Last Tuesday we spent most of the day at Matthausen outside of Linz.  Matthausen was one of the many labor camps set up by the Nazi's during WWII.

  Of the 190,000 people there, around 100,000 died, so though not an official extermination camp like Auschwitz, there were certainly plenty of people who lost their lives.  This camp housed political prisoners, and social outcasts which included Gypsies, Jehovah's witnesses, priests, and of course Jews.

    This is the "welcoming station":

 

  Here are the barracks...you can't imagine how pitiful the conditions were inside...beds were very small and very crowded

  As we walked through this entire area, we all felt sick to our stomachs

 

       This is the chemical used in the gasing process...it turned blue when mixed with water

  here is the gasing chamber

 

   It was very hard to stand there and imagine the thousands of people who had lost their lives right there...men, women, and children

 

 They had a museum which included many pictures drawn by prisoners who some how managed to smuggle in paper, then hide them in the walls where they were later found....very, very moving

  

   Outside, every country has a memorial to those who died in the camp...there were people interned there from maybe 20 different nationalities including two Americans. 

   The Jewish memorial...

 

  The Jews leave rocks as a token of respect

     British memorial:

 

    Soviet memorial:

 perhaps the most moving was the wall of remembrance put up by the Italians with pictures of real men and women who died and dates of their birth and death...so many were so young, 15, 16 year old boys...

  It was a very emotionally draining day.  We all agreed that, though thankful for the experience, it was certainly our most trying day.  The question always is, how is one to understand such extreme brutality and cruelty?? 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

  Yesterday was a very action packed day.  Several of us had been wanting to rent bikes and ride around the city.  The weather was great, so Maggie and Steven and Josh and I decided to go ahead and make a day of it.  We rode down the river into the country.  On the way back we decided to go up this hilly area to get a good view.  The way up was hard, but coming down was a breeze...too much of a breeze in fact.  It seems that Maggie's breaks weren't working too well.  We heard her screaming and she came flying down, ran into the back of my bike, flew over her bike onto the gravel with the bike landing on top of her, only a foot away from the tire of a car that was coming up the narrow alley way.  I turned around to see blood all over her and thinking she had probably busted her head open.  Thankfully, she had big gash in her chin instead.  The man in the car was very nice, stopped, and offered to take Maggie to a hospital.  Incredibly, the accident occured just minutes from a hospital.  Josh and I walked the bikes down the hill and as we went, I began to reflect on God's sovereignty and His purpose for every situation. 
  When we got to the hospital Maggie was doing great...actually smiling...she is very brave!  WE began discussing all the amazing fact that Maggie was not hurt worse - she could have been run over, could have broken bones, could have smashed her head, could have been knocked out.  Another miraculous thing was the basket on her bike....it obviously absorbed a lot of the force...it was totally smushed...and amazingly, she was the only one with a basket on the front of her bike.  In reality, the more I thought about it, her being alive was a miracle. 
   Maggie made the comment that as she was flying down she saw the car and thought to herself, I'm a good person, I'll be o.k. if I die. 
   I knew right then that this was clearly and incredible opportunity to share the gospel.  But I didn't know what to say, how to be gracious and speak the truth lovingly.  I made several comments about the providence of God, but just continued to have a burden to say something more directly. 
  After several hours, Maggie came out with stitches in her knee and her chin.
   We all headed out to the closest bus station.  The guys loaded the bikes on the bus, and we girls went to get at the middle door, but somehow it wouldn't open and it left without us.  As we sat down to wait 15 minutes, I felt the Lord saying that this was a providental opportunity...amazing!
  So I was able to sit there and tell her that I believed the Lord spared her life and spared her for a purpose.  That being good is not enough....perfection is required, but that there is one who was perfect and died to take our place.  My words were weak, but the power of God's truth is strong.
   Please pray for maggie and her boyfriend Steven.  Please pray for her recovery...it appears that several teeth are broken from her clamping down on her chin.  But most importantly, pray that the Lord will use this incident to save them both and will show me if there is anything else I can say or do.