Hello, friends!!!
It’s been about a month since my last update and it has been quite the month!!
It was both incredibly eventful {hello, trip to Austria!} and horribly uneventful {hello, Coronavirus!}.
The month started with celebrating EA and MC’s fifteenth birthday.
Happy birthday, girls!!! We visited Mount Vernon the weekend before their birthday because I was planning to leave for a mission trip on the day of their birthday.
We were able to celebrate with donuts for breakfast, a special lunch and Smore’s Cupcakes for dessert.
I joined six other women from my church for a mission trip to Austria. We planned to work with women refugees in Lintz and Saltzburg, Austria.
I only knew one of these women before leaving (our pastor’s wife), but came away with six wonderful friends!
Austria is a beautiful country!!!
We had an amazing time there! We loved getting to know the family that pastors the Baptist Church in Lintz and hearing about the work they are doing with the refugees there.
We were able to visit the homes of several refugee women and talk to them about their struggles and their faith stories.
We spent one morning sightseeing in Lintz, visiting the Postlingberg. I felt such a connection with these amazing women and we were able to invite them to the tea we were hosting at the church in Lintz the next day.
In Saltzburg, we hosted a dinner at the church with both refugee women from Muslim majority counties and Austrian women attending to celebrate International Women’s Day.
We had an incredible time celebrating, sharing our stories and dancing with the women there!
We also met a sweet refugee family who invited us into their home and prepared a meal for us. We were touched by hearing their story of faith and trust in the midst of waiting for asylum.
For our fun time in Saltzburg, we were able to go on the Sound of Music bus tour. It was amazing to see the sights where the movie was filmed around Saltzburg and the surrounding area.
Here we are in front of the gazebo where several scenes were filmed, singing “You are sixteen going on seventeen…“
One perk of traveling abroad right before travel restrictions were announced because of Coronavirus is that we each had an entire row of seats to ourselves on the flights…lots of room for social distancing!
As much as I loved my time in Austria, I was ready to get home to my family and share the experience with them!
Just hours after we arrived home, the president announced the travel ban from overseas. Since we are American citizens, we wouldn’t have been in danger of not getting home, but we were all relieved to have made it home before the announcement was made.
I was advised to spend the next fourteen days in self-quarantine.
But at the same time, our entire country began practicing social distancing. Our homeschool co-op was canceled, following the local school schedule. Our church canceled services and has been offering live streaming and recordings of services. My husband also began working from home.
I am very thankful that my yoga studio began offering live classes through Zoom. I’ve been able to continue my yoga practice throughout this time. In fact, I’ve practiced even more at home through the live classes.
I’m spending lots of time reading and loving that! One friend commented that I was lucky to find time for reading. Not making time for reading is just not a possibility for me. It gives me sanity, peace, and motivation. And, really, if we don’t have time to read now, when will we ever find time for it?
When it feels like the walls are closing in on us, we’re taking walks outside. Jenny and I enjoyed a walk and loved seeing the trees starting to bloom in our neighborhood.
One blessing that is coming from this time is being able to make time for family time and extras that we love, but get crowded out with other activities. We’ve had poetry teatimes, game nights, and movie nights on the regular and we’ve all benefited from this time together.
I pray that you are all doing well and are finding time to dwell on the blessings that can be found even in this uncertain time.