This week was so diverse! There were new things, encouraging things, awesome things, and also deep things. In terms of encouraging and awesome, we had another Street Buddies pizza party! A good group of the buddies came, about 13 in total. We celebrated and socialized with tasty food. It was so good to have the opportunity to get to know each other away from the Kai. Of course there was also Buddies story swapping, where we shared our craziest and most tender moments while out on the street. I think I can confidently say a good time was had by all.
Another piece of encouraging news came to us recently. A couple of weeks back Abby and Micah helped a girl who had been drugged while out with friends. They had called the emergency services and had stayed with her the whole time. Later she contacted Street Buddies telling us how grateful she was and asking if we could do a presentation about our group for her sport club from school. This is such an answer to prayer because it is a dream of ours to have more young Austrian Street Buddies. It would be so perfect because they are in the same age group as the people out there and obviously they speak the same language with dialect and perfect slang. So we are definitely praying for that to go well.
Also we had a super fun first: someone we met on the Kai came over and hung out with us! When he met us he expressed an interest in practicing his English more and so we invited him over for lunch with our house full of native English speakers. So we ate a meal together and talked for several hours afterwards. We chatted about nearly everything and had a ton of fun. It was such a blessing to connect with another amazing Austrian and hopefully we will see him again soon!
Last night while we were out it was quite busy! It started off with an unconscious young woman who had knocked back 5 vodka Redbulls in a 30 minute time period. She wasn’t responsive and we had to call the ambulance. There were lots of people wanting to fight, which is always frustrating because there is so little that we can actually do. Our job becomes observing and calling the police if it escalates into a real tussle. There were also meaningful conversations. A young man we had met previously came up and was so shocked that we remembered his name and who he was. As we spoke together he shared that he loves good films because they bring him to a deeper level of emotion and actually make him feel something. There was an intense moment where he expressed a need for films, alcohol, or some other outside source to experience real feeling. It was such an open exchange. Micah chatted with a guy about drugs and about what reality we want to live in. Jonathan talked a long time with a really friendly man from France who is studying in Salzburg. A difficult instance arose when a young gentleman came up to our group and asked for help. When we asked him what we could do he revealed that a friend of his was sending messages about committing suicide. Our hearts broke as he further described the situation. The best option in Austria is to call the Red Cross and they will check on the person for free and make sure they are safe and supported. So Micah counseled him on what to do and he left us. We lifted up our prayers and we hope for the best. God was doing so much last night and it was great to be a part of it.
Thanks for reading, and lots of love!
-Rachael
Another piece of encouraging news came to us recently. A couple of weeks back Abby and Micah helped a girl who had been drugged while out with friends. They had called the emergency services and had stayed with her the whole time. Later she contacted Street Buddies telling us how grateful she was and asking if we could do a presentation about our group for her sport club from school. This is such an answer to prayer because it is a dream of ours to have more young Austrian Street Buddies. It would be so perfect because they are in the same age group as the people out there and obviously they speak the same language with dialect and perfect slang. So we are definitely praying for that to go well.
Also we had a super fun first: someone we met on the Kai came over and hung out with us! When he met us he expressed an interest in practicing his English more and so we invited him over for lunch with our house full of native English speakers. So we ate a meal together and talked for several hours afterwards. We chatted about nearly everything and had a ton of fun. It was such a blessing to connect with another amazing Austrian and hopefully we will see him again soon!
Last night while we were out it was quite busy! It started off with an unconscious young woman who had knocked back 5 vodka Redbulls in a 30 minute time period. She wasn’t responsive and we had to call the ambulance. There were lots of people wanting to fight, which is always frustrating because there is so little that we can actually do. Our job becomes observing and calling the police if it escalates into a real tussle. There were also meaningful conversations. A young man we had met previously came up and was so shocked that we remembered his name and who he was. As we spoke together he shared that he loves good films because they bring him to a deeper level of emotion and actually make him feel something. There was an intense moment where he expressed a need for films, alcohol, or some other outside source to experience real feeling. It was such an open exchange. Micah chatted with a guy about drugs and about what reality we want to live in. Jonathan talked a long time with a really friendly man from France who is studying in Salzburg. A difficult instance arose when a young gentleman came up to our group and asked for help. When we asked him what we could do he revealed that a friend of his was sending messages about committing suicide. Our hearts broke as he further described the situation. The best option in Austria is to call the Red Cross and they will check on the person for free and make sure they are safe and supported. So Micah counseled him on what to do and he left us. We lifted up our prayers and we hope for the best. God was doing so much last night and it was great to be a part of it.
Thanks for reading, and lots of love!
-Rachael