Klaudia has been a friend from the beginning. She and Alina met at a mass at another Catholic community/movement called the Emmanuel community back in January, and then after meeting again at a mass with the Kardinal that the Little Sisters and Brothers of the Lamb host every month at Karmeliterkirche, she helped us clean one evening in the apartment at the very beginning before we even know what renovation was awaiting us in the future. Since then she has been like a sister to our community!
She was studying here at the technical university we did alot of things together. She has helped us at every function we have had....it is as if she is a part of community, just not sharing a room with us. She was there when we needed extra hands in the kitchen, or setting up chairs, sweeping floors, etc. She was there when we needed someone to fluently speak German, she was there when the Kardinal came to visit. Her parents own a paint store in Poland, thus every time we look at the walls we have to think of Klaudia and her parents who donated us the dye for the paint, along with rollers and other supplies and which Klaudia carried back from Poland by train. We have her to thank for the beautiful backsplash we will have to accompany our new kitchen! She has been to Naples to visit the Heart's Home there and became friends with Alina's best friend, Rosanna. She lives in Krakow where there are 10 new volunteers just now beginning training with Heart's Home and our soon to be community member Fr. Klemens is going there to lead the training. Klaudia will even be helping him out with some translations of texts he has to use--these 10 are the first volunteers with Heart's Home from Poland!
As beautiful as our relationship with Klaudia has grown, her time here in Vienna has been full of its fair share of struggles. Struggles with her studies, knowing where she is supposed to be and what she is supposed to be doing, struggles with roomates, friends, family--what a normal university student's life usually consists of, of course. But to our sorrow, her struggles are now leading her away from Vienna and although we will remain close in our hearts, Klaudia just won't be around as much. On the other hand, we are so excited for her and really happy that we have to say goodbye to her because she is following her dreams, and following where God is leading her. Her dream is to become an airline pilot and right now, with the stability of a backup plan of continuing on in her normal studies but in a University closer to home in Poland, she is pursuing professional training and job placement with Austrian Airlines. She was just in Hamburg to do her second round of tests and she hasn't heard the results yet as to whether or not she can continue onto the third round of tests, so keep her in your prayers!
One weekend, her cousins were here to visit but she had to work late through the night, so we had a sleep over! We painted pictures, had mass, went to the playground, made pizza--ate at 9pm because im stupid and an amateur at making pizza, not realizing how long it was going to take to make the pizza dough from scratch. Twirling the dough and making the pizzas was of course the best part, unfortunately the fun far outweighed their deliciousness--the dough turned out pretty aweful....I have alot to learn. After dinner the littlest helped me make American chocolate chip cookies--we even called my mom especially for the recipe! She had the best time never once using a whisk or a spoon, but always mixing everything with her hands!!
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| guilty--i brought these back from America with me. I just can't get used to weighing everything with a scale. |
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