It's February Already!!!

Psalm 19:14 - Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Wow, I can hardly believe it is February and we are in the second semester of the school year already!  We enjoyed our Christmas Break, especially getting to visit with my Mom (aka Nonnie/Peggy). While my Mom was here, Taru, our former exchange student from Finland also visited us.  She lived with us in Orlando when I was in high school. We did some site seeing around Vienna and also spent a few days in Prague after Christmas.  Prague was beautiful and only a 4 hour train ride from Vienna.  We were able to apartment swap with a family who teaches at the international Christian school in Prague.  It worked great, they got to visit Vienna and we got to visit Prague.  Following a wonderful Christmas Break, we returned to school to finish the first semester with semester exams, grading tests and projects and report cards to complete.

Fireworks display just out our windows on New Years

With the start of the second semester, we have had a few schedule changes.  I am now teaching 2 health classes each day.  Health is only a 1 semester class.  I had half of the 9th graders the first semester and now I have the other half of the 9th graders (Mitchell included) this semester.  In addition, I have a class of 10th, 11th, and/or 12th graders who need the class to graduate.  These are students who entered the school after 9th grade.  It's nice to be repeating the class I taught last semester.  I don't have to spend as much time on lesson planning, but I am teaching an additional hour each day.  I'm enjoying getting to know more of the students and experiencing teaching my own son!:)  I continue to ask God for ways to integrate the Bible into the class.  Recently as we discussed character and its relationship to health, the students were asked to define "good" and "bad" character.  One student then asked how you define "good"?  This lead perfectly into a conversation about God being good and that He sets the standard for good.  Otherwise, if man defines "good" it is all relative.

 

At the Prague Castle

Billy's schedule is full this semester.  He continues to teach 10th and 11th grade Bible, Physics, and monitoring an online Spanish class.  In addition, he now has a ELL (English Language Learner) Science class with only one student and a high school Current Events class.  His day is quite full with 5 classes per day.  He is especially enjoying the Current Events class, but it does take some time to lesson plan as there is limited curriculum.  This class has allowed him to discuss sensitive and current topics such as "human trafficking" plus ways that God is active in the world.  For instance, he discussed the Elysee Treaty and how grace and forgiveness overcame past hatreds and allowed France and Germany to reconcile.  From there they discussed how God works thorough grace and forgiveness and how that matters to us.  He is challenged with questions from students such as "why does God allow human trafficking or evil in the world?".

Mitchell has transitioned well to Vienna!  He said just the other day that it is hard to believe that we are actually living here.  He has made friends and enjoys hanging out or talking with them via Oovoo!  What is Oovoo you ask?  It is a way to talk to multiple friends at one time and also see them via the internet/computer.  The picture below is Mitchell (lower left corner) chatting one Friday night with 4 other friends.   He is quite the social teenager.  It's not unusual to have 4 teenage boys sleeping in our family room on a weekend night.  He is especially grateful to have the German A1 exam completed.  This means getting to have study hall with his class two days a week, no extra German classes, no missing normal school classes, and no extra homework! 

Cooking breakfast for the boys!

Lydia is growing into a beautiful young lady before our eyes!  She regularly helps out with children's church at our home church here.  The children love her and she is a great help to the teachers.  She was recently in the Middle School musical, Seussical Jr.  She had lots of fun and did a great job as a "Who".  The entire production was wonderful!   Following the last performance, the cast members enjoyed a fun cast party of food, drinks and games!  The parents at the school were wonderful in helping create a fun party for the children!   She is learning lots living here in Vienna and is a great help to me at home.  For Valentines Day, she cooked dinner (grilled cheese sandwiches) for the family, she also helps by going to the grocery store for me and helping with the laundry!  What a blessing!

For my "foodie" friends out there,  I must share what's cooking in my Vienna kitchen.  I have learned to make Italian meatballs from scratch and found a recipe that my family really enjoys and works well with ground pork.  Ground pork is readily available and reasonably priced.  Ground beef on the other hand can be quite expensive.  I did venture out to a Turkish market/grocery store the other day and bought ground beef.  As I approached the store, I prayed God would help me find what I needed.  This may sound silly, but going to a Turkish store means that I can't read most of the food labels/names which are in Turkish, not German or English.  Also I appear very out of place from the other women in the store with my light colored skin and uncovered head.  My main purpose for going to the market was to buy beef and chicken which is much less expensive there than in my local grocery store.  I approached the meat counter and found what I wanted to buy, now to communicate this to the person behind the counter.  The first gentleman I approached did not know English, but thankfully directed me to a kind young woman.  She spoke broken English and I spoke broken German.  While she helped me get the chicken and beef I wanted, she engaged in conversation which is not always common here.  She asked where I was from and I shared that we were here teaching in Vienna and discovered she had a mechanical engineering degree like Billy.  The conversation was limited, but it made me wonder about her and I hope to get to see her again.  By the way, we enjoyed hamburgers made with real ground beef that night!

Well I have rambled on, but hope this gives you a glimpse into our life here and what God is doing.  We are ever grateful for the love, prayers, and support we get from everyone!  If you are new to the blog, you can view previous posts by clicking on the "blog archive" to the right.

Love and blessing from Vienna,
Ada (aka "Miss" Clair)

Merry Christmas!!!

John 1:14 

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Merry Christmas from the Wiisanens in Vienna!  We pray your Christmas is blessed with the peace, joy, and rest that comes from knowing our Savior who was born on Christmas day!  

November flew by and we received a few early Christmas presents:

• Mitchell received German tutoring and passed his German A1 Exam!!!
• He more than passed, he made a 92!! 
• He also now has his visa!
• Nonnie (aka Ada's Mom) arrived December 9th!
• We are so blessed to have her here!
• It feels more like Christmas with family around.
• God continues to provide for our family and ministry here in Vienna, for which we are ever grateful!!
• We are thankful for the new friends God has provided here and we are gradually settling in to our new city.
• We are grateful for a couple of weeks rest during our Christmas break to focus on our Savior's birth and re-energize for the new year.

We are including a short video to wish you all a Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

Wiisanen Christmas Video
Wiisanen Christmas Video - High Definition

Christmas Blessing and all our Love,

Billy, Ada, Mitchell, and Lydia

Fall Break, Zagreb, SEW!

Morning sunrise reflecting on the buildings outside our apartment window.

Psalms 28:7 - The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.

Much has been happening since our last post, so I thought I would try to catch you up on the Wiisanens in Vienna.  October 26th was the first day of Fall Break for the school.  The kids were out that Friday through the following week.  It was a much needed break for all of us.  Our break began with Billy and Mitchell taking an unscheduled trip to Zagreb, Croatia.  On November 2nd our 90 day tourist visa were going to expire, we found out that Mitchell would not be getting his resident visa and was required to leave the country (actually the European Union) for 2 days in order to renew his tourist visa for another 90 days.  So what does this mean.  Well, the rest of the family got visas on Friday November 2nd, but Mitchell will not get his until he passes the German A1 language exam.  This requirement applies to anyone 14 or older, however because Billy and I have college degrees, we do not have to pass the exam right away.   We are working with the school to come up with a plan to help Mitchell accomplish this.  He is currently enrolled in German class at school, but it will not get him to the level he needs to be at fast enough.  This is a little unnerving for us and has been weighing on Mitchell also.  We continue to trust God and pray for wisdom and discernment for His plan in helping Mitchell meet the German language requirement.  Billy and Mitchell enjoyed their little vacation, but decided that the train was the preferred mode of transportation over the bus, especially when it started snowing on the bus ride home (they took the train to Zagreb).  Before this trip, we really did not even know where Zabreb was. :)

Zagreb, Croatia

Also during Fall Break, Billy and I attended several days of Professional Development for the school staff.  It was nice to have a break from the classroom and lesson planning and to receive valuable information to help us teach.  The main focus was Biblical Integration, how to integrate the Bible into our lesson plans.  In addition, we were given teaching techniques to help with English Language Learners (ELL students) and teaching to various learning styles.  It was a very productive couple of days with a fun Staff Talent Show for entertainment.  We are blessed to work with a great staff at ICSV!

We had our first snow during Fall Break!  It was beautiful!  Needless to say it didn't last long, but for Floridians it was very exciting!  Lydia and I also enjoyed a visit to the Technisches Museum Wien (Technology Museum on Vienna). We also experienced our first club hockey game. Our friends' daughter Emilie is playing!!

I also got to bake and try some new recipes over the break.  It's a challenge to find easy recipes and new thing to make that I can get all the ingredients for.  We had cookies, enchiladas, and white chicken chili! YUM!

Spiritual Emphasis Week (SEW) began at school following Fall Break.  During the week, the students had chapel daily.  They got to hear powerful testimonies from both staff and other students.  I was impressed by a student who shared that she was a former Hindu and now a Christian, but that the rest of her family members are not believers.  She became a Christian at ICSV!  The focus of the last chapel of the week was the gospel.  Please pray the hearts of the studenst would be open to the gospel and that the seeds of faith would be planted.  Also pray they would see Christ in us and the staff of ICSV and commit their lives to HIM.

Fall is beautiful here in Vienna.  The colors of the leaves are beautiful, but it is definitely getting colder.  This weekend we attended Mitchell's soccer tournament and it was very cold and windy. They got third place!

By 5:00pm it is very dark and cold.  It is a hard time to be here, especially for Floridians who are used to the warmth and sunshine.  We tend to miss home, family, and friends more these days!  But as Lydia reminded us on her Facebook today, we are not alone!!  Never!  We have Christ with us!  May He give us wisdom, strength, and energy.  May we be filled with His joy and shine His light to the dark world around us.

Thank you for your support and prayers!!  Please continue to pray for Mitchell's visa and language learning. Also for our witness to the student at ICSV and our community here in Vienna.  We love you all so very much!

Love and Blessings to you all,
Ada (aka "Miss" Clair)

Quiet, not really.

Jeremiah 10:12 - It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom;
And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.

While the blog may have been quiet for a few weeks, our life here in Vienna has been anything but quiet!   We are enjoying the cooler fall weather and the beautiful colors all around us.  Next week is the end of the 1st nine weeks of the school year! Wow!  We can hardly believe it.  

Our days are filled with school, teaching, lesson planning, testing, grading, grocery shopping, washing, cooking, helping with homework, parenting, grocery shopping, going to soccer games, meetings, German classes, grocery shopping.  Did I mention grocery shopping?  With two teenagers in the house, I have to go 3-4 times per week to keep up with all they eat!!

We are truly enjoying teaching at ICSV and getting to know our students.  God continues to confirm that we are right where He wants us to be. We are learning so much and He is growing and stretching each one of us.  We still have lots to learn and often things we knew how to do at home without thinking, takes much longer here.  

I thought I would share some of the highlights of the last few weeks.  We celebrated Mitchell's birthday on October 2nd with a "snicker-doddle cake" and later a cookie cake with friends!  The cookie cake overflowed the pan, but thankfully tasted good!  Mitchell and Lydia sure do miss Nonnie's chocolate cake!   Mitchell's birthday dinner was our first time having guests over for a meal (spaghetti, not too difficult).  We had a great time!

I was so excited to see my Mom's cousin, Charlie and Louise, vacationing in Vienna!!  They were on a river boat cruise that was docked within walking distance to our apartment.  

Learning to cook and trying new recipes!  I'm so glad I brought a few spices from home.  This is the makings for chili in the crock pot.  I've also made lasagna, chicken cordon bleu, and white chicken chili in the crock pot.  The crock pot is definitely becoming my friend.  "Clever" is the store brand which is less expensive and taste good too!!

Fun with friends!!  We are so thankful for the friends God has brought into our children's lives here in Vienna.  The girls enjoy shopping of course!  They are able to go to the mall by themselves here!  The boys play video games and skateboard together.  What a blessing, it makes our hearts smile to see them hanging out with friends.

This is the view out our windows this morning.  It's a foggy Sunday morning.  The weather is ever changing. Below are similar views on a clear day.

As I look back over this post, it seems a little sporadic and random which may just be a true reflection of our last several weeks.  We are looking forward to fall break in a week.  We hope to get some rest and catch up on things around our home.  Maybe even get ahead on our lesson planning too!!  

Thank you again for your prayers and support.

God is good!!!

Love and joy,

Ada (aka "Miss" Clair)