Category: Czech Republic

Every post I wrote while we lived overseas.

How Much is That Kitty in the Window?

Post author By Shay
Post date August 3, 2014
1 Comment on How Much is That Kitty in the Window?

Both Bethany and I woke up today just not feeling that great. I think we’ve been pushing ourselves every night and we’ve been staying up late to get stuff done, but this morning I had a pretty bad headache and Bethany had the same and also felt achey and sore. So for the first time since we’ve arrived we didn’t make it to church. I made an effort to get up and get going but my head was just pounding so I took a few Advil and laid back down. Finally in the late morning we got going but it took a while for the Advil to kick in so we just rested at home.

I wrote about this in early July, but our Bible study in the States put together an annual project for us where we open a new envelope full of goodies at the beginning of each month. This afternoon we decided to open up August (photo above). Inside we found earrings and a scarf for Bethany, real fruit snacks for the kids, an iTunes gift card, and hand written notes from our friends’ kids! It was a treat to read the little notes and see the crayon drawings. Thank you to our Bible study for your kindness and for blessing us in this way!

Even though we weren’t feeling great we had to make a run to IKEA today. It’s pretty difficult to make it there during the week because IKEA is about 40-45 minutes from our place so it’s not like we can just run down the street to pick up a few things. If we go we have a list and we try to be efficient while we’re there (especially with our kids). Thankfully, it wasn’t super busy today which made it easier to navigate and helped us get in, get what we needed, and get out. Now we have a shoe rack, a new light in our living room, a chair for Bethany’s desk, and some new storage containers for our recyclables. I’m hoping that we might be nearing the end of our “big” trips to IKEA. Here’s a couple photos from our IKEA run today:

There is a mall next door to IKEA which we found out has a Starbucks! This kind blew our minds so we treated ourselves to our first Starbucks since moving here.

It was sunny and stormy today. The weather can change so rapidly here so here’s an example in photos of what a day may hold in terms of weather. First this:

And then this:

From perfect sunny weather to deluge in no time. We are definitely still getting used to that!

As were eating dinner at home tonight a cat jumped into our window in our dining area. I had been reading to the kids at the dinner table and the “Contentment” page had a picture of a cat so that’s the best photo I could use. The window the kitty came in is behind the book. Screens on windows are pretty rare here and our place doesn’t have any at all, but once the cat realized we were right there it scampered off. Later we were in another room as a family and then I came back into the dining area and found the cat on our table licking the plates! Again, as soon as it saw me it was gone. We may just have to keep that window closed or we might end up adopting a little Czech kitty.

Like that little kitty, I’m scampering off to bed. There’s a lot going on this week but I’ll save that for another day and another blog.

Tags IKEA, sick, weather

365 Czech Republic

A Day of Water

Below our apartment we have a basement where our landlord has given us some space for storage. As I was carrying some boxes down the narrow stairwell I stepped off the final step and my foot was suddenly submerged in water. Since I had boxes in my arms I kept walking towards where our space is down the hallway. After turning the light on and opening our storage room door I saw water all over.

Some places were deeper than other but there was water anywhere between a half inch and two inches deep. By God’s grace we had only stored a single cardboard box down there and a few suitcases, but the box was saturated halfway up. It was kind of a mess to clean up because that box was packed full of baby stuff so we had to clean it out, put things in the washer, scrub things in the tub, and get rid of all the wet cardboard. I decided that if a little rain can flood it down there that it’s probably not the place we should store stuff. For now we’re going to ignore that space and figure something else out, but that was just an added project today that you can’t anticipate.

I’m really glad we had plans to hang with Kevin and Daniela Dickson this afternoon at their house. The Dicksons serve with JV helping direct the EXIT tour ministry here in Czech which uses music to reach young people (that’s a very short summary!). They live about 20 minutes from us kind of tucked away in a valley by a mountain. It was just nice to get outside today in their backyard and enjoy the beautiful weather we had. Swimming was on the agenda so we brought our swimsuits and we and the kids had a great time in the pool together. We also enjoyed some BBQ sausages, hotdogs, and pork outside and the food was fantastic. Here’s a bunch of a photos of our time at their house today and the beautiful Czech countryside.

Above is a photo of the Dickson’s daughter Anna, just in case you were wondering.

We have been so welcomed by the Josiah Venture family. Bethany and I were talking on the way home just how great that has been for us and how connected the JV missionaries are to each other. They have all been so hospitable to our family and we are blessed to be part of such a caring and loving group of people. Thank you Daniela and Kevin for reaching out to us and for making us feel welcome here. It means a lot to us and we praise God for you, your family, and the ministry the Lord has called you to.

Tags Dicksons, flood, fun, water

365 Czech Republic

Friday Fog Day

The day got off to an early start..at least for Bethany. Around 5:30am she walked Lindsey and Kailey over to the train station just down the street from our place so they could catch their 6:00m train to Prague. It was a very foggy morning and overall a day of gray. It rained on and off, but it was nice to have more cooler air. As I drove to the JV offices this morning I was surprised by just how much fog we had and just how thick it was. The sun never came out once today and as I type I can see the streetlights still reflecting off the low clouds.

Right now we have language lessons on Wednesdays and Fridays and today we were working on possessive pronouns. For the most part we are understanding what to do, but I just feel like Czechs speak so fast it’s hard to believe I’ll ever understand them. Just to answer a simple question in Czech right now is difficult and slow. Jitka (our teacher) instructed us to work hard on our vocabulary so we’ve been putting together flash cards today to start to run through on a regular basis. I think it’s going to give a jolt to our understanding of Czech and hopefully we’ll be able to catch more and more words as we’re engaged in conversation.

Since our language lessons are in our house I usually end up working from home when we’re done which is what I did today. Right now I’m working on a leadership training book that we’re hoping to have done within the next month. It’s like a high level leader training curriculum called “Walk 2:6” which is based on the passage 1 John 2:6 and written by Dave Patty. Mostly I’m working on making the book look and feel right but Lord willing it will be a great resource for our teams on the ground who are training young leaders.

Tonight we enjoyed a relaxing night at home but poor Titus kept asking if we could go outside and play baseball. I guess he doesn’t understand the rain delay quite yet. Bethany and Avery made brownies which we imported from the States via our container and they were delicious. Avery wanted to help so we got the step stool out and she enjoyed mixing and “painting” butter to grease the pan. As they were making the mix Avery had a little taste and said, “These are best brownies ever!” I agree!

Tags fog, language

365 Czech Republic

A Refreshing Day

Today was unexpectedly refreshing. Even though it was a pretty foggy, rainy, and physically darker day, the Lord reminded me of why we’re here.

It’s been a pretty full week at the JV office as we have a lot of new projects rolling and the new created team that I’m part of is just really starting to understand how to work in a new place with new people. I’ve been helping organize different projects, working on some graphic design for the training center/hotel and now I have my hand in a few other things as well. After leaving a meeting this afternoon I returned to the Creative Communications (cTeam) office where our video guys and Dave Patty were sitting, watching interviews of young people from this summer’s camp ministry. Although I had other things I was working on it was impossible to continue to work as I could hear the amazing stories of changed lives in the background. Finally, I stood up and began to watch them myself over the shoulders of the others guys.

My eyes began to tear up as I listened. “All I want to do is tell everyone about Jesus” said one young man. “Jesus changed my life. Now I have a Bible and I’m going to read it” said another student. One after another, story after story, of young people at camps who have come to grips with their sin, repented, and are seeing the Savior for the first time. Then I got a phone call.

Our Czech friend Katka called me because she is helping us with some details regarding our visas and when she was finished asking me a few questions she said, “Do you have a minute? I have to tell you about this guy who got saved at camp last night.” “Sure!” I replied. Katka began to share how she had been praying for this young man for three years but admitted that she thought he was pretty hard hearted and hung out with the wrong crowd. But last night, during the “gospel night” this young man bowed his knee to the Savior. Katka shared that he even woke up this morning and told his cabin leader that “I feel like a new man. I read the Bible you gave me and it talked about the Jesus that saved me!” Wow. “That’s amazing, Katka!” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check on the phone. If that doesn’t refresh your soul, I don’t know what will!

It’s stories like that young man that our team gets to communicate. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to share on the blog some of the amazing video our team captured and for you to see first hand how God is radically moving in this part of the world. Not everything about graphic design, videography, and media work is easy or even fun. But today in the office I think we all had a wonderful reminder of why we’re here and how God is using the ministry of JV alongside local churches to see young people come to Christ!

Tonight we had plans to hang out at a friend’s house but our plans changed late in the day and we ended up throwing together a dinner at home. I believe this was Divine because it gave us the opportunity to spend one more night with Lindsey and Kailey who have been staying with us the past few days. Tomorrow morning they leave on an early train for Prague and then on to Frankfurt to visit their family. They have blessed us greatly the past few days and have been such an encouragement to us. Our kids love “the girls” as we took the above photo tonight before the kids went to bed.

Lindsey has plans to return to Slovakia next year and continue ministry there. Kailey is definitely leaning that direction, but needs to finish college and see what the Lord would have. Please pray for them as they travel the next few days and definitely pray for their future. Our hope and prayer is that God would continue to use them and maybe one day they’ll both be back in this part of the world serving full-time!

Tags friends, ministry, rain

365 Czech Republic

Our First Date Night

Thanks to the help and kindness of Lindsey and Kailey (our house guests!), we were able to have our first date night here in Czech!

As we walked away from our apartment tonight to head to the restaurant Bethany said something to the effect of, “walking to the restaurant on date night is a first.” Yes, it is. But there’s a great place here in town called “Da Capo” that our friends introduced us to that we just love. No one that works there really speaks English, and even though we’re working on it we don’t speak Czech, but we somehow used what little we know to order our meals, get some water, and even have a little zmrzlina (ice cream) for dessert. You’d be surprise how stressful it can be just to try and order a meal when you don’t speak the language. We always feel bad when they are talking and we have no clue what’s being said, but our waitress tonight was very gracious, spoke slowly for us, and for the most part it was a huge success.

Da Capo serves Italian food and Bethany ordered bruschetta for an appetizer and I ordered the cream of broccoli soup. Here’s a few pics. Check out that sour cream (I think that’s what it is) on my soup!

For the main course we both ordered pizza with meat on top and we topped it all off with some vanilka (vanilla) ice cream. At first we said, “dva vanilka zmrzlina” which is a rough way of saying “2 vanilla ice cream” and when our waitress repeated it back she pointed to each of us and said “dva… dva” as if to say, “two for you and two for you?” Being the good language students we are we quickly figured out that she was going to give us two scoops each but we were able to clear that up and only have one scoop each. Score “one” for language lessons (see what I did there?)!

After dinner we tried to find a coffee place that was open but it looks like the whole town basically closes up around 6pm and we were too late. So we did a casual walk around the town square (photo above) and I’m still amazed and what we get to see. The old buildings and the European feel here are still new enough to amaze me. Finally we took a casual stroll home and walked off a little of that zmrzlina.

It was nice to get away for a bit and we’re so thankful to Lindsey and Kailey for watching our kids. At one point during dinner Bethany said, “Does date night include a nap?” I laughed in agreement. We have been going, going, going for over a month now and even still we have boxes we’re unpacking. It’s a lot of work right now and we definitely need time to rest and just enjoy each other. Lord willing we’ll be able to get some consistency with date night so we both don’t feel like we need a nap!

Tags date, first things first, wife

365 Czech Republic Friends

Visitors From Slovakifornia

Post author By Shay
Post date July 30, 2014
2 Comments on Visitors From Slovakifornia

Slovakifornia is not a real place, but it’s the best way to describe where our wonderful visitors came from today. Kailey and Lindsey Richardson are two young ladies that we have known for a long time from our home church in California. They have been serving in an English camp ministry in Slovakia for the past month and today they took the train to come stay with us! Catching up with them today and hearing their stories was such a blessing. Actually, the Lord has done incredible things in their lives and they are documenting some pretty great stories on their own blog so definitely check it out.

It’s absolutely incredible to me that they are in our place in the Czech Republic right now. They rode on the train for more than 5 hours this morning and although they had a few different connections they made it here without much of a hassle. Bethany literally walked over to the train station to meet them and they all walked back to our apartment.

Tonight at the dinner table it was just a blessing to hear about their ministry in Slovakia and how God has been working in the towns they are serving in. These girls have a passion for Christ and the gospel and I’m sure they will see much fruit from their time there. They may be staying with us a few days and then eventually head over to Germany where their uncle serves as a missionary.

One of the neat things they are doing is reading their late mother’s diary who also did some traveling through Europe thirty years ago with one of her friends. I believe they are trying to visit some of the same places she did when she was young and read her thoughts along the way. They shared that often they laugh at some of the things their mom wrote. Karen (their mom) was a special women who loved Christ and we were blessed to know her. These girls definitely have a lot of their mom’s heart in them and talking with them tonight was such a joy to our own souls. What a joy to have see some familiar faces in a place that still feels so unfamiliar.

Tags friends, Kailey, Lindsey, visitors

365 Czech Republic

Rain, the Sandbox, and How to Dad

Post author By Shay
Post date July 28, 2014
1 Comment on Rain, the Sandbox, and How to Dad

Lightning struck, thunder rolled, and it rained a lot. They say that in July is the wettest month in this region. I believe it. Today’s storm packed a punch and when the lightning started it didn’t stop for a while. I shot the below video today while at the JV offices. We have those ceiling windows which made it fun to look straight up at the raining pouring down. If you watch closely a white lined appears about 3-4 seconds in and that’s actually a flash of lightning that my iPhone can’t seem to handle.

When it rains we pretty much have to keep the kids inside, especially when it comes down like it did today. But after I got home this evening things had cleared up so I took the kids to the park while Bethany went to the store. We have some visitors coming tomorrow and Bethany wanted to make sure we had enough food while they stay with us. More on that in tomorrow’s blog!

Titus wanted to take some sand toys to the park so we carried (well, Avery carried) the buckets over and we walked down the street to the closest play area. Even though it was a little muddy the kids took their shoes off and began to dig. Titus said, “Just like the beach!” so I just went with it. We packed the buckets as much as we could and started to build a castle fortress. That’s what dad’s do, right? Our job is basically to up the awesome in whatever we’re doing with the kids (sometimes to the chagrin of mom!). So I got down in the sand and we filled up some buckets and built ourselves a castle. I actually had a lot of fun. It was wet, my hands felts weird from the sand, but the kids were laughing and loving it and that made it all worth it.

Later tonight the kids had a little snack at the table and I was finishing up some of my own Bible reading and just happened to be in Proverbs 4. I told the kids, “Let me read to you from my Bible.” In dramatic fashion I was reading to them from that passage which is a chapter written from a dad to his son. When I got to Proverbs 4:7 I said, “Get wisdom!” Bethany then brought me a little book we have called “Get Wisdom!” that is written as a little study for kids and parents so I flipped to the first section on “Listening” and the kids and I worked on their listening skills. Then we flipped to “Orderliness” and we started cleaning up the room and putting all the toys away.

During those moments I was reminded how important it is for dad to be dad, especially when it comes to spiritual things and leading my kids. It’s not that I didn’t know that, but I just had a fresh reminder of it tonight. I need to be able to play with them in the sandbox and practice with them in our house. I need to be able to “Wraskel” (wrestle) with them in our bed and then work with them and help them grow.

That’s probably why I was so impressed today by a commercial that Cheerios released on YouTube this past week. For the first time in a really long time it’s actually in praise of dads. So often in advertising the dad is seen as inferior to mom and kind of an idiot, but in this ad Cheerios actually praises fatherhood. At one point the dad even says, “Dadhood isn’t always easy because when a rule is broken we’re the enforcement…but when a heart is broken we’re the reenforcement.” Now that’s a message I can get behind–that’s how to dad.

Tags fun, kids, rain, sand

365 Czech Republic

Parenting and Doing Church in Czech

Post author By Shay
Post date July 27, 2014
1 Comment on Parenting and Doing Church in Czech

Today we enjoyed our fifth Sunday at our new church here in Czech. For the most part the services are very similar to a church service in the States with music, announcements, preaching, prayer and sometimes a testimony or two. Today they did a baby dedication for a little baby named Matthew. It’s the second one we’ve seen and it’s always a joy to watch the care the pastors have for the families here and as we listen through a translator we can tell they truly care about these parents and the children. Even this morning the pastor reminded the parents and the rest of the church that children are a gift from God (see Psalm 127:3-5).

We probably needed that reminder more than the parentings dedication their baby today. For whatever reason our kids just didn’t want to be in church today. Now, granted, it’s different for them right now. Everything is new, they are having to sit with us through the whole 2+ hour services, it’s hot, they’re sweaty, and it’s just generally a little hard. But we really are trying to work hard at teaching and training them to listen, obey, and be respectful of everyone else during the service. They only usually last about an hour (at most) before the “breakdown” as I’ll call it. Today I think it was only 30 minutes before Titus was bursting out crying and Bethany was carrying him out of the building. Avery lasted a little longer with some distraction, but soon she was bolting for the door saying, “Mommy! I want mommy!” For a while we were in and out of the service and just kept switching. It feels like those wrestlers who stand outside the ring waiting for a hand slap and then they’re in and the other one is out.

For the summer months the church doesn’t really have Sunday school classes for the kids. A lot of people are on holiday (vacation) and even though there are still a lot of families around they just don’t do classes for the kids until the fall months begin. So you can imagine the challenge for us as we try keeping our kids behaved while listening to the service through a translator ear piece and hopefully not be a huge distraction from the worship. Thankfully the Czechs seem to be very forgiving of us, but it’s like flying with screaming kids…you just feel the burden of it as a parent. For the last 20 or so minutes of the service Bethany finally resorted to taking both kids outside where a few other families were as well (shown below playing in dirt).

Really what we need right now is prayer specifically for church and Sundays. We need patience, grace, wisdom, and love for our kids. Our desire is to stay calm, be understanding, but also help train them during this process and transition. Sundays are important to us. There’s a lot going in as we learn the culture, meet new people, learn the language, and try to participate in the worship service on Sunday. But today those things were definitely put on the back burner as our kids really just needed us to work with them. Please pray for us as we learn and grow in all of this.

Beyond church afternoon was actually really restful. Chris spent most of the day with us and had to leave for his meetings around 4 o’clock this afternoon. It was such a joy to talk with him and hear his heart for the people of Slovenia. We’re thrilled that God has called the Wick family to they very needy country.

Later Avery and I played a little game of Candy Land and it was fun just spending a little one on one time with her.

Tonight Bethany made home made pizza and we just spent time together as a family. We tried Skyping with Bethany’s parents but there was something wrong with their connection and all of our troubleshooting just didn’t seem to fix it. We try to Skype at least once a week with them and usually Sundays are good time for that. Hopefully we can figure out the technical glitch and get another time in with them this week.

As I was doing the dishes the faucet just kind of came off the pipe (shown above). That has never really happened to me and I genuinely starting laughing out loud when it did. “Bethany!” I yelled from the kitchen. “The faucet just fell off into the sink!” She immediately started laughing too. I don’t know why I was laughing because honestly that would really frustrate me normally. Maybe it’s just because we kind of expect that kind of thing to happen now? Things don’t always work like the way we think they should here in Czech. That’s just life right now.

But God is still in control and He cares as much about how I respond to my faucet as how I respond when my kids are loud and crazy in church. A lot of it is a change in my attitude. I should expect that it’s going to be hard in church and not normal for our kids. That’s OK. With a few cranks of my wrench I was able to get the faucet working again and with a lot grace, patience, discipline, love, and the Lord’s help I hope we’ll be able to sit through a Czech church service as a family. God is in control and that’s enough for us today.

Tags church, kids, parenting

365 Czech Republic Friends

Our First House Guest

Tonight we’re hosting our first overnight visitor, Chris Wick!

Chris, Ashley, and their four kids live in the country of Slovenia and are also missionaries with JV. The fun part about our relationship with the Wick’s is that there was a short time that we served with them at Placerita Baptist Church (our sending church) in California. So when Chris emailed me and said he was coming to Czech for some meetings and asked if he could stay with us we of course said, “Yes!”

We have been chatting and hanging with Chris since he arrived and it’s been really fun to catch up. Chris was an enormous help to me personally during our supporting raising process and even just our initial thoughts about doing ministry overseas. He was always checking in on us over email and would often call me while we were in the States to offer advice and his thoughts on anything related to ministry over here. I can actually remember two key conversations with Chris that were so helpful in me thinking through how to quit my job and start support raising and all that goes with that. It’s just too bad we couldn’t see the whole Wick clan, but Chris is here in Czech this weekend for some sports ministry meetings with other JV staff. We’re super thankful for him and his family!

Outside of Chris coming over we mostly spent our day unpacking and cleaning house. I finally put the doors and door pulls on our IKEA wardrobes and Titus and I went to Poland for a few small things at the hardware store. Believe it or not, I actually got pulled over coming back in to Czech for not having my headlights on. Thankfully the police office understood that I’m new to the area, don’t speak Czech, and that I’m from America. He didn’t give me a ticket! And I’m doubly thankful that my wife reminded me to bring our passports even though we were just running to the store in Poland. Key: don’t leave the country without your passport even if the other country is basically across the street!

That’s all for tonight. We’re looking forward to our 5th Sunday at church tomorrow!

Tags Chris Wick, friend

365 Czech Republic

Hanging With Zach and Kara

Post author By Shay
Post date July 25, 2014
2 Comments on Hanging With Zach and Kara

We had a pretty full morning today complete with Czech lessons and a trip over to the bank to sign what must have been at least a dozen documents. Our lessons went really well, but it’s a constant reminder that we need to study our notes daily and just keep up on our Czech vocabulary. It’s not any easy language and I feel like even though were just scratching the surface I’m starting to feel fatigue.

Tonight Zach and Kara invited us over for dinner at their house in Havířov which is about 20 minutes from our place. I’ve known Zach since the 4th grade and his family is near and dear to my heart. Zach and Kara have been here full-time in Czech for almost 2 years now, but Kara has been living in Czech much longer and Zach has served on many other short-term trips. We had a great time seeing their place for the first time and just catching up. They served us an “American dinner” (cheeseburgers!), complete with real American cheese. After being here for a month I can tell you that American cheese is not easy to find!

After dinner we took a walk down to a nearby park (just like we did yesterday). It’s seems to be a normal and fun thing to do after dinner, especially since it’s usually a little cooler outside than inside. Unfortunately the mosquitos were out in droves and that cut our time a little short, but that didn’t stop the kids from checking out yet another amazing park.

While we were outside we stopped in a town square type area near Zach and Kara’s place. They saw some young people that they knew so we met and talked with them for a bit. But in that square is a large metal arrow shaped thing above a fountain that swings. I just thought it was an art piece and a fountain, but Kara told us that there used to be a statue of Vladimir Lenin in that square and it was replaced with this crazy arrow thing.

We stayed a little later than we should have because the kids needed to get to bed, but we were having a great time just hanging and laughing together. I think we left a little after 10pm, but Avery was still trying to keep the party going. Here she is with a kazoo and a shaker. I honestly have no idea what’s going on in this photo, but I think it’s awesome that my daughter loves music.

Thanks Zegan family for having us over tonight! It was really fun seeing you and I’m sure we’ll be able to do it again soon.

Tags dinner, friends, Kara, Zach