So as I sit on the internet 1 hour before my train leaves for Yalta, Ukraine, I must quickly fill you in on all you missed this past month. In secret, I was hoping my teammates would crank out a good blog that I could copy, or at least steal pictures from, but alas, they are even bigger procrastinators than myself.
So You Don’t Know Anything About Slovakia?
Thats ok, neither did I. Its only been a country since 1993 when Czechoslovakia divided. Its unheralded claim to fame is that it is at the dead center of Europe. The people speak Slovak, they use both Euros and their own currency. Most of the young people speak some English. The population is fairly homogeneous and everyone is quite fashionable. There is nothing particularly extraordinary or unique about Slovakia, but there also isn’t anything particularly bad. The weather is a little chilly during the winter, its safe to walk the streets by yourself late at night and people are generally friendly.
Nove Zamky?
See us there on the bottom left, to the right of Bratislava (starred)? The town is small and has about 50k. There is one Catholic church, a Baptist church of about 50 people, and our church, Kompas (about 100 people). The church is focused almost exclusively on children and youth ministries, so we spent most of our time prepping/speaking/teaching games at different youth activities. We have bolstered our repertoire of silly kids songs and games and have perfected the art of delivering a funny and memorable introduction.
I had a chance to play plenty of sports (their main sports are hockey, football and handball (like field hockey with hands and a squishy softball). I will be expecting a check in the mail from David Stern (NBA commishoner) for all the plugging I did for basketball here. We spent a lot of our downtime just spending time with students and trying to show them how there is more to God than passively sitting in the back pew at a Catholic church.
God been good and one of the kids I met at a cafeteria accepted Christ last night. There has also been ample seed planting and I know the relationships and conversations will continue to grow thanks to the ability to maintain active relationships through Facebook.
Shout out to Milan, Judy, Vlado, Viki, Noro, Zuzska, Martin & Markus
Our ministry contacts this month were incredibly awesome and I think this month will ultimately go down as one of my favorites. Although the church is relatively small, the core group is on fire for God and I know that it will continue to grow and impact this community. Its difficult for a church to focus on a seemingly financially draining ministry comprised almost exclusively of non-contributing members (children), I know that they are reaping huge rewards in heaven. If anyone wants to try going on a mission trip for at least a month, I would strongly recommend going here. There isn’t much of a language barrier and you would learn a lot from the role models here.
Ahoi Slovakia, прив�-т Ukraine!
