A real Thanksgiving in the Czech Republic

Best Thanksgiving Ever click here to view

Who would believe that you could convince a bunch of families, where both parents work, to fix a hot dish and bring it to the church on a Thursday night along with their whole family, not knowing what to expect except this American Thanksgiving Feast, which they've only heard about in movies. I think the final count of people turned out to be over 70 with a perfect mix of families from the church and the English classes! The miracle of enough chairs and tables appeared while we were setting up the kitchen and Sunday School room. Maybe you can't completely admire the beauty of finding seats for so many to eat a meal upstairs in our church without actually experiencing it. I should probably explain that we thought our limit was around 56, and we reached that when our friends from Minnetonka were here just last September. If you were here and you remember how close we were seated, then maybe you can respect the idea of serving so many people.

I think the beauty lies in the age old thanksgiving tradition of "the Kids' Table." I realized while planning, that "in the spirit of Thanksgiving," we needed a Kid's Table. The balcony turned out to be the perfect place where the kids could have their space and at the same time provide seating and space for all of them. We some how turned the pews to face each other and stuck an old table in between them for the older kids. The younger ones sat around the ping pong table. Some of the kids knew each other, but others didn't. When I went out there to check on them I was amazed at the sight of them playing together and laughing together. They looked like a big group of cousins and friends, stuck playing together while their parents talked, having a good time in spite of their differences.

When everyone arrived, we had plenty of food, and all of it was spectacular! After a short program sharing the meaning of thanksgiving, we did head up stairs and share with our neighbors about the good things in our lives. The adults sat around every other table we had, and we somehow ended up with one big table big enough for all of the food. I know that we always say Thanksgiving is about family and saying thanks, but when you're right in the middle of it, it sure feels like it's all about the FOOD! And, by golly, even this came across! There's just something about sharing food you made with others, and enjoying the food that they brought as well. When everyone feels happy and full, it just brings a certain joy into the room. Maybe you can even see it in these pictures that as the night went on, people had more and more fun, and the room seemed to glow with the feeling of love and merriness in the room(despite the absence of wine and eggnog from this feast). I even felt like we almost had to kick people out at 9pm when they came just before 6pm. What an amazing evening! A Thanksgiving I'll always remember!

Thanksgiving Dinner

It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is around the corner when everything looks like Christmas. Last week it snowed everyday and the stores started putting up decorations as people started their Christmas shopping. In the Czech Republic, Thanksgiving falls around the same time as Halloween and All Saints day. They celebrate by decorating the graves of their loved ones and both Catholic and Protestant churches have special Sunday worships services. It's recognized by many people, but not all people.

In the spirit of the season, we're having a Thanksgiving Dinner this Thursday in the church for families of the English Classes and the congregation. Like a normal American Thanksgiving celebration, many people who are not necessarily related will come together as one family. I think it has a lot of meaning for our two groups, because the people of the church don’t really know the people of the English classes. I feel like there's a kind of parallel between what has been called "the first Thanksgiving in America" when the Pilgrims came together with the Native Americans and our first big dinner between people from the English classes and the church. Not that we're enemies, but we definitely feel like two separate groups of people who use the same place. This will be a time where we can all come together at the same time and get to know one another.

We'll begin the dinner with a short reflection on Thanksgiving and then head upstairs and sit at the tables in groups. We'll have a round of saying what we're thankful for, enjoy the dinner, and then maybe have some games for the kids while the parents sit and chat. Amazingly enough we already have 65 people signed up to come and that's with a commitment to bring something. Wow! It's going to be big. I have some good reliable women helping me with organization and food, and I'm hoping to have some of the youth entertaining the kids after dinner. Please remember us in your prayers this week. My hope is that despite the inevitable flukes that will come, the night will run smoothly and the people will feel at home in this building and with the people around them. I want them to experience that Thanksgiving is really about being with family, whether they're your relatives or just people you enjoy. I know that this feeling also goes along with Christmas, but I think the difference comes in what we do with this feeling. At Christmastime we focus on sharing that feeling of love and acceptance. On Thanksgiving we say thank you, thank you to our friends and family who love us and thank you to the One who created us and brought us all together. Thank you for following this blog and keeping all of us in Policka, CZ in your thoughts and prayers. Happy Thanksgiving! (Ještě něco)

Fantastic Reception

I'm so excited! Yesterday our new band played in the worship service for the first time. They sounded fantastic and everyone loved it. Even the old ladies were smiling, and one of them came up to me afterwards to say how much she liked it. AMAZING! The song turned out really well, and I'm just so proud of them! I can't wait for us to play again, and neither can anyone else. We've already been invited to play during the Christmas play. I think many of us are extremely excited about having a band, and it's wonderful to see so many people involved in the worship service. Yesterday we also had some kids doing a skit, so plus the normal help of a congregation member reading the announcements, we had around 15 people contributing to the worship! On a normal Sunday in churches of this denomination, you would find 3 people at most(counting the Pastor and organist) contributing to the worship. We usually have 4-5, which seems like a lot, but yesterday was like a celebration.

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)