Sheppersons in Slovakia

It’s that time again. . . JV Kids’ Camp! One of the most anticipated events of the year: 26 American Kids, 15 staff, American food, games and the Sea. New for us this year is that Gwyneth is now old enough to attend. We are nervous to say the least. However, we have given our fears to the Lord and ask for His Peace and wisdom in our decision for them to attend. We believe He has given us that Peace and so Wednesday August 20th they will leave Slovakia in a van with their fellow TCKs (Third Culture Kids) and head to the sea in Zadar, Croatia. They are so excited about this. Please mark your calendar and help us pray for their time there:

• safety and protection- especially as they travel (it’s 14 hours away) and are in the water
• Gwyneth- at 8 she seems so young to be leaving home to go so far away and so long, please pray for peace for her during her first time away from home (and continued peace for me:)
• teaching and instruction- this year’s teaching will be about the Holy Spirit. We are praying for the Lord to really speak to them and teach them new things about Himself to deepen their relationship with Him.

• staff- that God will speak through them in every situation (big or small) giving them wisdom and discernment to be great leaders, teachers, models, friends and care-takers for this week.

Zac and the Kompas staff will be traveling to America in the fall to attend both the National Youth Leaders’ Conference and our mission’s (Josiah Venture) capital campaign in Atlanta. We are praying for the possibility that the whole family can join him on this trip. We believe it would be a great opportunity for the kids to connect with family (Kim and the kids would visit family while Zac is attending his conferences) and be apart of the capital campaign in Atlanta as a family. The itinerary isn’t final at this point, but the trip could be up to 4 weeks for Zac. This is a long time to be without him.

We have tentatively postponed our summer family vacation, to put that money towards the expense of going to America. This doesn’t begin to put a dent in actual price for all of us to fly to America (tickets currently are around $1100 each), and so we are asking God to provide the rest. We believe it would be a great “unscheduled” visit for everyone, especially the kids, who are always asking for a trip to see grandparents and cousins! We are praying this trip will work out!

Starting this school year, Emili (and I) will be homeschooling! We made this decision after God made this plan very clear to us. It came as a big surprise and shock to us all (and not without resistance either). But you know that feeling you get when you know God is showing you something, and although that something may seem really scaring or threatening (or overwhelming), or something you would never consider doing on your own, but because you know it’s God’s plan, you have complete peace about it (please excuse the terrible run-on sentence)??? That is where we are now. God continues to give us little confirmations about this decision so that now we are at the place of excitement. We are excited to see what God has in store for Emili this next school year.

Please please can you pray for this situation:

• for getting the right curriculum- it’s already so late. I still need to choose curriculum. There are so many choices out there.
• getting paper work done to make it official- I don’t even know where to start
• activities for Emili outside of home that will keep her engaged with friends and Slovak language
• understanding for Gwyneth (who wants to be home schooled too)
• expenses- the one thing I have learned already is that it’s not the cheaper route (home schooling). It is expensive. One curriculum that was recommended to me is $850! Plus I have to get it to Slovakia, fast!

Thank you for all your prayers about our housing. We are so excited to report to everyone, we have found a house to rent. It is in the city, which we are really excited about. In fact, it is very close to the house we first rented when we orginially moved to Slovakia. Like that one, it is an older house. However this one is completely renovated in the inside. It has a large garden (back yard) a winter garden (sun room) and a terrace on the second floor. It has everything we prayed it would have! Everyone is excited about the move now!
We move in 2 weeks! It is sooner than we wanted, but the new owner couldn’t wait any longer to rent it. We desperately need prayer! This is the busiest time for us. In the next 2 weeks:

• The girls both have end of year tests.
• We have 3 more birthdays to celebrate (Kim, Samuel Green and Gwyneth)
• Summer English Camps begin next weekend!

In addition to the things we have to do, we are all fighting off sicknesses:

• pink eye- IN the last 3 weeks everyone has gotten it, and now it has seemed to start it’s second round
• Hampton Grey has has a series of other sicknesses going on: stomach virus, cough and now his eye again!

Please remember to pray for us during these difficult but exciting days. Even as I sit down to write this post, I am thinking of all the “lists” in my head of things I need to be doing instead.

However, I know that this huge task can not get done on my own strength (no matter how well I organize). My strength has to come from God. I rely on His Spirit to keep me calm and efficient as I work through this stressful time. Thank you in advance for your prayers!
There are lots more photos posted in the gallery, here.

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:

• for the Lord to fill her with his Spirit and speak to her (and be her moral compass)
• for protection: physical, spiritual, mental
• for a connection with her classmates, and a sense of acceptance
• that she will be bold and speak about her faith

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.

Beginning this Thursday evening (April 3, 2008) youth leaders from all over the country will arrive to Zilina for the annual youth leaders conference. Last year a record 600 people attended this event. TCK (Trening Centre Kompas) hosts this event every year and you can imagine how much work goes into this. In fact, the planning for the future year’s conference begins before the previous year’s is even over!

Now, it is less than 2 days away and everyone here at TCK are working frantically to put the final pieces together. Can you please take a few minutes now and pray for this event?

• speakers- God will give them the thoughts and words He has for them to speak
• attendees- God will bring and prepare those who will attend for the message they will hear
• Zac’s involvement:

• He will be speaking at one of the main sessions (Friday evening),

• He is in charge of the “contemplative walk” through the city (Kaplunka), that takes place Friday-Sunday (7 different times)

• programing for the skits (for the main sessions)

Check out the website for KPM, it’s all in Slovak, but I think you can still get the idea! This year’s theme is “Our identity in Christ”.

On Friday I met with our landlord, Martina. She is a beautiful young woman whom I would call “friend” before I would call her “landlord”. Nevertheless, she also happens to be our landlord and a rather good one at that! Many of you may remember the shock we received about this time last year when we were looking to move (change locations) in an effort to lower our monthly rent. After hearing our decision, she immediately responded by telling us she was willing to lower our rent if that would enable us to stay in her house! So it has been with great joy that we have continued to live here in her house.

Our visit on Friday was hard for both of us. She had the incredibly hard task of telling me that it is time for us to move out of her house. Her “in-laws” desire to live here and she feels that she can not say no to them. Of course we understand this decision completely. And although saddened by the thought of moving (again), Zac and I both are excited about the future possibilities. We are both convinced this is God’s moving. So we can only be excited about that. We really can’t even imagine what that (God’s moving) will look like. Especially in the midst of the weakest dollar value ever (just when we thought it couldn’t go any lower)! However, we still remain excited, believing He is in control and most of all OPEN to what ever He may bring for us.

As for a time-frame, she has not given us a deadline to be out. With that said however, as soon as we find something, they will move in. So in essence it’s “effective immediately” Please help us pray. We need God’s direction and wisdom and provision.

Recently Zac has misplaced (lost) his keys. We thought they would “show up” somewhere, but it’s been more than 2 weeks now, and no keys.

We’ve retraced our steps since the last time he had them, gone back to stores and places we’d been and still no keys. Then yesterday i heard a funny story from NPR’s Car Talk, maybe you heard it too. It was about a woman who lost her keys and the Saab dealership wanted $2000 to reprogram her car’s computer and issue a new set of keys. She was calling the guys on Car Talk to see if there was any other way, less costly, to get her car reprogrammed. Upon their recommendation, she took the car to an independent mechanic and he was willing to do the work for only $600. However, not having $600 either she had to leave the car parked for several weeks and went on a city wide search for her keys. According to the story, she had the entire town looking for her keys. She told them that her mother was even praying that she would find them (they got a big laugh out of that).

Then one day the DMV called her. She was afraid it was about her car being parked and abandoned for so long. Instead, they were calling to say that someone had turned in a set of Saab keys to them and they wondered if she would like to try them! Of course the story is that they were indeed her keys and although it was evident that neither guys or the girl believed in prayer for themselves, it was called a “miracle” that the keys were found.
Hmm? praying for keys? Are somethings insignifcant to God? does He care if we loose our keys? Is that something we can really pray for? I believe that nothing is too small or insignificant to Him and i think this story had to remind me of that. So I’m praying now, that we can find his keys. Can you help me?

I thought I would condense all of the various prayer requests that we mentioned in this month’s posts:

• Emili’s English lessons (for her and for me)
• Leaders’ Training School (they will be meeting again this weekend)
• Decko- that God will use this program to bring people of Zilina to himself
• Church Youth Group, and Zac’s role in it
• Mato
• Our “team” and learning to work together as a team

In January of this past year I told the story of how God seemed to be calling out the young man from our city named Mato. (If you need to be refreshed about the earlier story details, you can click this link and find the original story - Mato story)

As God shows us more pieces of his plan for Mato, I want to share them with you who are praying for the movement of God here in Slovakia. The latest detail is that Mato is one of the new students in our training school for youth leaders! He is one of 15 students who will participate in the 9 month intensive course this year.
To me this is an wonderful testimony of God’s activity here among us from day to day. Activity that might start from something as simple as a prompting from what seems like our own thoughts (but is in fact the Holy Spirit) to move in the direction of a person or a need.

Help me pray for Mato that God will give him strength, wisdom and willingness to continue to walk into what God has planned for him.