Latst pictures from Vienna. Some aditional photos

These are some photos that I gathered from different people in the choir.

 Me blowing bubbles at the refugee children's area in the train station

 Sariah playing the violin for the children

Our choir singing to raise money for the refugees

 Two little sisters at the train station. Mrs. Porter called them "future choir members." :)

 Our choir in front of an alter in the Votive Church after sining

 The front of the Votive Church

 Our choir singing in the Votive Church

 (Left to right) Mrs. Porter, Jackson, Kale, Rebecca, and Sariah.

 (Left to right) Abby, Emma #2, Kira, me, Emma #1, Mrs. Ellison, and Lavonne.

 Our choir performing in the hall for the festival.

 (Left to right) Sariah, Kale, Mrs. Ali, Kira, and me

 Mrs. Ali and Mrs. Porter after the festival

 All of us at the Indian restraint after the festival

 Our choir in front of the St. Stephens Cathedral on the first day!

 Our choir performing before we left for Vienna.

 Our choir at the Schonbrunn Palace

 Our choir with Mrs. Ali's choir

 Our choir performing for a high school choir

 Some guards and police in the train station

 Mrs. Porter getting interviewed by an Austrian news reporter on what we were singing about

 Some refugees getting off a train

 Our choir singing to the refugees in the light while they walked in darkness.

 Emma #1 teaching a little refugee boy guitar.

Some of us girls at the DIA airport the day we left for Vienna

Pictures from September 14th

 The beautiful sunset outside our hotel window

 Rebecca and my cute little room

 The map on the plane. You can see Israel is really close to where we were

 Our huge Austrian plane

 Austrian airlines!

 Kira doing Emma #1's very long hair in the airport while we were waiting to board.

 

 Some of the pinkish clouds on our way home. Sorry this isn't a very good picture of it.

 Kira and Abby ready to go home!

 

September 14th Travel day from Vienna. Last Vienna blog :(

September 14^th, 2015

Rebecca and I got up at 5:00am. I finished putting away things I had used that morning and I also Skyped with my family for the last time in Vienna. I had enjoyed every opportunity to be able to talk with my family every morning and night that week. I can’t believe that our team was in Vienna for only one week! The time went by so quickly. Mrs. Porter assigned a journal day to each person and Rebecca and I were assigned Saturday for our journal day. We wrapped up our journal day and headed downstairs to the lobby. The hotel had prepared sack breakfasts for each choir member. How considerate of the hotel to do that for us!. As our choir loaded the bus we all said our farewells to Jackson and his mom. They have family who live in Europe so they were going to stay an extra week.

 We had a great drive to the airport. The sun was just rising and we were all in good spirits (well most of us, some of the girls got sick on the trip.) We arrived to the airport on time, checked in, went through security, and headed to the plane. The flight was long and tiring, but it was very encouraging to think that I was going to be home soon and see my family. This trip has reminded me how comfortable Americans are. We have everything there at our fingertips and yet we often complain how we don’t have such and such when there are people across the world that don’t even know where there next meal is coming from. I am so comfortable in America and when I went to Vienna, I felt a little nervous; even though Vienna technically isn’t really a “third world country.” I was having bitter sweet moments on the plane. I was excited to see my family and be in my home again and yet it was sad to leave Vienna because that was where my first missions trip happened. We all have created wonderful memories together and have grown so close to each other. I really do hope that we made an impact in Vienna-whether on the streets when we sang, at the festival with our listeners, but especially with the refugees who needed a cheery distraction from their difficulties of life.

 Once we were seated in the airplane and we started taking off, the screen in front of me showed a map. I located where Israel was and I couldn’t believe how close I was to Israel, and yet I still wasn’t able to go. Lord willing someday I will be able to make my dream come true and go to the Land of Israel.  I watched a couple of movies on the plane, slept, read, I wrote in my journal, ate yummy snacks/dinner, listened to music, and talked with my friends. I sat in the same row with Mrs. Ellison, and Emma #1 which was fun because they were watching Newsies, so I was able to watch a little with them. ;)

 When we were flying through a little chunk of Canada about to enter America, we all had to fill out a U.S. customs and Border Protection… my first one ever to fill out. When we landed in Chicago, Illinois I had a terrible headache. That wasn’t fun at all, but thankfully my dear friend Kira let me lean on her shoulder. We all loaded off the large Austrian airplane, walked through a large tunnel, and came to a long line. We waited in the line for maybe 30-45 minutes and finally came to some Kiosks. I had no idea what to do, all I knew was that they were for customs border check. I just followed the directions and went over to help some of my other choir members after I was finished. After we were all done, we then waited in another line to show our Border Protection slips. We all went through safely and then collected our luggage. We all dropped off our luggage to a check-in-desk, went through security again, and then I called my parents to let them know that I was back in the states safely. We talked for a while and they were glad to hear that I had arrived safely. I am giving a play by play but I am hoping this will help others who have never traveled to and from internationally but may do so in the future.

Kira, Emma #1, and I all bought yummy kettle and cheddar popcorn from the famous popcorn shop: Garret Popcorn! I bought a sandwich for dinner and we boarded our plane to go home after our five hour lay over in Chicago. I sat 12 rows in front of the rest of my choir which felt really nice to be by myself because I wasn’t feeling that well. I was able to have a nice journal time, eat, and sleep. 30 minutes before landing in Denver I felt like I was going to throw up so I distracted myself by looking out the window at the beautiful clouds that were colored pink and blue because the sun was starting to go down. I looked over to the lady on my left and she was doing videography on her computer. I asked her about her business and she was telling me all about it. She was an extremely nice lady and she was going to Colorado for a business trip from Ireland. She asked me how to get to some places in Colorado so I was able to give her some directions. It was fascinating to meet her and be a witness as well.

 I went off the plane, waited for the rest of the group to catch up with me and then I headed to the restroom to freshen up and see if I could start feeling a little better. I felt a little better afterwards. We all then headed up the escalator and as we reached the top. There was my wonderful family waving a welcome home sign with big smiles on their faces!!! It was SO sweet of them to do that for me and show that kind of love. I felt really special and missed. It was great to see them all finally and give each of them hugs. It was much better seeing them in person rather than talking over Skype. I have never been away from my family that long and I had really missed them.

 We headed to pick up my luggage, said goodbye to all of my choir members and Mrs. Porter, and then we headed out. It was so weird to say goodbye to everyone because we had spent so much time with each other. We all have been through so much together, seen so much, and being together a whole week it kind of felt like we were a mini family. :) My family and I picked up chick-fil-a for dinner on our way home because I was really hungry but I didn’t want much food with not feeling well. While eating dinner, I shared some stories from the trip. I honestly didn’t feel like I was gone for a week and I didn’t even feel like I had just been across the world.

 I can not thank God enough for the opportunity to be able to go to Vienna to sing and share about His truth, word, love, mercy, and forgiveness. If you were one of my prayer and/or financial supporters I thank you again with all my heart for your part in my being able to go. May Father bless you. It was an amazing journey and experience. I keep thanking God for the opportunity that He gave us to sing to the refugees, people on the street, different schools, in Cathedrals, and sing to people from all over the world. His faithfulness and love is just amazing and I was able to experience even more of it on this trip. I pray that He will show us all where to go next and that He will continue to keep building us each up. I want to travel the world, serve Him, and share about His love. I look forward to the future to see what He has planned. As Mrs. Porter was sharing and inspired me one day, “We can see the sights, or we can be the sights.” Let’s keep all of our eyes wide open and listen to what He wants us to do next for our Abba Father.

 

                                                     Mark 16:15, “And He said to them:

Go into all the world and proclaim the

Gospel to the whole creation.” NLT

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.

September 13th Festival Day

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.