Vienna

My faithful and infrequent readers, I could use your prayer and advice.

Through the Graduate Student InterVarsity chapter at UIUC an opportunity has arisen to spend 10 days in Vienna to aide the Austrian Student Mission. The spirit about the trip is unique - a small group of American graduate students will travel to Vienna to be an occasion for which the Austrian students can do outreach on campus. This may initially sound like any other 'mission trip', but the InterVarsity view of outreach is not what I would consider traditional. As graduate students we would help lead discussions about the relevency of the Christian faith to the academic world. Hopefully, we would have the opportunity to share about how we see the neccessity to integrate faith and academics within our discipline.

While fruitful and good, the mission-oriented trips I've taken in the past have not purposefully taken advantage of the gifts I've been given regarding academics and intellect. And so it excites me to think about the poweful witness my personal faith story - that which includes the spiritual and intellectual - could have on such a trip as this.

The dates of the trip are March 16 (fly out Fri; arrive Sat) to March 24 (fly back on Sat). If I attended the trip, it might be wise to stay a few extra days to tour the Austrian or German countryside.

Your prayers, questions and comments and very welcome.

Thank you.