So we have been in the city of Sluknov, Czech Republic for about 2 weeks now. It is the northern most part of the country and is only about 2km from Germany and 15km from Poland. The weather is cooler than normal this year but is a nice break from Haiti and the DR and also a nice break before we to Africa in November. We are working with a few different things this month. The guys, Jeremy and I, are staying at a place called Teen Challenge. It is a place for people men who have addiction problems and the people here help solve those with Love and God. The guys here are pretty awesome. We can’t really talk to them, but the ones who speak very little English always make a point to say Hi or whatever they can. We have our own room and bunk beds. We have couple Davids that live here that speak English. David #1 speaks great English and is a great guy. He just had a baby about 3 weeks ago. We get along great. He is the same age as I am and we have a lot of similarities. He once was client/student here at teen challenge. He has since left and come back to work with them full time. He has been a HUGE helping factor this month. David #2 works here and speaks some English and is hungry to learn more. We try to talk to him whenever we can so he can get better. We use Google Translate A LOT to help the conversation out. lol The center is in a nice beautiful field and is out of the city by a 5 minute bus ride. The girls are staying at a flat(VERY small studio apartment) in town. Since the center is for guys they are equipped for women. So there are 4 women in a 15x15ft room. They make it work. The bad thing is that it is about a 30 minute walk from where we are or we can take the bus but that costs money and can be a pain to find out when it comes. So it has be a little more difficult than normal to do our family stuff such as feedback and meals. We eat at the center as much as possible while the girls fend for themselves. Which I’m sure most of them prefer.
The ministries here are different too. The past 2 weeks we have been talking at the local schools in English classes. So we would go in and show a quick slideshow of Haiti and talk to them about it in VERY simple terms. Then we would ask questions to see if they were in fact paying attention. They did great! Then we broke off into smaller groups and did conversational time. Just very simple and easy things. Such as age, brothers or sisters, hobbies, if they liked to travel etc. That has ended and now this week we are going to Varnsdorf to work with the church there and a rap team from Indiana to go out in the streets and spread the word. We are going to have happenings and try to draw attention this week to invite them to the things that are going on in the evening. This is going to be a GREAT week. The team from Indiana has such a fire to them since they are only here for one week! We can use that to propel us into that realm too. We have the same fire, but we have to kind of dial it back since we are out doing this for 11 months and since we have had a weird off month. So we NEED THIS!! Thank you Jesus for knowing that and setting it up! http://nocomment.acvarnsdorf.cz/ you can get it translated if you use Google Chrome web browser and when you do the translation isn’t perfect so when the sentences don’t make sense you know why.
We have also been going to a couple youth things. One is called Kidsquest and is what we will be working with the last week of September. They have more younger kids and are awesome! They love to interact and the leaders have God number 1 in their lives which will pour over into the children. We have only been twice so far but both have been great! I can’t wait til we get to work with them more in depth. The other is the youth at the church in Varnsdorf. Which there are a couple that speak English which is great. It is such a great thing when you walk in and worship with people from across the world and they are JUST as passionate about God as you are! I’m not saying that to say there isn’t people like that, but I know when I thought about traveling around the world doing this, I didn’t expect to come across that. That’s what I get for having expectations! And in this case it was good because it was WAY better than I had ever imagined!
I think that is it for now. The last 2 weeks are going to crazy busy but good cause the first couple weren’t as planned out which makes things somewhat difficult cause we aren’t able to get into a grove. But it wasn’t bad! Just different than what we had dealt with before.
Also I was going to do a picture blog BUT the internet isn’t allowing me to load the photos on here…so here is my flickr set for the Czech. Many of the pictures are from the all nighter in Prague.
Let me know what you think!
Thanks!
lovelove
and here is a small video from the all nighter that we had in Prague. I had a video telling all about it, BUT it magically got lost in the transfer from the memory card to computer! NOT HAPPY! So I am trying to muster up the strength to make another one, but I can’t seem to since it won’t be as epic since it won’t be IN the actual place the all nighter occurred. Oh well. Hope you enjoy this!
