YWAM in Vienna asked me to teach on sexual abuse, as the first stories about sexual abuse started to hit the newspapers, especially as one Wiener-Government Orphanage, after WWII had been renting children out to pedophiles. I had met survivors of early childhood abuse in my ministry in the Netherlands. One of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Canaan Fellowship in Salzburg was present, and he invited me to come to Salzburg. This group was ecumenical open, yet holding to a Roman Catholic signature. My contact developed in such a way that a pastoral team grew who asked me four to five times per year to come to Salzburg to teach them some of my insights in pastoral care and to supervise them. I had developed in the Netherlands three seminars (using each five  Saturdays) to teach interested people about my insight about Helping through Blessing. Looking at what has gone well in their lives, (what has God done?) rather than to be problem-oriented. To bless the body-parts really started to have visible effects.

 

God had taught me already in the late sixties/early seventies to start blessing the brain of people who had a traumatic experience. As I prayed they would relax and could more easily handle harsh memories.

 

As a missionary, I accepted much of the Theological differences with Roman Catholics as cultural expressions. I could live with that, as long as the Lordship of Jesus was central. At the end of one five-day seminar, a priest ended the meetings with a Mass. We talked a little bit before that, and he just asked what I thought about the changing of bread and wine into the “body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.” I shared how I had experienced that in Norway. His reply was: “O, then we believe the same.” He gave me a dress to put on and a role in the Mass. It made such a deep impression on me. I never forget how I received the Body of Christ and drank from the wine, being His blood.  

 

I had been coming to Austria for nearly ten years, and I sensed it was time to move on again. There was a goodbye meeting with friends from all over Austria, who knew me through my seminars. Marlis Resch was a social worker, with a recognized supervisor’s training who had started to help me in the counseling of participants. She invited me to come to see the center where she worked, Emmaus: ‘a place for people on the border of society.’ Her boss suggested that they use my time to give a brief seminar on Helping through Blessing. The meeting place was packed, and some people asked right away if I couldn’t teach more. I shared that I needed to get the agreement of the Bishop. I talked to Bp Klaus Küng, and he told me that he was first a bishop in Vorarlberg but that the Pope had asked him to go to St.Pölten to help to sort out a situation in the priest-seminary, as they had found many unbecoming pictures on the computers that appeared to be pointing to child abuse. He was a gynecologist who became a priest, and he knew about the devastating effects of child abuse. He closed down the seminary and sent all the students back home. I told him about the request ‘to still have one more seminar in his diocese. That I only would do that if he agreed’. He said: “we don’t have people here who have the experience and gifts you have. I fully support your activities here”. Again (like I did in Norway when I was thrown into a conflict in YWAM), I went on my knees before him and said: “in that case, please bless me for this task.” This blessing gave me a new sense of “being under authority.” It also canceled my plans for leaving as the Church recognized authority opened doors to give many seminars in the Roman Catholic Church. The six-year that followed gave me time to get used to minister under the power with a Bishop who knew how to pray, and he was again under authority as well. It became a very satisfying opportunity. I could work as an evangelical pastor in this way in harmony with the R.C. Church. The hospitality of Bishop Küng made that I could start looking at R.C. Theology, without any danger of having to become R.C. myself.