Austria Graduate Student Global Project by Craig Gartland, Midwest Regional Director, Graduate Faculty Ministries March 13, 2007
A team composed of seven University of Illinois graduate students and two InterVarsity staff members will spend nine days working with Austrian colleagues in Vienna, Austria. The trip to work with ÖSM-Wien – like InterVarsity/USA, an affiliate of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students [IFES] – is InterVarsity’s first-ever graduate student Global Project to Vienna.
Why Austria?
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (U of I) and the Technical University of Vienna (TU), have an exchange program. Three years ago, staff member David Suryk informed me that the U of I Grad chapter was benefiting from the presence of Austrian students. A physics student named Roman attended InterVarsity’s Urbana 03 Student Missions Convention. Roman returned to Vienna with a vision for starting the first graduate and faculty Bible study at TU.
A new Vision and a new Partnership
As grad students from Vienna continued to come to the U of I and get involved in InterVarsity, the American students in the Grad chapter started to think about how they could encourage and support Roman and help establish graduate student ministry in Vienna. David began correspondence with Ewald and Constanze Ring, who were on staff with ÖSM.
An invitation was extended by Ewald and we are responding. We pray that our presence will be an encouragement and blessing. In terms of its secular culture and decreasing church attendance (19% of Austrians regularly attend church, compared to 47% in the U.S.), Austria is seen by many as hard soil for the Gospel. It is a privilege for us to come alongside of the work that God is already doing in Vienna and help with the vision that Ewald, Roman, and others have for the ministry to grow in depth and breadth.
Our Team (clockwise from top left: Tara, Joe, Laura, Paul, Nina, Craig [me!], David, Ann, Alan) departs on March 16. We pray that we may each be able to share our lives and our faith with students in Austria. We also pray that our project would bear fruit that is lasting for the ministry in Austria.
Highlights of our Project:
March 19-21: Outreach Booktable at the Vienna Univ. of Life Sciences
Monday, March 19: Main Student Group Meeting in Vienna
Thursday, March 22: Outreach talk in Linz, Austria, with Andrew Page (IFES staff)
March 22-24: Pioneering Project for Grad Fellowship at the Vienna Technical University
Throughout the week: Bible studies and talks led by team members (and informal conversations)
