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  • International Christian School of Vienna is currently closed and our Distance Learning has started in all grade levels.
    We plan to reopen on Tuesday, April 14.
    If you have any questions and/or concerns please email office@icsv.at.

Super Exciting News! Let’s Cool the School!

Did you know that when the school was initially remodeled, it was made to use an air conditioning system to cool and circulate the air? Did you know that up until now, the school hasn’t had one? Our 2017 annual fundraiser is going to be for the installation of an air conditioning unit! We’re calling it COOL THE SCHOOL!

Once the hot weather hits, our classrooms get super-hot. The windows were not made to open, so hot, stagnant air fills the rooms. It is practically impossible to focus on learning when temperatures are in the high 30s C. If we raise 40.000 euros/dollars by August 1, then we can have air conditioning installed in our classrooms and offices this summer.

Would you please start to pass the word to your friends and family members? Next week you will receive a brochure about the project and information about how to make a donation. This year we are going to make donations possible on our website in addition to doing a bank transfer. We will also be asking every student to bring in the names and email addresses of at least five people that they could ask to help us meet our goal. Every grade that has 100% participation will enjoy an ice cream party at the beginning of June.

We told the staff yesterday and the students today about the project. There was unanimous enthusiasm for the prospect of having a cool school by the time they return in August. Would you please prayerfully consider whether you could give the school a gift for this project? 500 euros would provide air conditioning for one child. 4000 euros would cool one classroom. If we all work together and network within our communities, then we can meet or even exceed our 40.000 euro goal.

We are excited to see how God meets this need. In August, we’ll all be saying SCHOOL IS COOL!

Because of His Faithfulness,
Sharon Brobst, Ed.D.
Director

Spiritual Emphasis Week

The week before Easter Break, we had a group of 11 individuals from Crossroads Church in Odessa, Texas bless us by coordinating Spiritual Emphasis Week. I’m not sure if our school community realizes that when a group like this comes to Vienna, they have raised the funds from other church and family members to make the trip possible. ICSV does not pay their expenses. They simply want to come to show love and to be an encouragement to the ICSV community.

This group was able to do separate chapels for elementary, middle, and high school. They also spent time in the secondary Bible classes so that students could get to know them better and to ask questions in a small group setting. Feedback from the students is that they especially enjoyed hearing how God has been working in the lives of those on the SEW team. They heard that even when life is difficult, God is faithful to help us walk through those times. The Thursday evening High School Praise Night was very special. For those who were there, you could just feel that God was doing something mighty that evening.

The SEW team members were also blessed by the ICSV community. On their last day here, they thanked our students for being so respectful and welcoming. They also mentioned that they were so impressed with how respectful our students are of each other and their differing beliefs. One of the SEW team members has contacted us to express interest in possibly joining our staff in the future. She was so touched by what she saw during her week here that she felt led to write to us to see whether she might be able to meet a current ICSV staffing need. She has a daughter, and so she feels that ICSV would be a place where she would like her own daughter to attend. She wrote, “My husband and I would like an opportunity to expose our daughter to a broad world view. I have seen ICSV and I believe it is a place where lives are being changed and the world is being impacted for Christ.” ICSV really is a very special place where students love and accept each other just as they are.

Next week we will have a special Elementary Spiritual Emphasis Week with Jerry Jacoby. He and his wife come every other year to ICSV. The elementary students absolutely love him. Be sure to mark your calendars for Wednesday night, April 26. That evening we are all welcomed to come out for a special concert performed by the Jacobys. This is something you will not want to miss!

Because of His Faithfulness,
Sharon Brobst, Ed.D.
Director

The Book That Made Your World (The Bible)

I’ve been reading a book written by Vishal Mangalwadi that explains how the Bible has changed the way the western world looks at things like rationality, technology, true wealth, family, and heroism. If you like to think philosophically, I highly recommend reading this book.

In one chapter, Mangalwadi explains how Jesus was so unlike what people viewed as what the Messiah should be like because His message to the world was the opposite of the triumphant conqueror and leader they were expecting. Instead His message was one of love. He exemplified this love through self-sacrificing service. Remember when He humbled himself by taking a basin of water and a servant’s towel, and He washed the disciples’ feet? Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. All power in heaven and on earth is His. But, when He came to earth, He did so not to be served, but to serve others. He did not come to kill, but to give to us the free gift of eternal life.

Mangalwadi goes on to point out that the apostle Paul was determined to preach the cross of Christ even though that was not what people expected. Paul wanted people to hear the Good News that it was Christ’s victory over death and fear that provided for man the only means of salvation. We can see today how the cross became the symbol of the Christian faith. Mangalwadi said, “following the New Testament’s emphasis on the cross, the preachers preached about the cross, the painters painted it, the poets wrote poems about it, and the singers sang about the glories of the ‘old rugged cross.’”

As we head into the week leading from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, and ultimately to Easter Sunday, I remind you that it was because of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross and His victory over death that we have obtained eternal life. Please take time this week to truly focus on what this means. (Read Luke chapters 22-24.) God created man in His image, but man sinned and was separated from Him. Because God is perfect, there was no way for sinful man to have a relationship with Him. So He sent His one and only, perfect Son Jesus Christ to earth to pay the penalty of man’s sin by dying on the cross. Through this ultimate sacrifice, we have been given the forgiveness of sin and restoration of our relationship with the Almighty God. It is only by God’s grace and nothing that we have done to deserve it that we are saved from God’s wrath and eternal separation from Him. By acknowledging our sin and accepting this free gift, we now have the assurance of salvation and of spending eternity with God.

Please celebrate with me the joy that our sins have been forgiven and that Christ did not remain dead in the tomb. We serve a risen Savior!

  • Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
  • Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • Ephesians 2:8-9 – For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.
  • I John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
  • John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
  • Romans 10:9 – If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Because of His Faithfulness,

Sharon Brobst, Ed.D.
Director

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