The Coolest Halloween Party EVER

Halloween Party of 2007; night of the mummy click here to view pictures

What a night! We had such a great time that I wanted to post these pictures IMMEDIATELY for you all to enjoy while you're in the "Halloween Spirit," so to say. This year I planned the party with several goals in mind: include a variety of ages, include the parents, give them lots of candy, encourage them to watch out for each other, and give them a really great haunted house. Amazingly enough, I feel like everyone enjoyed themselves to the fullest. You can get a feeling for our events as you look at the pictures and read the captions. The key to this party turned out to be their small groups. I split them into groups, not by ages, but by bunches. Everyone got a character on their back and their found their group by figuring out what they were. By some act of God, these groups made the whole evening flow and brought the age groups together, since they were mixed up pretty evenly, as they watched out for one another. Everyone respected one another and stayed past the end. The most remarkable thing for me, though, were my helpers. I had 9 helpers and I needed each one of them. They really came through for me, scaring the kids, helping the kids, handing out candy, and cleaning up before they left. I couldn't have done it without them. So I think I will go get some sleep, and I hope you enjoy the pictures. I will remember this night for a long time, and I think they will, too.

 

Happy Halloween:)

The building of our church

This Sunday we celebrated 70 years since the dedication of this church building. We had a special service with guest speakers and special music featuring the new organ bought after several years of fundraising in this church and investments made by many individuals in the US. I think there are many times that I take this building for granted.

We have a beautiful church which reflects the hard work done by the congregation members over the last 70 years and the other congregations that have helped it along the way. Would you believe that the congregation was saving money for a church building of their own for forty four years before they finally bought a piece of land, and then it took them twenty years before they were actually able to build the church. Talk about persistence and faith. Well, that’s this church for you.
I was also amazed to discover the story of our beautiful rooms upstairs that I use for my English Classes. Before the sanctuary had a heating system installed in the late 1990’s, the congregation met upstairs in these heated rooms during the winter, but even then the rooms were very bare and not suitable for children, so the Sunday School classes met in the manse. These rooms were remodeled with financial support from Faith Church in Minnesota in the spring of 2002. Our congregation members did a lot of the manual labor creating a pipe line for water to the Kitchen and improving the floors. The original idea for their gift was to provide us with a wonderful kitchen and room for Sunday School and Tea Time after worship. A few years later it served as an area for snacks for our first English camp, paving the way for our classes and everything that we offer to the community and congregation to follow four years and more down the road. It’s amazing how one thing leads to another.

The mature Youth of our church

Two weekends ago I dove into language immersion as I attended the annual National Youth Conference for our church. I’ve been to many youth gatherings in the US, so I thought I would know what to expect, especially looking at the program. But of course, many things about the weekend struck me as strange. It must be understood that the great number of people attending were 17-24 years old and either attending with several youth from their church or on their own. I hardly ever saw a group accompanied by their pastor. Many of their pastors were there, but they had other responsibilities, one of which was not babysitting their youth. I met some younger students who were 15 or 16, but they were usually accompanied by older siblings or fellow youth group members who could watch out for them. So this immediately caused some interesting developments. Much of the subject matter seemed very mature. Of the three seminars we attended, two were lectures not unlike a normal upper level 60-90 min college class without too many visual demonstrations or concrete concepts. The third involved us in an art project, which turned out to be an all day event and we came back after each meal to finish the project(seen in the photo-I don't know if you can tell that we're describing the scene where the adulterous woman is brought before Jesus to be stoned and he just draws in the sand), it was very intense I might add. There were many sports activities that you could attend like basketball, football(soccer), and petenque or you could also hang out and play board games in the tea tent(I thought this was the coolest thing ever). Anyway, another thing that was strange was that many of the presenters and musicians were over 50 years old. I love these guys, I know many of them on a personal level. They are phenomenal and legendary in our church. However, they’re not even close to the age of these kids. I think there were two events that I went to that were overwhelmingly received as incredible by the audience. No.1 was a “talk show” provided by some young guys 25-27. This looked familiar. They were funny, in a young but educated way. They used bad language, talked in a kind of flamboyant manor, and above all, just acted plain ridiculously on stage. At the same time they addressed many issues in our church and related to the culture of these youth. The audience loved it. The second was an hour long sermon on Communication using the Gospel of Pooh. No one thought of it as a “kid’s lecture,” in fact it had the opposite reaction joining their childhood memories with their adult faith. I really felt like the whole weekend was more geared toward Young Adults in the way that the youth were treated and the activities were planned. Maybe it's just because many of our youth have a more serious or mature outlook on life. In the end I really enjoyed myself, despite the half mile walks between each event, and I was amazed at how much I understood language wise.

Ice Cream Party

Ice Cream Party click here to view

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. It’s been raining so much lately that it’s easy to forget the amazing weather we had last weekend for the Ice Cream Party. Amazingly enough the temperature was just warm enough for us to enjoy the delicious ice cream. Fifty parents and children came to our kick-off Party to find out the results of my scheduling enigma. First they picked up a cup full of ice cream and then they tried their hand at our selection of games. After we had had enough of the ice cream (many people took seconds and even thirds), we came inside the sanctuary for a slide show and announcements concerning how the classes would be split and upcoming parties, like the Halloween Party. While they were playing games they got tickets with numbers for a drawing for prizes that we had during the slideshow. I was very pleased with the number of kids who came and I think it turned out to be a wonderful way to start off the week.
The classes this week went very well. I met some new students and saw some past students again for a second time. I was a little nervous about this week because I am teaching most of the classes without a helper. After teaching, however, I found that this enables me to speak more with the children, because they have to listen to me. I realized how some of the children are afraid to speak to me because they feel uncomfortable about their English. Instead of a helper speaking to them in Czech, they now get help with crafts and games in English first and from me. So I think this will be a better learning experience for them and a better relationship builder. I’m very pleased with the first week of classes and I’m looking forward to next week. (Ještě něco)

First day of English classes

 

Today turned out to be quite a rainy day, but as far as my classes were concerned, it seemed pretty joyful to me. I packed my schedule pretty tightly for Tuesdays and Thursdays, with four classes on each day with only 15 minutes in between. On Wednesdays I'll have two classes, and on Fridays I'll have youth group and sometimes a special activity. I was pretty nervous about how this first day would go, but 15 min turned out to be just the right amount of time, and I'm pretty grateful for the answered prayers in the last few days. I hope your rainy days turn out to be joyful in your neck of the woods. I feel pretty refreshed after this first day of classes, and I'm itching for the next one.

Free Ice Cream?

It really has been fun starting in Policka again. I really like my new flat and I like living in the middle of town. I have to walk to and from the church at least twice a day if I go home for lunch and it’s good for my health and allows me to see people and feel like I’m a part of the community. I’m speaking Czech more easily and I think it’s all because I feel like I have more self-confidence.
We’ll be starting the year off with an Ice Cream Party, which sounds kind of like Ice Party in Czech, which is kind of funny since the weather is already pretty cold here. Many people don’t know what to expect since it’s not something they commonly do. In fact they don’t sell ice at the grocery store and no one has an ice cream maker or even a cooler to keep the ice cream cold. So I was going to have to buy ice cream in the store, which can get pretty expensive if you want quality ice cream to offer to guests. I was starting to regret the idea, because I kept seeing all of these obstacles and everything seemed so crazy. Then out of the blue, one of our parents offered to give us the left over ice cream they have from their ice cream stand. The weather got cold so early that they had a lot of ice cream left over, and it would just go to waste otherwise. I thought they would ask for some payment, but instead they are just giving it to us! I couldn’t believe my ears. What a blessing! If the forecasters are remotely close, we should have a nice warm day on Sunday before the party. I’m praying that we have good warm weather so that the Ice Cream seems appropriate. So if some people will just turn up before the party to help me, then everything will be spectacular! Ještě něco(a little something more)

On for another year!

I finished up my week in the US with many appointments. I visited with the people of the First Presbyterian Church in Tonkawa on my last Sunday. I've been corresponding with them and they've been supporting us as well. Again I felt this connection as I saw the smiling faces of people I had only known by name. I visited some friends and even talked to people in my church about my desire to go to seminary when I return to the US and the steps that lay before me in the next year. During my stay at home, many of you have asked "So what are your plans after this next year in Policka, a third year in Czech?" I really feel like I will move on to something else after this year. I think one thing God has been teaching me as I work with so many volunteers is to know when to let someone else take over. I'm really hoping that there will be someone else to take over for me in the fall of 2008. If you know of anyone who would be interested, please put them in touch with me ASAP, because we need to start some interview processes this fall. I was trying to spread the word around in Cimarron Presbytery, and I even went to talk to the University Student group in Stillwater to let them know about our work and the ways that they could be involved. In fact if you are reading this and you find yourself saying, "Hmm...I think it would be fun to teach at the English Camp for a week next summer, or maybe even a year," shoot me an email and I can tell you more about it.
!
Last Thursday I got back on the plane to come back accross the ocean. I had a long layover in London and went out on the town. Since by that time it was Friday, I strolled past the Markets of Portabello Road. I was sorry that my hands were already full and I couldn't take back any produce. Then I went on a little excursion to see the Templar Chapel they describe in DaVinci Code.The whole area surrounding it was quite beautiful and intriguing. So the Tube was my friend for the day, making it possible for me to see so much. I came to Prague pretty exhausted,
but at the same time exhilarated to be back in the Czech Republic. Since I've been back, I've been Mushroom Picking, moving into my new flat, and doing odds and ends work getting ready for another year of classes. WOW, I feel so refreshed that all of the anomalies and mishaps(like loosing my luggage, forgetting my adapter for US to CZ plug, hearing that my Dukester(cute little grey schnauzer) passed away back in Ponca, getting locked out of my Apartment because I was working late and they use a dead bolt at night) haven't gotten me down one bit. In fact I find myself smiling disaster right back in the face. I feel like my old self again, with insurmountable optimism.