Moments of the Heart

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

September 13th pictures!

The "Konservatorium" that we performed in. Interesting fact: my aunt performed in this same Hall when she was my age.

Walking to the art museum

The ceiling when you first walk into the art museum.

One of the many beautiful paintings in the museum.

My "little brothers" for the week

The girls sitting down in the art museum.

The walls were very tall and filled with paintings in the museum.

Kira and I :)

A lady trying to imitate one of the paintings in the museum.

Sariah and I :)

Two guys wearing horse coverings while playing the accordion outside the museum.

Abby, Sariah, Emma #2, Kale, and Kira waiting for the concert to start.

The mandolin orchestra from Italy.

One of the huge choirs that performed that evening.

Mrs. Porter holding our choirs diploma in the Indian restraint

Emma #1 and I full after a tasty Indian meal

The hall that we performed in.

Front of the art museum

The art museum sign written in German.

Side note: Sorry that I have not blogged in awhile. My family and I have been packed with getting ready for my sisters wedding, school, breeding goats, more school, visiting my grandmother etc. I am terrible sorry. We only have one more Vienna blog post after this, yay!

September 13^th, 2015

We had breakfast, got ready, and I had another wonderful Skype time with my parents. I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to talk with my family every morning and night. I also enjoyed reading their sweet notes every morning. We had a short worship/ devotional time that morning because we had to rush over to the “Konservatoium” (the Concert Hall) to practice for 15 minutes. We all had to stay very focused because of the limited time. Practice went really well. The concert hall is rather small but very beautiful. There is maybe 200 seats in there but only 100 were open to the public.

After practiced we headed over to the tram to get to the art museum. We paid and got our passes and then headed upstairs. The first things that you see in the art museum are tall ceilings with beautiful paintings and then a very large naked statue of a man, completely exposed and that is how this whole art museum was like. There are a lot of beautiful paintings, especially ones portraying scenes from the Bible which was really great. I wasn’t too crazy about the art museum just because of all of the inappropriate paintings. This wasn’t my favorite thing to do on this trip but it was still interesting.

We had lunch and then Emma #2, her grandmother Huntley, and I went on some last minute shopping. We headed back to the hotel to get ready quickly, grabbed a couple of snacks, prayed together, and headed to the Concert Hall. We sat in the third and fourth row to watch the other performers. They all did a wonderful job! Before we all walked onto the stage we all huddled up to pray because all of our voices were either very sore from singing so long to the refugees or our voices were completely gone. We prayed that He would restore our voices… and He did! When we first arrived onto the stage we smiled, took deep breaths, and opened out mouths to sing. We all just smiles and sang for our Heavenly Father.

A verse that kept coming to my mind when we were singing is Psalm 9:11, “ I will sing praises of the Lord, enthroned in Zion; I will proclaim His news among the nations of what He has done.” We were singing unto the nations. It was a wonderful experience and feeling. There were people from all over the world, and here we were proclaiming and singing of God’s news and love among the nations. We were doing what God has told us to do in His word. I had such a wonderful time singing in the concert hall. It was kind of like singing in the Cathedral because our voices carried out through the whole building and then you could hear your voice come back to you. When we finished singing they all gave us an Austrian encore! It’s when you start clapping slowly and then the clapping gets faster and faster. God was working in our lives and the lives around us. It was amazing to share the love of God to the people there. There was another orchestra scheduled to perform after us, but they had to cancel for some reason so our tiny American choir was the finale for the festival! This was all God. Thank you Abba Father!

After the performance, we headed over to a Indian restaurant with Mrs. Auliee, Yohanus, and Max. The food was kind of spicy, but yummy. After our fun dinner we all said our farewells and thank yous. Mrs. Auliee did so much for us, I can’t even explain how grateful I was for her. She was amazing help, supporter, and friend for our travels in Vienna. We headed back to our hotel and I finished packing for leaving the next day. I had packed the night before so I just had to wrap some things up. I got ready for bed, talked on Skype with my parents and then went to bed.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Pictures from September 12th

Rebekah my wonderful roommate and friend and I

Votive church

Inside Votive church

The ceilings in the Votive church were very large.

Mrs. Ellison, Emma #1, and I inside the Votive church

Program for the festival

The awesome sign at the flea market! :)

Rebekah hiding between scarves, ha ha!

Our choir in the program for the 13th

Emma #1, Kira, and I inside the concert hall

Inside the concert hall

One of the very large choirs performing for the festival

Some of the ladies at the Austrian restaurant

Kira and Sariah at dinner.

(Left to right) Emma #2, Abby, me, Sariah, Kira, and Emma #1 the morning of the 12th

(Left to right) Kira, Abby, Sariah, and Mrs. Ellison in the train to the Votive church.

Septemebr 12th singing in the Votive church and going to the flea market.

The morning of the 12^th I got up super early, got ready, read my special “love note” from my parents, had a fun special Skype time with my family, ate breakfast, had a wonderful practice time, did devotionals, prayed, and went on our way to the Votive church for the first day of the festival. It was so tall and large like the other cathedrals and it was so beautiful inside. It was hard to believe that our choir was about to sing in there!

The other choirs and orchestras sang or played before us. Our choir sang Amazing Grace second to last. All of the other choirs had maybe 30-50 people in it compared to our choir which only has 15 people in it. So we looked like a very miniature choir compared to them, which was fine. They all did a great job!

When we all got there I felt like Abba (Father) gave me shalom (peace) and I felt His light shining upon my head. When we opened up our mouths and sang, I felt like a choir of angels. When we started singing you could hear your voice go out and then come back and bounce back to you; it was amazing! You would be able to hear a pin drop. I am so overwhelmed that we had the opportunity to be able to sing in this beautiful church. We were singing about God’s love and His word in this amazing church across the world to people from all over the world. This was just an incredible experience. I am so thankful for that wonderful opportunity . Mrs. Auliee had come to support us and she brought her other son Max. Mrs. Auliee said she was very proud of us, which was good to hear, since she had helped prepare us when she came to Colorado. We praise Father for all He did to prepare us and arrange for us to be here in Vienna. I was very thankful to be able to sing in the beautiful Votive church.

After singing in the beautiful Votive church we all headed back to the hotel to change. We then headed to the flea market. I wasn’t very happy that we went out to shop on Shabbat (Shabbat is Sabbath on Saturday.) The flea market was PACKED!!! I knew it was going to be busy, but I didn’t think that it was going to be this busy. We went during lunch time so we each went to different food stands. Kira and I headed over to a Mediterranean food stand. I bought this really tasty falafel, pita sandwich. It was the best Mediterranean food that I have ever tasted. The sauce from the sandwich kept dripping from the sandwich so I was kind of leaving a “trail,” but not on purpose. Kira kept saying, “Oh, Kaila’s been here.” It was really funny. We went by this funny sign that said, “*No wi fi. *Talk to each other! *Call your mom! *Pretend its 1993! Live!” It was great.

After finishing our lunches, we headed over to a near by scarf shop. These scarves were all made out of high quality fabric. Some were made out of silk and they were only selling them for $5 dollars. I bought several scarves but after returning home, I wish I had bought more. We all split up into different groups afterwards and went our different ways. Mrs. Ellison, Emma #1 and I went to a souvenir shop. I bought some things there and then headed over to a tea shop nearby. We visited food shops and an antique store. I love antique, vintage things, especially antique cameras. I wanted to buy an old camera but I didn’t have enough space in my suitcase….or money! We stopped at one more place called the Billa. It is their local grocery store.

Our choir headed back to the hotel, changed, and got ready to head over to the concert hall. We walked over to the hall, which was only five blocks from our hotel. We wanted to support the other choirs and orchestras. They were all very talented and did a very nice job. We watched them for three hours. I was very glad that we had the chance to support the other groups in the music festival and I looked forward to perform the next night. All of the people performing in the festival were from Italy, Norway, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Macedonia, USA (our choir), and Slovenia. After their performance we headed over to a traditional Austrian restaurant very close to our hotel. We all had such a fun time! They had a lot of pork there, which I was afraid of, since I don’t eat pork… so I had the chicken instead. It was huge but very tasty. It was a lot easier not eating pork than I thought it was going to be, thank the Lord!

Youtube video for "Vienna missions trip serving the Refuges. "

This is the YouTube video that my choir director made about the day that we served for the refuges. I hope you enjoy and I suggest maybe having some tissues near by, ha ha! Enjoy!

If you would like to see more Choirfire videos or our choir singing Amazing Grace check out Claudia Porter's YouTube channel.

September 11th pictures

All of the carts of water at the train station for the refuges

Bread rolls that Emma #1 took from our hotel to hand out to the refuges

Where you sign in at the train station.

Us girls taking a short break at the train station raising money for the refuges.

Mrs. Porter, Lina (our translater) Kale, and Jackson. Jackson is holding the box that people would put their money into for the refuges.

This was a memorial in the center of town for all the people that died from the Plague that hit in 1679 killing between 75,000 and 150,000 residents of Vienna.

The center of town in Vienna

The St. Peters Cathedral

In side of St. Peters

The Judenplatz Holocaust memorial.

The memorial

Emma #1 and I

Description for the memorial

This was the description for the memorial in Hebrew. It says, "In commemoration of more than 65,000 Austrian Jews who were killed by the Nazis between 1938 and 1945."