In our weekly round-up, Eternity looks at what some of our Australian missionaries are up to each week. 

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Joel and Liz in Rwanda

Joel and Liz work in Rwanda with International Teams. Liz’s focus is on helping men and women affected by HIV/Aids, by helping to develop their income-generating project named Ubuzima. Here they produce items for sale, with profits used to help support the families.  Joel’s focus is on discipling, training and mentoring street youth and refugee youth.

This week, they took two buses and 45 people out to a safari. They decided to treat former street kids to “a once in a life time experience to see their country and their native animals”. “Somehow” they say,  “after sitting in a bus for 14 hours they still had the energy to sing full volume and drum a beat out…at least it was mostly worship songs…all the way home.” Read their full blog post and see the photos of the trip here.

Steve and Coralie Preston in Spain

Steve and Coralie Preston are an Australian couple who have spent twelve years as missionaries in Spain, and are preparing to return to Australia in 2014 as the new leaders of WEC Australia.

Steve and Coralie reflect on a number of issues relating to being missionaries in WEC’s most recent edition of Imagine, their newsletter. One of the areas they address is cross-cultural parenting…

“We have a 3-year-old son called Lucas who is our little miracle, as he arrived after a twelve-year wait. He was born in Madrid. In Spain older people like to give you advice whether they know you or not, and don’t understand if you do something differently from ‘the Spanish way’. This can be challenging when raising a child.”

To read their thoughts on Spain, language learning and mission work, click here.

David Field in Traiskirchen, Austria

David Field, a missionary with International Teams, has been working with refugees at the Oasis, in Traiskirchen, Austria since 2004. At the Oasis, he meets with refugees over coffee, helps out in the second hand clothing store, runs Bible studies and seeks to share the gospel as he builds relationships with people. He has a particular heart for refugees from the middle east to meet Jesus.

This week, David blogs :

“Last night during our Coffee Bar, a man left the video room highly distressed. I followed him out of the Oasis and was able to get him to sit down.
And he asked me ‘ Why did Jesus have to die?’
‘He was so nice to people and then they killed him?’
‘Are we all responsible for killing him?’
I started talking about the sacrificial lamb, about Jesus dying for our sins. Then it occurred to me to ask him if he has seen the end of the movie?”

Click here to read more of David’s conversation with the man on his blog.

We know some missionaries work in sensitive countries and we’re setting things up so that they’re not compromised. Got a missionary we should know about? Email us here and we’ll follow them up.

Header image: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1170737