Life in the Community...

Community life on the Datzeberg this autumn has also been pretty full, partnering or supporting the various events and projects that have been happening through the Verein, as well as trying to keep up with our community rhythms of eating together, praying together and loving one another in the day to day!

It was exciting to see a “contingent” of polylux folks at the 24-7 Prayer Gathering in Vienna, with 6 of us managing to be there.  Katharina and Heike were particularly excited to be there as it was the first time that they’d been able to go somewhere, by and for themselves, since both having children 4 years ago!  It’s such a special time in the life of 24-7 Prayer, and it was lovely to be able to share it with others from our “Crew”!

Katharina, Heike and I enjoying the Viennese Cafes!!

The Gathering's Saturday Night session held in St. Stephen's Cathedral

A week or so after the Gathering Katharina, Ela, Gabriel and I also had the honour of getting to help facilitate a prayer weekend with our friends at the Oase (Oasis).  The Oase is a social justice/community work/church plant kind of community (similarities of heart with polylux but with slightly different outworkings???), who hold a church service once a month for a neighbouring Stadtteil (housing estate), and throughout the rest of the month run everything from mum & tot groups, community meals, youth clubs, prayer groups, etc.  We’ve always considered them good friends but rarely have the opportunity to work directly with them, as we’re involved in separate neighbourhoods with slightly separate needs.

But with this event, we were able to partner with them and help them host a weekend-long “Exploration of Prayer” weekend.  They have a fantastic building where they are, so we set up the entire place with different interactive prayer stations, a Creative Zone filled with art supplies and playdoh, a quiet, reflective room with simple, interactive meditations for people to consider, and we ran it as a mini-conference, with a few short “Inputs” with the whole group about what prayer can be and how there are so many different ways to engage with it, as many as the individual personalities there that weekend.

The Creative Zone

The Quiet Room

Painting our prayers

Always time for coffee and chats!

Prayers from the Psalms - Take one for youself!

It too went really well, with some of our friends from the Datzeberg coming down to join in, and ending the weekend with a big soup lunch all together.  We, as a Team, really enjoyed working together, too, which could mean seeing a few more joint-events happening in the future! 

At the end of October the Schlagner’s (Jonte & Heike, Pepe, Michel) organised a Road Trip to the Sauerland area of Germany, near Dortmond.  This is the region where Jonte grew up and he’s always dreamed of moving back to that area to try and create something like polylux, but different!  

When Jonte & Heike joined the polylux community nearly 5 years ago, they made the decision that they would remain here for 5 years, to learn from and to become a part of the polylux community, so that they could then take the things they learned and experienced through community here, back to their home region.  Their 5 years will be up next summer and they are already in the process of preparing for their move back to the Sauerland.

This trip was to be a bit of prayer trip to both try and decide where exactly they should be moving too (there were 3-4 possible neighbourhoods within 2-3 towns/cities which they are considering), as well as being an opportunity to meet a couple other couples who may be interested in joining them as they start.  The hope is to have a small community of 4-8 people (2 or 3 couples, probably) which they can move into a neighbourhood together with, to support one another as they settle in as well as pray and live alongside each other as they get to know this new neighbourhood and begin to try and love and bless the people around them in creative ways!

The trip went well, despite some health problems for Heike, and I think that Jonte and Heike were both encouraged to begin seeing small steps developing throughout their plans to move.

It will be a big loss and shift within polylux life when they leave (currently planned for June), both for the community as well as the Verein, where Jonte head’s up the Office Team, but we are so thrilled that they able to move home to a region that they have always had on their hearts and we hope that this will only be the first of many future Give Away’s from the polylux community to the regions around them!

Community life in the next weeks will also be about building for Christmas, with the additional fun of having a visit from our friend Victoria Hutchinson!  Victoria met us during her time here with the 24-7 Team in June and as a nearly fluent German-speaker has agreed to come back to visit to help with translating the new website into English.  This will be a MASSIVE blessing for the community and Verein, as well as simply being a lovely opportunity to catch up with a wonderful lady and friend!

And that’s life!