OAC Publications
Snowball News
Summer 2000

Rolling along...

The first year of the Snowball programme culminated in a one-week outreach based in Vienna.

On the morning of June 10, Bristol bade farewell to a well-travelled but rusty white Mercedes van carrying Mark, Susan, Nathalie & Joseph Howe and the four Snowball students - Elena, Judith, Katka and Stefan - together with all their luggage.

Pausing in France just long enough for Susan and the children to catch a train back to Lauris, the van then headed for Alessandria, Italy, to pick up Rob Davis and Paul Hazelden and to spend a few days developing links with a church in Spinetta.

After an exhausting drive for van and driver, the team arrived in Vienna on Friday evening, and the following morning met up with a team of 14 Americans including Paul Adams, a staff evangelist with OAC USA, who had travelled to Vienna for the outreach.

The domestic arrangements were not ideal, as the Americans were staying in the YMCA, Rob and Paul (being most allergic to cats) were put up by Björn Korf, a friend of Stefan's, while the rest of the Snowball team stayed (with the cats) in the flat of Al Nucciarone, the pastor of the church in Vienna which Stefan attends. The catering was at the Vienna Christian School and several other locations, including the back of the van.

From Sunday evening, the team mostly worked in two groups, presenting drama, puppet and sketchboard messages for adults and children in Vienna, Baden and just over the border in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

The trip to Bratislava on Thursday was memorable for its ceramics exhibition, losing several team members, a slight altercation involving Slovakian border guards and several puppets, one of the two vans breaking down, an overly optimistic timetable, and a successful open-air meeting featuring large and attentive crowds, where contact was made with local Christians wanting to be involved in the future.

Thursday was also the start of the Danube Island Festival, an annual four-day festival attracting over two million young people, so the rest of the time was spent at a pitch in the children's area, presenting a programme of music, drama and sketchboard messages. Many people stopped to listen, talk and arrange future contact. Several people made commitments.

Sunday included a trip to Katka and Elena's home church in Modra, Slovakia, where they were keen to demonstrate puppetry skills learnt during the Snowball course, which were well-received.

On Sunday evening, Mark, Rob, Paul and the van departed, leaving the American team to make their way to Avignon via Paris on the day of the strike by French air-traffic controllers...