Church in Wien

This morning we went to the church where a team from Memorial Road Church of Christ is working. The service was nice because many parts of it were in English inclduing the sermon. It was translated to German for the members. The worship songs were recognizable so there were two languages singing the same tune. It reminded me immediately of the Tower of Babel. I usually always come back to that when I hear a foreign language. It is very fascinating to me. That God would confuse the languages of people to humble them. It does make it very hard now in the mission field, however. After the service, I was talking with a few of my friends to Amanda who is a member of the MRCC team. We began the conversation talking about the German language and how hard it is to learn. We were curious if it gets easier after time. The team has been there just over a year and she just recently understood her first full sermon, (most of it anyway). They had tried to prepare themselves before they came with an intensive German course that lasted 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, 2 hours of practice, and 2 hours travel time. With kids, she said, it was hard to accomodate. Her husband, Scott, led a few songs and his German seemed to be coming along, but you could tell he still struggled a bit.
Another aspect of life for a foreign missionary was transportation. This couple purchased a Jeep from a previous missionary because public transportation was wasting too much time.
All in all the couple seemed to be adjusting okay, but when asked how she liked it, she seemed to have a few doubts still. Though optimistic about the future, she said the culture shock was hard to adjust to.
I asked her about other mission efforts they are involved in and she said they have strategy meetings and German prep services and they attend the church one Sunday a month. Other Sundays are for the German prep and English services. The prep is to get them used to leading in the German language without ebarassing themselves at the beginning. Their ultimate goal to to plant a church, which should happen in the next 5 years.
This gets me more excited to visit with other missionaries during the upcoming mission trips we have. I wonder if I could or would ever be so willing and dedicated as to one day be a foreign missionary long-term.