week dva

we've been here 2 and a half weeks. time is speeding up a bit now. i am learning a lot from the Lord and am thankful that He has brought me here for a second time. tonight i was eating dinner and i saw a woman with a forever 21 bag. i talked to them some, asking first if the spoke english. the bag, however, is from america. it was a little bit of wilmington here in sk. it made me feel more at home. one really cool thing is that i am learning more of the language this time. i think that happens the second time you go somewhere overseas you take more in. i am really loving it this time. the weather is a bit depressing, cold and rainy. thankfully, my mom mailed me a raincoat yesterday. i love receiving mail here - so just know you can send mail whenever you'd like.
for the past week we have been meeting students at medicka - learning about them, what they believe, what they like to do for fun, all kinds of things. most of them are really busy because they are taking exams - these are smart kids. one girl answered the door with a book open saying, "i must learn." they are very studious.
we are studying Jonah - and i am really enjoying it, learning a lot about the soveriegnty of God and what it means to be repentant. we have a lot to learn from Jonah.
this weekend we are going to budapest and then we have a two weeks of high school ministry - then we are going to prague, then vienna - then i'll be back in america! i love it here. keep praying for us as we take steps of faith.

cau

here it is. we have officially been here a week. i have decided to check email and blog only once a week. things here are going great, except for one really rainy and cold day that we had yesterday. we have been on campus for 3 days now at mediska (the medical school) meeting students and asking them questions about spiritual things. most have never heard or thought about what happens after death and therefore have not really considered what life really means. me and the girls in my group; sarah, lindsey, stephanie, ashley, and elizabeth as well as two stinters Stacy and Meg have had the opportunity to meet students and share with them about what we believe and why we traveled over three thousand miles to share that with them. the spiritual climate here is much different than america. most people in america have heard the name of Jesus at one time or another - many are jaded by the church, or have had a bad experience with a Christian and the struggle is getting them to come back - to truth. however, most here have been jaded by communism and there is not a need to get better - because everyone is the same - there is no striving. a better life is almost out of the question - and then we walk into their lives - into their story of what is already going on - and we share with them these things about grace, truth, faith, and Jesus - and it's all very brand new. it takes time. it is definitely a process. we need to pray that long termers will be raised up to live here and walk with these slovaks through life and on the path towards knowing Christ personally. all of which we take so for granted in america.
things here are great, we are living at a hostel pretty close to the main street. we have breakfast and dinner provided at the hotel and then we go to main street to find lunch. i am finding that i really love it here, more and more. i am praying for the Lord to increase my heart for the slovaks so that i will love them out of a genuine heart and have compassion on them to know Christ. this is not of myself, so that i cannot boast. that's the power of grace.
we are studying Jonah and it's really rich. we had our first bible study yesterday and i really learned a lot. last night we went to see the da vinci code and brought slovak students that we have met on campus these first few days with us. we did not have any come from our campus because they are in exams right now - and medical school exams are pretty tough as you might imagine. several other schools had students come and they will be getting into more conversations today about God and what was true in that movie if anything. obviously the movie is fiction and we are not basing anything on it, rather, we are hoping to open up different conversations about truth and things that many people have not even considered.
oh. you'll love this. there is a guy here that is taking massive amounts of pictures. i am pretty sure the total is over 1000 at this point and he has taken the time to put around 300 of those on his website. so enjoy these! :)

what day is it?

We arrived in Slovakia yesterday! It is beautiful! We boarded a plane in Atlanta, GA around 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Sk at 4:30 on Thursday. We flew from Atlanta to Frankfurt to Vienna straight into Kosice. It was a nice trip. We all arrived safe, and only a few bags were spared. All in all there are 46 of us. Our time in Atlanta was good, a brief day and a half of preparing the 36 students for what will come there way. Over and over again I have heard the same thing - what day is it? Changing through time zones can really do harm to your schedule! Mostly for me it has been great to be here so far. We drove in and all I could think about was how beautiful it is. The fountain in downtown Kosice is alive with dancing. Today a bunch of students graduated and there was much public drunkeness on Hlavna (the only time Slovaks are loud in public is when they are drunk). Today we learned about the culture some more and how to be sensitive. We talked a lot about how we are entering their culture and we are not trying to make them conform to ours. One really cool thing that Doug Meyerdirk (the Country director) talked about today is that if something is different from America we should probably think that there is a reason for it instead of criticizing it. I thought that was a really good way to look at it.

Dr.Crawford Lorritts spoke with us at briefing about how going to the world is important work, but there is nothing magical about getting on a plane and going somewhere. He made it very clear that Jesus did not die for Slovakia, or for any country, he died for people. We just have to go to them. I loved that.

There is a fountain that dances in the middle of Hlavna (main street) it is a fountain that people are drawn to, they will go out there and sit for hours, watching it dance to the music in the background. I too, go out there, I take pictures of it, and I try to take it all in, to behold it. Last night as I was praying and journaling, I believe that God gave me this picture - that my prayer for Slovakia is that people would be drawn to Christ just as they are to the fountain. Pray that with me.

Well I only have 4 more minutes left here at the internet cafe, but I wanted to let you know that I am safe and loving it! Pray for us - our days of ministry begin tomorrow, we will begin going to the universities and meeting students in hopes of sharing the most important thing in our lives with them; Christ.

cau.