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.