Learning to speak Czech!

Ahoj, Jak se maš? (the j ispronouncedd "y" the š "sh") And it means "Hi, How are you?" This is one of the many Czech phrases I have been studying. So far I have found it to be fun and exciting but also quite challenging. I try to spend time each day studying Czech, but I really don't have as much time as I would like. I hit the books hard on the weekend though. I have a lesson at 9:45 on Friday. I spend most of my afternoon studying what we went over in my lesson. Since I can only meet with my tutor Zora once a week she gives me tons of homework. (I would like to meet more often, but she is busy and has a baby) She says that I am doing really well, even though sometimes I don't feel like I am. The picture here is when I spent all day Saturday, well from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, studying Czech. Believe it or not I had a blast, and the only reason I stopped at four was because we had a missionary team activity and dinner. I really count it a blessing and a gift from God that I enjoy learning Czech so much. Everybody says my pronunciation is great! I think it comes from growing up in Africa and learning to pick up their accent. I believe God has given me a gift to learn language, or at least the gift of wanting to learn and enjoying the process. When I realized how much I was enjoying studying Czech it helped reaffirm my call into missions. I truly believe that God has blessed me with a desire to learn and speak the language of the people and that is not by accident!

Prayer Requests 2/24

Things to pray for

1. That God may grant me wisdom as I lead this Bible study with Pavel. (the students mentioned below).
2. For Pavel, he is going through some tough times
3. That God will continue to give me opportunities to share His love with my students. And that I would be able to build stronger relationships with them.
4. That God will continue to bless the relationships that I am building with the teens, especially Peter and Martin
5. That God will bless my time studying Czech and that my willingness to learn their language will be a testimony to the Czech people
6. For Majak leadership, there are many decisions that need to be made. May God grant them wisdom in making the right decisions.
7. The team from SWU will fly in next friday. Pray for safety as they travel and for their time here.
8. That I will keep my relationship with God my first priority, and that I will grow and learn from this experience.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. Your prayers make all the difference for my time here in Czech. Thank you for the encouraging messages that you have given me. They always brighten my day and put a smile on my face.

English Classes

Wow I didn't know teaching English would be this fun! Classes started on February 6th and run until April 10th with an end of semester party on Aprril 14th. I have really enjoyed teaching so far. It has been a stretching and rewarding experience for me(the preparation part being especially stretching, ha ha just kidding, well sort of).

Here is what my schedule looks like.

Mon 6:00-8:00 Level 6.5 (converstaion class)
with eleven students

Tues & Thurs 4:00-5:30 level 4.5
with four students

Wed 3:00-3:45 kids class ages 7-12
with nine kids

(If you want to pray for me during those specific times remeber that I am six hours ahead of you. For instance, my six o'clock class on Monday would be 12:00 for you.)

I want to thank you for all your prayers. God is already doing some amazing things in my classes. In my first class one of my students asked me if I was currently leading any English Bible studies. I told him that I wasn't, but I am now! While I was thinking to myself, "Whoa, God, that was too easy. What's going on here?" We started meeting Wed this week at 5:00 and will meet at 6:00 from now on. I will give you all the details of this story in my upcoming newsletter because I wnant to make sure everyone hears the story.

The first day in my other class, I had a list of questions on the board that we asked each other. This activity gave them a chance to practice speaking while giving me the oportunity to get a feel for their level of English. It also was a get-to-know you kind of thing. One of the questions was, "What countries have you been too?" When I gave a long list of African countries they wanted to know why. So I got to tell them that my parents were missionaries there and share a little about what that meant. When I told them I was a student they also wanted to know what I was studying. So once again God opened up the oportunity to share with them about what I was studying and why. I can only acount all these opportunites and more to your faithful prayers. Thanks so much I couldn't do it with out you all. Look for an updated prayer list soon.

Czech out my cool new links!

If you look over on the sidebar of my blog you will find my links. They are right under my profile and are labeled "links" so you can't miss 'em. This is the first time I have used a blog so I am still finding things out about it. I just added these a few days ago and wanted to make sure you all knew about them.

The first link is the Majak home page. You can go there to find out a little more about what Majak is all about. Sorry it hasn't been updated in a few years, but it should still be interesting for you. Oh, and don't be intimidated most of the home page is in Czech, but the rest of the site should be in English. If it isn't there should be a little American flag in the corner that says English, just click on that.

The next one is just an interesting site I found about Czech. There is all kinds of info on the history, culture, and more. Just in case you wanted to know a little more about Czech. There are also lots of good pictures of Czech on this site.

The third one is the official site of the city of Brno. It has all kinds of information about the city, historical information, historical sites, famous people, and present day. It also has picture gallaries of the city if you want to see pictures of Brno too.

The fourth one is a Czech newspaper in English in case you are interested in finding out what is going on in Czech.

The last one is thehungersite.com. I usually have this set as my home page. On it there is a link to click that takes you to a page of sponsors. Every time someone goes to that link the sponsors will donate money to the organization. It is free and easy for you. You won't start getting junk mail or anything like that either so just take a look at it. If you are unsure you can go to the site and find out more information about how it works.

I hope to be adding a new link soon. It will be a link to a photo album. I will still post pictures on my blog, but I hope to have a site you can go to in order to see more of my pictures. So be on the lookout for that in the next week or so.

Touchdown!

If you can't tell that's me on the on the ground (in the endzone) with the football in my hands! O.K. I admit it probably wasn't fair to have the two Americans on the same team when we're playing American football. But we all had fun anyway.

Is there a flag on the play?

We need to teach these guys a few rules! like passing interference.
Actually it's more fun when anything goes!

Snow, snow and well... more snow

Wow! I have never seen (or shoveled) so much snow in my entire life. The first day that I got here they told me that it had warmed up for me and that it might get above freezing sometime during the day! That's not what I call warming up. Especially for this South Carolina boy! Almost every time I call home it has been the same thing "It's a really nice day here it got up to about 70 today. " While I am saying "Well it is snowing again, they say it might get above freezing later on this week."

I'm getting used to it though. A lot of the time you are walking over a couple of inches of hard packed snow/ice. I have learned to do the kind of shuffle walking technique that the Czech people have perfected. It's actually kind of fun sometimes! I think I have unofficially become the new Majak snow shoveler. I stopped counting how many times that I had shoveled the parking lot and sidewalk when I got to three in just one day. Well I shoveled the parking lot once and the sidewalks three times, but you get the idea.

Last Saturday the snow turned out to be a great activity for the youth group. We spent a couple of hours out in the snow. It was tons of fun! All the missionary families came and brought there kids too. We played games and had snow ball fights and just played around in the snow. We took a few breaks and came in and warmed up with hot chocolate and coffee in the coffee shop. My favorite part was playing tackle football in snow that was more than a foot deep (Pictured above). It made it hard to run, but that was half the fun. The other half was that some of them don't know all the rules and they try to do things like throw the ball on a kick off return, tackle receivers way before the ball is even thrown, or set picks for the other receiver. We let most of those things slide and it made it all the more fun!

I am really enjoying getting to know the kids in the youth group and the ones that come to the coffee shop regularly. About half the kids in the youth group aren't Christians. That means that not only do I have the opportunity to disciple some of the new Christian guys, but I can help them bring their friends to Christ! What an exciting opportunity. God is really working in miraculous ways.

Coffee anyone?

One of the first things I was introduced to here at Majak was their coffee shop. It's really neat ministry. It is open every day, except Sunday, from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. They serve coffee, tea, hot chocolate, candy, chips, sodas and lots more. It is all non-profit so people are often surprised at how cheap everything is. They have a DVD player with a projector, a CD player, games, and a nice lounge area. They also have an adjacent game room with ping pong, foosball, and darts. It is a great place to hangout, relax and have some coffee. It seems pretty popular too. Since I have been here we have averaged about ten or twelve teens in the evening. There have been up to about eighteen at one time. This is during the middle of winter with some pretty snowy days so there will be even more when it gets warmer and people get out more. So it is a great place for me to meet Czech teens and to hopefully build some meaningful relationships.

I worked the coffee shop last Thursday and then again on Saturday. I am already beginning to build some significant relationships. I met Peter the first night I was here, but really started to get to know him Thursday and Saturday. He has been coming to Majak for five years pretty regularly. He became a Christian just this past summer! He speaks English, which is a plus for me. He really seems hungry to learn and to grow, and he is a just great guy. I hope that I can really invest in his life while I am here. I also met his friend Martin on Thursday. He is a fairly new Christian too. We hit it off really well, and I hope that our friendship continues to develop. I really am excited about being a part of these guys lives over the next months. I have met others too, but these are the ones that really stuck out and I think will be good relationships to invest in. I am so excited about the relationships that I am building and am looking forward to meeting even more people.