Gwyneth has been taking folk dance in school this year. They recently had their first performance at the Mother’s Day assembly at school. It was precious. I was so excited for her. She fit the part perfectly. After they performed, they presented each of their mothers with a flower. I was so honored. It made my Mother’s Day very special. (She’s the one in the middle, with the big bow in her hair)!
Somebody said our Israel was like “the Bible in 3D”. This is exactly the way I felt as we traveled from one important sight to the next. Most of the places that I have traveled, there has been a certain excitement about that particular place. Something that I had never seen, or a certain fame about a location or some famous landmark. But I have never traveled to a place where so much of what I ALREADY knew and had studied, synchronize with where I was traveling.
Connected with experiencing the wonder of the country itself was the 4 day global youth trainer’s conference in Jerusalem. 250 youth trainers converged on the city from around the globe. They traveled from unusual places like United Arab Emirates, Mongolia, Zambia and Indonesia and more common places like Brazil, England, South Africa and America. It turned out to be a strategic 4 days. Meeting youth trainers from other contexts was inspiring. Sharing successes and failures in youth training was encouraging. Learning from the Biblical example of Jesus in the Jerusalem theater was priceless!
Here are a few miscellaneous facts I learned. (more…)
Yesterday morning (Monday), our Emili left with her class and 2 other classes from our school, to attend “School in Nature” for the week! It’s a trip every elementary school in Slovakia, looks forward to each year. And it was something this little American family had to get used to! Although we weren’t quite ready to send her off when she was in First grade, she did go as a Second grader. Unfortunately that trip was cut short when she got sick and had to come home only after the first night!
In some ways this year’s trip was harder to send her on than last time (the school didn’t attend last year). Being older brings more complications of being away from parental authority. It was really hard to hand her over for overnight supervision (and for so long) knowing that our values and convictions are very different than most of those attending (and supervising) Despite the reservations, we decided it was important for her to go.
We have soaked her in prayer and have had so many talks with her about situations, what she would do “if”. . .
We continue to pray for her daily that:
I spoke to her once already. She is had a great 1st day. She was a little low and said that the girls “weren’t being very nice” to her. Please help me pray for her this week. She will return home on Friday.
We had great week of refreshment and encouragement at our missionary conference in the Czech Republic. This year’s theme, “Fit for Battle”, could not have been more fitting for our diminishing Slovak team! Soon to be the only 2 missionaries left in Slovakia (us and a single girl in the capital city), we needed the lessons learned about preparing for battle. We left there empowered to fight against the devil’s evil plans to defeat us both personally and our team.
Our kids also had an amazing time, cultivating their much needed American friendships! They attended class, like us, during the morning and evening, with free time in between. They worked diligently every session (including free times) on a performance of Godspell. A very special thanks must go to the team from Christian Youth Theatre who came and worked so hard with our kids.
It was a very full week–Fantastically full! It was hard to leave, no matter how exhausted we were. I’ll get photos posted soon in the gallery. Until i do, check out these great links, here.
I want to give a quick update on our housing situation. We continue to search for a new place to live and explore possibilities for both renting and buying (through a loan). Prices here are crazy expensive. We have found that renting costs around the same as the monthly payment on a loan for the same house. So of course it makes sense to buy if it is at all possible.
Research from several banks here showed that foreiners can easily obtain a loan at the maximum of 70%. However, the remaining 30% is still somewhere around 70,000-100,00 USD (the price alone of some houses in the states)! It seems that there are ways to get that percentage raised to 80 or even 100 depending on your status (how long we have lived here, who we know, a guarantee, etc ). We don’t know exactly how far we should press this. For me, it seems so unattainable, so far out of our reach. We want this to be clearly God’s work if this is the direction He is taking us. We need wisdom and discernment.
Zac is working on the loan possibilities while I continue searching for renting options. Next Tuesday our local paper will run an advertisement about our need. We pray this will bring new possibilities.
Thank you for continuing to pray with us for this. We appreciate all the emails and messages, they are so encouraging during this difficult time. I’ll write again as soon as we know more!
