther in St. Pölten. Floyd’s initial reaction was no. Except for Bernd and Karin Flock, we were a little hesitant to work with anyone else.

The missionary, however, would not take “no” for an answer. He drove to Vienna and called Floyd, and they drank coffee and talked things over. Finally, Floyd agreed to meet Walter. We were still not certain that this would work, but we were also unwilling to shut a door that God, perhaps, had opened. We still did not have any clear direction for how we would do the ministry in Lower Austria.

Over coffee and strudel, Walter and Floyd talked about their past ministries and about their hopes for the future. They discussed theology and the Bible, and they compared philosophies for working with Austrians and what type of church they would like to plant. Before the afternoon was over, Floyd, at least, had come to the conclusion that he had met a “Nathaniel” (John 1:47), a man “in whom there is no guile.” Walter was gentle and kind, and he obviously loved the Austrian people. What intrigued Floyd was that he had found a way to reach them by the dozens, rather than one-by-one, as we had been doing. What Walter needed was a Bible teacher to lead most of the Bible studies. As you have by now surmised, that was what Floyd loved most of all. The missionary from Salzburg Province had also told Floyd that Walter needed protection from all the people who would try to use him to further their own agendas.

Walter’s fame had spread, and now that he was moving into a new area, other churches and missionaries wanted him to work under them to build up their ministries. Walter and the missionary had already met with a couple of them, and concluded that they did not agree on how to lead the Bible studies, nor on how a church should be eventually turned over to Austrian leadership. Politics! Some agreed and withdrew their offer, but one in particular was so determined that he began to tell Walter that the Holy Spirit had told him it was God’s will for them to work together, and that if Walter refused, he was out of God’s will. It became quite nasty, and it was at this time that Floyd met this pushy missionary.

You have learned by now that Floyd is not a wimp, and he wasted no time hearing the man and then telling him, that the Holy Spirit had told him that it was indeed not God’s will for them to work together. This man continued to badger Walter, and even wrote him an unkind letter.

Walter called Floyd on the phone: “He sent me this awful letter. What shall I write back?”

“Don’t answer the letter at all. Don’t put things into writing that can be used against you.”

“But what shall I do with the letter?”

“Walter, it’s going to be cold this winter.”

“Yes,” he answered slowly.

“And you’ll have to heat your house.”

Walter still didn’t understand.

“Crumple it up and use it to heat your house.”

Walter chuckled. “This is why I need you. You bring humor to my life.”

In the spring, when the Bible studies began, this same missionary showed up and tried to talk the unsaved people who were coming to the Bible study into coming to his church. Finally, Floyd had to tell him to go away, he was not wanted, and he should never come back. I’ve written it nicely!

Meanwhile, World History is Made

It was November 1989. We were sitting in front of our TV, where history was being documented. East and West Berliners were attacking the Berlin Wall with sledgehammers, and no one was shooting at them. East Germany and West Germany would be rejoined as one country, the answer to decades of prayers. Autumn of 1989 was a watershed in world history; communism was crumbling, and the world rejoiced.

And I thought, “Now Dieter’s daughter, Mary, will get to see the Alps!”

Among Christians, especially, there was this feeling that finally the Gospel would be able to be planted and to grow where it had been stomped out. God is not so limited, however, and new missionaries, rushing into Eastern Europe, discovered that the Gospel was already there. What was changed was that communism was no longer going to be the enemy.

But why was communism so bad? It was just socialism, and on paper, that seems like a very fair way to run the world. If a country could just do socialism right, it would be wonderful! After all, socialism wants everyone to be the same. There are no rich and poor. Those who are smart and lucky and hardworking and bring in the most money are glad to share that wealth with those who are not so fortunate. The ideal is for the government to collect enough taxes from the wealthy to provide free medical care, free education, free vacations and equitable income to everyone. In this way, the country no longer has any poor, homeless people, nor the obscenely rich.

A form of socialism worked very well in Acts 2. The wealthy new believers pooled their resources, sometimes selling off land, to make sure that none of their brothers and sisters in Christ would suffer from want. After Acts 7, however, it was rarely practiced.

The problem with socialism is that it has to be enforced. Socialism sees people as basically good; people just need to be shown how to express their goodness. As believers, we know that man is not basically good – that human beings in their natural, unregenerate state are depraved and sinful and selfish.[1] Human history also bears out the fact that humans are violent and self-serving, and they do not like to share. The reason why a sharing society worked in Acts was that the people were responding to the Holy Spirit inside them, a Spirit who was changing their hearts, directing and convicting.

Socialism, in its political form, can’t ever work, even if “done correctly” because those who need to enforce it are depraved and sinful. Those who lead the country need to take enough taxes from the wealthy to provide all these “free” benefits. Those who enforce can eventually become dictators because no one parts gladly with their wealth, to the extent necessary to provide for everyone. In addition, because the “enforcers” are sinful, some of the wealth usually ends up in their own pockets, and eventually they become the obscenely rich, with no one to force them to share. True socialism will not really work until the King of Kings sets up his Kingdom on earth. Only a perfectly holy, sinless Leader can make reality the equitable division of wealth and welfare, and that would be called a benevolent dictatorship, not socialism.

Socialism in Eastern Europe was “done correctly,” and it resulted in no one wanting to work very hard anymore because the government would provide whether they worked or not. Consequently, there was less and less revenue for the government to tax, and the living standards began to decline. Eventually, everyone was living in poverty, and the government had to force people to work in the necessary industries.

Another facet of socialism is that other philosophies that contradict any part of this utopian ideal have to be suppressed. This is why in communist Europe, anyone who was a Christian was considered an enemy of the state – not because they didn’t believe in sharing wealth, but because they didn’t believe in the inherent goodness of people. They also didn’t believe in the benevolence of the government but in the mercy and grace of God to whom all things belong and who gives us breath and life and all good things.  Therefore, Christianity had to be eradicated.

In some Eastern European countries, state churches were formed to silence those who said that church was illegal. These churches were overseen by the government to make sure that they were agreeing with the philosophy of the country. In some countries, religion of every kind was completely forbidden, and those who disobeyed were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. In both cases, the Bible was not allowed in the hands of the people, and in some countries, it was a crime to own one. I have already mentioned the team in Vienna who smuggled Bibles into Eastern Europe. Some of them were caught, put on a train, sent back to Vienna without the vehicle, and blacklisted so they could never return to that country. Their believing contacts in Eastern Europe did not fare so well.

This didn’t stop them from asking for more Bibles. One time, one of the young people who was smuggling Bibles asked if he should bring them food. “No,” they answered, “We will eat wallpaper; our country needs the word of God. Please keep bringing us Bibles.” If you would like to know more about this ministry, read Brother Andrew’s book, God’s Smuggler.[2]

In socialism, the freedom of speech and press was also curtailed, because those who were disgruntled, if allowed to express themselves, could unsettle the masses of people who had been allowing the few to direct their lives. It was also a danger to socialism to teach history unfettered, and opposing ideas had to be suppressed or ignored. History had to be rewritten to reflect the new ideology.

(There is an ever-shifting middle line, but even its implementation is not optimal. Austria, Denmark, France, and many other European countries, including Canada, have varying forms of a socialist government. They provide medical care and education to all at very low fees. Their taxes are very high. We talked with business owners in Austria who said that they can never “get ahead.” Businesses are often family owned and run, and if they make more money, the government simply takes more. If they want to make money and keep and invest it, they have to move to the U.S.)

But socialism in any form will always drift toward totalitarianism because someone (not basically good, but a sinner like the rest of us) has to enforce it. Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn, who spent years in a communist prison, wrote, "Modern society is hypnotized by socialism. It is prevented by socialism from seeing the mortal danger it is in. And one of the greatest dangers of all is that you have lost all sense of danger, you cannot even see where it's coming from as it moves swiftly towards you."[3]

At the end of World War Two, when the Russian army had roared through Eastern Europe, “liberating” the people from Nazi Germany, the Russian government, which had already adopted the communism of Marx and Lenin, decided to annex and keep all those countries. To successfully do that, they had to maintain a huge military presence and to develop weapons to keep anyone from interfering, either internally or externally. They also made no secret of their desire to take more countries, if they could, because they needed more resources to support their system. After all, who wouldn’t want to be part of such an idyllic government?

So, the Cold War began. Because Russia – which was by then called the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) – was afraid that the United States and Western Europe would attempt to take away their conquered countries, they built up a military force and weapons to defend themselves. Because the United States and Western Europe were afraid that the USSR would try to conquer more countries, they built up their military and weapons to defend themselves. This escalated into what was called an Arms Race, with each side accusing the other of wanting to be the first to attack and wanting to build bigger and better bombs.

It was a scary time for ordinary people in the United States. I can remember having bomb drills in school, where we would hide under our desks until the “all clear” signal sounded. Of course, our desks would not have protected us from nuclear radiation, but somehow, we thought we were doing something. The school children also put together Care Packages in shoeboxes to be flown into West Berlin, which was now completely surrounded by The Enemy, communist Europe.

Socialism, particularly in its communist extreme, cannot last forever, and the cracks began to show. In June of 1987, United States President Ronald Reagan took a trip to West Berlin. Standing beside the Berlin Wall that separated Eastern Europe from West Berlin, he addressed the Prime Minister of the USSR: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It was time for the oppression, tyranny, and violence to cease.

There were rumblings from all over Communist Europe. A lowly steel worker in Poland, named Lech Walesa had led a rebellion in Poland that resulted in a relaxation of the communist principles and an introduction to a form of freedom of religion.

In Hungary, although the people worked very hard to support the Communist way of life, the government had also given the people tiny plots of land for their own use. Quickly, those tiny bits of garden were out-producing the huge fields. The people sold their produce and began to save money for their own futures.

In Romania, the oppressive and inhumane regime of Ceaușescu and his family came to an end with his death. Television cameras told the truth about a family who had hoarded all the riches of the whole country while their citizens ate dirt and corn husks.

In Czechoslovakia, the borders were relaxed, and that first weekend 200,000 Czechs marched on foot from Bratislava to Hainburg, Austria for a “reunion’ with the west. The temperature was hovering a bit below freezing; the Danube was frozen over. Soldiers rolled up miles of barbed wire, and teenagers were collecting pieces as souvenirs. In the following weeks, the Czechs continued to pour across the Austrian border to go shopping in Vienna. Every road was a massive traffic jam, and the trains were packed. (If we had rented that house in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, we would have been caught in the traffic every day as we traveled back and forth to Vienna.) Eventually, this became a weekly event as thousands of Hungarians and Czechs came to shop, but almost everything was too expensive for them.

And speaking of Vienna, during the Cold War, it had been a hotbed of spies, the West and the East spying on one another in a “neutral country,” each trying to convince the other side that they needed to change sides. Most spy novels were written about this time, and all of the early James Bond movies. Some people said that in Vienna there were 15,000 western European spies and 15,000 eastern European spies. And most of the Bible smugglers made Vienna their base as well.

Europe was moving into a new and uncertain future. The poorest countries were going to try to improve their living standards. The wealthier countries were going to try to hang on to their wealth. The European Union (EU) would be formed, and the governments would experiment with having a centralized government in The Hague. New taxes and regulations would challenge the goals and values of various countries.

In the meanwhile, missionaries were glad that they could now flood into previously forbidden countries, bringing the Gospel to millions who had never heard. What they found often surprised them. Christ’s church, although small, was well and growing, and had been well and growing under the tyranny of communism.

I did not set out to write a treatise on socialism. It was the government-out-of-control at that time in history. I could also write about capitalism or conservatism or progressivism. When Jesus said, “I will build my church,” he was saying something universal. The growth of Christianity has never been dependent on one particular form of political or economic situation. It does not matter to God whether the government is a republic, a democracy, socialist, or communist. It does not matter whether Christianity is outlawed or not. It does not matter whether the leaders are benevolent or tyrannical; God is not limited. So long as God’s people obey Him and “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19), the gospel can spread where the Holy Spirit finds hearts ready to humble themselves and to repent of their sins. And often the light shines brightest where the darkness is the deepest. “So, we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it . . .. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man . . .. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” John 1:4, 5, 9, 12).

From Floyd:

Our eyes are so much on the wonders of freedom lighting up the lives of people who were so sick of fear that they decided not to be afraid anymore.

A new Decade. Eastern Europe has opened up. Just before Christmas I spent five days in London at a mini-conference to sit under David Gooding’s teaching. I met a couple of Eastern European Christian leaders there. One has been asked to start a Christian Student Movement in his country. Such a thing has been outlawed until now. Another man told us of city council members who came to the local believers for help. “Our city is in shambles, morally and politically. Can you teach us what we have done wrong and how we can correct it?”

Rumors have it that Albania is beginning to crack – the government had been jamming radio signals from the West for years, but now the people are hearing about freedom in Eastern Europe. The Albanian government doesn’t have enough money to buy the equipment to jam transmissions from the east as well! The doors for the Gospel have never been so open in the East.

Vienna Christian School and Beyond

The boys were now in the English-speaking, Canadian-system, missionary kids’ school. Michael was seriously learning the piano from an Australian teacher, and Erich was improving his guitar-playing because of his passion to play. Michael was also involved in the school plays and surprised everyone by his ability to act. He also wanted to learn to play the trumpet! Both boys played baseball and basketball, and their teams would play the teams of other international schools in the area. Erich stopped playing ball games (except soccer), however, after he broke a finger. He wanted to play guitar more than baseball. They both seemed to relax and began to make friends as teens ought to do. We were so glad we had made the change.

The school was affordable, and some diplomats and businessmen from other countries also sent their children. The director made it very clear that Bible was a required course, even if it wasn’t the religion of their choice. This opened up several ministries to Floyd and me.

In order to keep our tuition rates down, both Floyd and I volunteered to help at the school. After all, our ministry in Lower Austria had not yet started in earnest; we had plenty of time! Floyd has always loved math and science and even while learning German, he was taking correspondence courses in higher mathematics. The school, at the time, was not required to have certified teachers, so they asked Floyd to teach chemistry.

I worked quite a bit at the school as well. I volunteered every Monday in the library, covering books with protective plastic and shelving books. I also agreed to substitute teach if they needed me. I taught 3rd and 4th grade for three days. That was an experience I hope never to repeat! I also filled in for the secretary who was out for over a week. That was easy. I did library work in the office that week.

While volunteering in the library, I also was able to observe those who were teaching English to the children who needed remedial help. Gradually, I began to realize that although the tutors loved the children and truly wanted to help, many of them did not really know how to teach English to foreign children. I did some research and then during the second semester, I approached the director of the school.

“If I pay for and attend a school that teaches how to teach English to speakers of other languages, would you let me run the program for Vienna Christian?”

He agreed and asked me to begin at once!

Do Missionaries have Pets?

I don’t think I ever told you about our pets. Yes, missionaries have pets. We did visit a church once in Colorado Springs, and were traveling with our cat. Our hosts told us that missionaries should not have pets because it’s a waste of money. We had to board our cat at a veterinarian for the whole weekend. But I digress.

We love cats – apologies to you cat-dis-likers out there. In our first house in Graz, we had two cats. Both of them ran away. Or got run over. Or were eaten by dogs. At any rate, they didn’t come home. That’s the hazard of outdoor cats.

When we moved into our beautiful apartment in east Graz, we got a beautiful gray tiger cat named Barney. He never went outside, and he would sit on the windowsill and watch the birds fly by our 5th story window. We let him go out onto the balcony when we were there to watch him. One day, I was hanging wash on the dryer rack (No, we never had a dryer.), and Barney was walking along the concrete railing as he often did. Cats have a wonderful sense of balance. The railing almost connected to the window ledge on the outside of the building, and he hopped over to it.

I glanced at him as he walked to the end of the window ledge and turned around. Okay. He can do this. I continued to hang the laundry, when suddenly I heard . . . nothing. I turned around, and Barney was gone. I looked over the balcony railing to the ground five floors down. There was Barney, lying on a drainage grating.

The boys, who had been playing on the playground saw him and ran over. “Hey, why’s Barney here?” Erich asked in German.

“He fell. Keep him there; I’ll be right down.” I grabbed a large towel, hollered at Floyd to get the car, and went to wrap Barney gently in the towel. He was still breathing, but was bleeding from his nose, which he probably smacked on the grate. Floyd always says, “It’s a wonder he didn’t spaghetti himself!”

Floyd took him to the veterinarian, who gave him a shot of something to stop the internal bleeding. Barney spent the next week sleeping under our bed as his body healed. We never let him out on the balcony again, and I suspect he had a pretty bad head trauma, because he was never the same after that. When we left Graz for our year-long break, Hendrike in Mureck found a farm, where he could sleep in the hay and chase birds all he liked. I hope.

The first Christmas in our tiny apartment in west Vienna, my mother sent us money and we bought a gray tiger kitten named Chessie. We taught her to wake Michael up in the morning, and one day she caught a bird that had accidentally flown into the apartment window!

Although we had the cat, Michael loved animals and wanted to have a couple hamsters. So, we went to the pet store and bought two hamsters, telling the shopkeeper carefully, “We want either two males or two females.” She gave us two males. Michael made them a home in a guinea pig cage. One of the hamsters was fat and lazy, while the other one ran the wheel all day.

Two days later, we returned from school to discover that the fat hamster had had a litter of baby hamsters – ugly, naked, yucky things, they were. We immediately took the other hamster back to the pet store and also insisted that in a week or so, they would take all the babies. (Never mind that they might become snake food!) Rosie, as we now called the mother, didn’t like the cage, and while we were at school each day, she would squeeze herself, her seeds, and all the babies out of the cage and hide them, usually under the huge twin-bed-sized drawer under Michael’s bed. We had to move the bed and lift the drawer to keep from smashing the babies.

As if we needed more to do! We gave Rosie to my sister Karolyn and her husband, who had moved into the Vienna area.

Two years later, the teens in the biology class at Vienna Christian School decided to do an experiment with rats. They bought a white one and a black one, and they were going to record the colors of the babies. The pet store agreed to take back all the babies. This went fine, until the kids discovered that the babies were used for snake food. That ended the experiment, and all the children were begging their parents to let them bring baby rats home. We agreed. Rats are pretty smart, and Michael took care of his until it developed a tumor and died. He cried.

[1] Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-18.

[2] Brother Andrew, God’s Smuggler (Bloomington, MN: Chosen Books, 2015).

[3] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, A-Z Quote. https://www.azquotes.com/author/13869-Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

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