Tag: language

A Better Sunday

With snow swirling all around me, I made it to church this morning by myself. Avery has had a cold for a week and now Bethany isn’t starting to feel that great. I didn’t want to try and battle the Sunday school thing with Titus today, so we opted to just have the family stay home and I would go to church alone. And even though church is often difficult, today was a much better Sunday for me than last week. I approached church this morning with a completely different focus, one that might seem even a little strange–to learn language.

One of the tools we learned at Missionary Training and one that my friend Landen reminded me of last night was approaching church with a focus on writing down words and engaging the language. Basically, with a notebook in hand, I wrote down every word I could understand and then would add a mark if I heard it again and so on (below is a photo of my notebook). Believe it or not, I heard and wrote down 101 words that I heard at least one time. The most repeated word I heard was “manželský” which I believe means “marital” or “marriage.” I heard at least a form of that word 28 times. Maybe the sermon was about marriage?

You might be wondering why this could be helpful. I think the main reason is that it makes me more engaged in trying to listen to Czech and distinguish sounds, words, and phrases. Do I know how to spell all the words? No. Do I even know if what I heard was correct? No. But the process of trying to listen and write them down is putting my mind in a language mode and not a “tune out because I don’t know how to speak Czech” mode which is often the case. Another reason it’s helpful is it gets new words into my vocabulary by forcing me to learn the meanings. If I hear a word and hear it correctly, then I go back and learn the meaning. It’s actually a pretty incredible experience for a language student and I’m truly thankful for it. As much as I would like to listen to the sermon, my time is actually better spent just trying to understand the actual words being spoken. Long term, this is an infinitely better use of my time for now.

It snowed on and off all day and the wind was up. At one point, there was snow falling and I could see the sun shining. I tried to get a photo of it, but it just didn’t turn out (show above). During the afternoon we basically tried to clean the house up and our friend Misa came over at about 3pm. She is leaving tomorrow to be in Prague for a bit and then off to the States in a few more weeks. We had a good time chatting with her and actually helping her understand English and American culture better. During that time I was working on sizing and cutting a print to fit a frame, both of which I brought from the States when we moved. I took a little time to get it all measured and cut it, but I’m happy with the final result. I plan on hanging it up in my office at Josiah Venture. Below is a picture of it and it’ll be a constant reminder to my soul of why we’re here–to see more come to know the Light of Life.

The last week has brought excitement, clarity, and focus for me. I’m excited about what God is doing to help realign my heart and invigorate me to learn a tough language and continue to strive to see more people come to Christ in this place. I’m thankful for how God is using our circumstances to make us more like His Son! It’s not always easy or fun, but I can rest in the fact that he is working in all of it for my good and His glory.

Tags church, excited, language, print, study, words

365 Czech Republic

Sledding in Czech, Church Youth Group, and Hope for Language Learning

Post author By Shay
Post date February 7, 2015
No Comments on Sledding in Czech, Church Youth Group, and Hope for Language Learning

Today was a beautiful, sunny day in Czech. I don’t remember seeing a single cloud, even though as I write this evening the clouds are rolling in for another round of snow. Our plan to go sledding today came to fruition and we had a blast! It’s hard to describe Titus’ excitement when we made it to sledding hill, but he was basically squealing and jumping up and down. The hardest part was keeping him from running to the hill himself while we got everyone in their snow gear before heading out to it. This specific hill (shown below) was one I saw while teaching last week at the Josiah Venture Leadership Academy. There were a lot of other families there today, and now I know why.

Not only was the hill easy to get to, it had great runs which today were really fast since it was around 26 degrees outside and the snow was packed down hard. I’m pretty convinced some of those Czech kids were moving around 20mph down the hill. Our kids weren’t so ready for those kinds of speeds so I would take them about half way up and send them down on their bellies at first (like Titus in the photo below). We got a couple of cheap plastic sleds this morning that worked really well.

Here’s a video of Avery heading down on her own. You’ll see just how far and fast she could go and we were only half way up the little hill!

Here’s a video of Titus using the red sled in a sitting position. He mostly liked the little blue slide that Avery was using, but I’m glad he was brave and tried the bigger one too. In this video he puts his arms behind his head like he’s relaxing and then crashes. But like any boy having tons of fun he gets up quick and smiles for the camera with mommy cheering him on.

Here’s a few more photos that Bethany got while we were playing and having fun.

If there is “Part 2” to this post, then this is it. Tonight I was able to attend our church’s youth meeting which happens most Saturday nights at 5pm. Bethany stayed home with the kids because they were basically exhausted from sledding. It was a sweet time with the young people, and I had the chance to talk with a young man named Simon. At 19, Simon already speaks five languages (Czech, Polish, English, German, and Slovak), not to mention a local dialect called “Poneshemu.” He’s a great guy and plans on going to university (college) next year to study engineering. We were paired up tonight to play a game where I tell him what I see on a piece of paper that was given to me and he draws it. The only catch is that we’re sitting back to back and of course he can’t see what I’m looking at. I thought it he did great and here’s a photo of us during that little game.

They also prayed for our friend Misa who is heading to America to study. I got a photo of the prayer time and I thought it was really neat to see them kind of send her off. They also sang a song in Czech to the tune of Happy Birthday, but I’m not exactly sure what they were singing.

After a testimony from a gentleman in the church, there was a shortened message from one of the gospels (I couldn’t quite figure out which book we were in!). Then we spent some time singing an English song that had a bunch of motions. After that we all played a little round table ping pong, but there weren’t enough paddles so I used a clipboard. I did not win. Here are a few more photos.

One fun thing about youth group was that this was the first time I got to see the new youth room that has been being built since before we arrived in Czech. They’ve only been meeting in it for a few weeks and it’s really, really nice. It has basically been a labor of love as many volunteers have helped build it from the church. In fact, in one of the walls there is a large stone sticking out (shown below) that confused me. I asked Simon what it meant and he told me that he didn’t know how to explain it English, but they have a word for it in Czech. Essentially, he said it’s like a piece to remember that the building was, in his words, “built by this generation” and they should remember that. It sounded like a neat thing to me and I took a photo of the stone, which sits near the entrance next to the light switches.

Finally, a few avid blog readers know that our friends Jenny and Landen moved to Czech a few months after us and we were all living in the same town in California before coming to Czech. Jenny is actually from Czech and Landen is an American, but they have been in the states for I believe 6 or 7 years. Their current ministry focus is with the youth group at our church and I saw them tonight and Landen invited me over to their place tonight to chat and catch up.

During our discussion, it became clear that we have the same passion to learn Czech and do greater ministry here. I loved Landen’s statement that he’s “learning Czech to love Czechs” (this may be a paraphrase, but the gist is there). His heart is to learn their language so he can have deeper relationships and more impact on them (e.g. love them), not to mention he would be able to preach and teach God’s Word. As we talked, they both shared their desire to help Bethany and I get more opportunity to learn language and so we’re basically going to work together in this process. With Jenny’s help as a native Czech speaker, we are going to use some of the tools we all learned at pre-field training in the States. This should give Landen, Bethany, and me more opportunity to study and engage the Czech language on a consistent basis. This is huge!

All of that is really exciting to me and it seems like a huge answer to prayer! As we talked tonight I could feel my heart stirring with greater passion and excitement in a way that I haven’t in quite some time. Jenny and Landen have such a great heart for Czech and we share their passion to see God work in mighty ways here, even through our efforts in language. Many people have been praying, as have we, and I feel like this simple discussion was such an answer to prayer and the work of the Spirit of God in all our hearts. I’m excited to see what the Lord does with this and how it will have a greater impact for the Kingdom of God!

Tags fun, growth, language, learning, sledding, snow

365 Czech Republic

Back in the Saddle…I Mean, Sedlo

Post author By Shay
Post date February 6, 2015
No Comments on Back in the Saddle…I Mean, Sedlo

We were back at it this morning, continuing our formal language learning with our our Czech teacher. It felt really good to be back in the saddle and just pushing forward. Speaking of forward, that’s pretty much what we we were learning, that is, directions. In the photo below, you can see Bethany working hard at reading a sentence with directions on a map and then trying to understand where exactly we are supposed to go. Left, right, down, up, turn, forward, straight, go. These are the kinds words we were focused on.

For me, today was one of my favorite lessons because I’ve begun to write down confusing sentences and words in my Field Notes notebook so I can ask Tamara (our teacher) about them and get some clarity. I like the idea of capturing words and then working on what I hear. If you look closely in the photo below, my notebook has sentences like “I am not stupid,” “I’m cold,” “Let’s go (forward)!” and “Nevermind.” Those might sound pretty scatter brained, but they are legitimate phrases I’m curious to know and now have in my book where I can review and see regularly. Our ears hear lots of things throughout the day, so being able to say, “What does that mean?” and write it down is just really helpful.

We also had a little review time, which you can see in the photo above. Tamara was holding up photos and asking us certain things about the case (masculine, feminine, neuter) to see how much we could remember. Bethany was much better at recalling that info that me, so I have some studying to do!

We’re planning a little fun for tomorrow with the kids. It’s actually supposed to be sunny, but cold and we’re hoping to do a little sledding near the mountains. Titus has been asking me when Saturday is because we told him about it earlier in the week and he’s been pretty excited. We have a wooden sled that we got a few months ago, but I’m hoping we can find a plastic one on our way out of town. We’ll see how it goes!

Tags Czech, language, learning

365 Czech Republic

Banana Bread for Breakfast

Post author By Shay
Post date January 21, 2015
No Comments on Banana Bread for Breakfast

“Daddy, we’re having banana bread!” That’s what Avery told me around 4:00am this morning while I was laying in bed. Admittedly, I didn’t get up until about 45 minutes later, but she wasn’t joking. When I stumbled in to the kitchen, Bethany was wide eyed and the oven was baking away a fresh banana bread loaf with Nutella (shown above). She had been awake since 2:30am and finally got out of bed around 3:00 and got straight to work apparently.

As I’m sure you figured out, we’re still jet lagging and we’ve been home for a week now. Even we’re struggling to understand and believe it. But I guess we’re making the most of it. Today we had banana bread at 5am, enjoyed a cup, and even read a devotional. I even had time to read my 10 chapters in my Bible reading program. After all that, Titus and I started working on cleaning the house and he was getting serious with the vacuum (as you can see in the photo above).

Even though it’s been a little cold (mid 30s), the kids have been wanting to go outside and do bubbles. In the above photo you can see them dancing and playing outside after Titus got home from school today. It’s fun to see them enjoying the weather, even when it’s colder.

Titus’ teacher told Bethany that we should speak more Czech to Titus at home. When I took him to school today, I spoke a little with her in Czech and she seemed pretty happy about it. If we could teach Titus more Czech, we would, but since our own understanding is so limited it makes it tough. As I talked with his teacher this morning I can only get so far before I just say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” (in Czech). It’s never easy to feel like you can’t continue a discussion (or even a relationship) because of the language limitation, but it’s just reality for us right now. Bethany and I have come to the conclusion that we’re not going to continue to feel bad about it, but just do our best to plow forward with learning and trust God for the rest of it. It might be a slow process, but eventually we’ll have opportunities to complete sentences and conversations!

Tags bread, jet lag, kids, language

365 Czech Republic

Church, English, Mexican Food, and American Football

Post author By Shay
Post date December 28, 2014
No Comments on Church, English, Mexican Food, and American Football

For the first time in six months we attended church in English. I was struck by this reality mostly while we were signing this morning at West Side Church, the church that Bethany grew up in and where here family still serves. I think I’ve talked about this before, but there’s just something about singing worship music in your own language that ministers to your heart. I think that’s especially true for me since I have spent many years ministering in our church through the music ministry. Music is just a big part of my own, Christian heart as I’m sure is true for many others. No doubt it’s been important to Christians since the beginning of the church. I was especially blessed to sing “In Christ Alone” as the closing song today after listening to a message on God’s grace from Hebrews. I haven’t asked her about it, but I thought I saw tears coming down Bethany’s cheeks as we sang. Needless to say, we were blessed.

Although it’s not on the same level, we were also blessed today to do a little shopping at the grocery store. I say this because we secured two kinds of salsa and jalapeno chips! That kind of spice is not readily available in Czech and it was actually fun to have my nose running from all the spice I enjoyed lunch today!

This afternoon we have all taken naps and spent time watching the Seattle Seahawks play on TV. It’s funny to watch a live sports event since we don’t have this kind of television in Czech, and of course no American football. I’m not a huge football fan, but Bethany likes it, along with the rest of the state of Washington. As I write, the Seahawks have just won the game so I’m sure the good people of Washington are breathing a sigh of relief as they look for a postseason run.

Things continue to be restful here in the States which is nice. We’re happy to be spending time with family and just enjoying a little break from life overseas. I’m excited for what God has in store for us when we return, but we’ll enjoy the rest while it lasts.

Tags church, English, football, language

365 Czech Republic

Language and Lower Temps

We have been having regular Czech lessons on Wednesday mornings which are going great. Tamara (our teacher) has been very gracious and helpful, especially this morning when I couldn’t pronounce the Czech word that basically means “middle” in English. Above is a photo of our books out on the table and below is a photo of us studying direction words in relation to the town square or center of town. As a bonus, it’s nice to know how to say “hospital” just in case we need it!

It was much colder this morning than most mornings. I’m not quite sure, but I believe the fog was freezing and falling to the ground. All around it was white, but I don’t believe it was snowing. I saw nothing but white as I drove this morning as well. Below are a few photos of the white, along with a photo of the car telling me it’s -2.5 degrees Celsius (or 27 degrees).

Later in the afternoon the sun broke through the clouds and fog and it was very beautiful outside. Even though it doesn’t last long, it’s always a joy to see the sun. You kind of forget how many days it’s been since the sun was shining, but you definitely feel it when it does. I walked to the window today at the JV office and looked out at streaky clouds and took the photo below.

This evening we enjoyed a dinner with our friends Jenny, Landen, and Martina who all serve with Josiah Venture. Jenny and Landen moved here from Santa Clarita (where we moved from) and Martina is from Czech (well, to be clear, Jenny is Czech but has been living in the States for about many years). Bethany made a family favorite, Cheddar Corn Chowder Soup and we had a fun time laughing and talking about our new lives here. It’s great to serve with all of these wonderful people and are so thankful for their friendship.

Tags chilly, frozen, language, lessons

365 Czech Republic

More Visa Applications and Making a Million Mistakes

Post author By Shay
Post date November 23, 2014
No Comments on More Visa Applications and Making a Million Mistakes

Unbelievably we’ve already been here long enough to begin processing another round of visa applications. Our first set of visas are for six months so technically they don’t expire until the end of January. But with all the holidays and time it takes to process things here we have to get started earlier to make sure there are no hangups. Today we spent most of the afternoon just going through the paperwork and trying to make sure we have got all the information correct. These new visas will be good for two years and give us simpler identification (something other than our passport). We’ll be working this week with the team here to help get it all moving forward. Most likely we’ll be headed to the Foreign Police in the next couple days to begin processing them so that’s a point of prayer for us this week.

When we were at missionary training last year, one of the language teachers said, “In order to learn a language you have to be willing to make a million mistakes, so start now!” Today I took that instruction and butchered Czech about as much as humanly possible. I had a conversation today with our landlord about the light not working in our garage. I felt terrible because I couldn’t understand much, but basically she was trying to tell me that she got it fixed and that the light was actually on now and we needed to turn it off. This took me about four minutes of conversation with her until she finally just pointed for me to come outside with her and she showed me the light. I remember asking her “why” and just getting a blank stare. Who knows what I was asking her because I sure don’t!

Then tonight at the grocery store Avery left her Hello Kitty coloring book in the store and we didn’t realize it until we got home. Titus and I went back for it and I was trying to explain to two different store clerks that this was my daughter’s book and I wanted them to know that before I walked out of the store with it. What they were understanding from me was that my daughter had left a book like the one I was holding and that they didn’t have it. Finally we had to walk over to where I found the book and try using my phone to translate the whole thing and when something finally clicked they just started laughing. Thankfully, they did understand and were very gracious, but that doesn’t change the painful interchange that went on for ten minutes. Only 980,854 mistakes left to make before I learn Czech!

On a parenting note, a friend from the States asked me yesterday on the phone about Titus and how he was doing. It was a timely question because I’ve been thinking a lot about Titus lately. As a dad, especially one of a boy, I’m really trying to process how to be intentional with Titus and train him well. Yesterday before the party I asked him to help me take the recycling out. He was really excited and carried “the big box” down the street all by himself. It may have only been a few minutes of time but I was really enjoying watching him grow and mature, even in things like helping with work. Lately Titus has been showing a lot of mature answers to questions and really starting to put things together. We see him asking lots of questions and just engaging more. It’s fun to watch him change and grow.

Tonight after we got Avery’s book at the store, Titus and I had a funny little conversation in the car which I sent out on Twitter. Here’s how it went:

Titus: “Dad, let’s do jokes.” Me: “Knock, Knock.” Titus: “Who’s there?” Me: “Orange.” Titus: “Orange??!! Hahahaha”

— Shay Thomason (@shaycam) November 23, 2014

Tags language, learning, paperwork, Titus, visas

365 Czech Republic

Through the Fog

Someone at the Josiah Venture office today asked me how language lessons were going. She is from Czech and I said to he, “Rozumím trochu česky” which translates to, “I understand a little Czech.” Unfortunately, that’s where the conversation ends, but that doesn’t mean I’m not learning. It was only a few months ago that I was forced to memorize, “I don’t speak Czech” in Czech, but now we’ve graduated to some level of understanding. Progress!

Today we had our second Czech lesson with Tamara today and we’re just reworking a lot of the basics. Obviously, since it’s a lot of review things are moving along relatively smoothly, but I assume we’re only a few weeks away from “the fog.” The fog is that time in language learning where things just get, well, foggy. You bein to learn more new things faster than your brain can comprehend it all. Apparently the fog is not uncommon when learning a new language but the further you push the better off you are. Eventually it will all come around and the fog will clear.

Speaking of fog, we woke up this morning and couldn’t see the large church next to our apartment because it was so thick. I should’ve taken a photo and I will probably regret that for a while. It was strange to see the faint outline of the building that’s barely seventy five feet from us. I like the fog. I like the change from the never ending California sun, but like the picture I missed this morning, I’ll probably regret saying that too some day.

Tags fog, language, weather

365 Czech Republic

Learn Me Something

Doing language learning is worse than going back to school for one reason: you can’t read the directions. Both of the books we have used have used to study Czech employ the theory that if they put the directions in Czech we will learn. In reality, all this does is frustrate me because it takes me an extra three minutes per question to type out the Czech in to Google Translate just to figure out what I’m supposed to do!

Tomorrow morning we have our second lessons with our new Czech teacher, Tamara, but it might be interesting because both the kids are sick and right now and will likely be coming with us to her house. Normally, Titus would be in preschool, but he’s coughing and sneezing and all of that so we decided we’re going to keep him away from the other kids for a day and see how it goes. Hopefully we will still be able to focus on lessons with the kids there.

This morning we had our weekly International Team meeting and we spent some time walking through Philippians 2:1-11. I’ve actually memorized a chunk of that passage and I think it may be one of the most amazing and difficult passages in the Bible. Amazing in it’s theology, reach, and Christ’s example, but difficult to apply, especially as we think about being a humble servant. We were challenged this morning to do just what the text says, “…put on the mind of Christ…” in our service and work here and humble ourselves the same way Christ did.

No matter how many times I hear that or read it in my Bible, it’s hard. It’s hard to apply that when I walk in the door to my family. It’s hard to apply it on my ministry team. It’s hard to apply that in line at the grocery store. It’s hard to apply that in the local church. It’s just hard. Serving with humility is hard, mostly because our sinful flesh fights it. At least I know mine does. But no matter the difficultly or the fight, I do hope and pray that I would seek to have the mind of Christ and serve here humbly. Not only does that show the Gospel in my actions, but it gives God the glory and that’s most important.

Tags humility, Jesus, language, meeting

365 Czech Republic

Email, Pizza, Date

I got an email from our landlord the other day. The subject was “Wash exterior window sills” and the email read,

Hello Mrs. Bethany on Thursday morning ie. Oct. 16. 2014 at home?
You will need to wash again sills and you have a lot of work with children, so I ordered the lady who would at 9.30 pm. Washed it in the apartment.
Greetings to all .Thank you.
Musilová

What a great email. Not only is she very nice in how she words everything, but she paid for a lady to come and wash the window sills for us. I’ve shared before about the window sills, but they are big and there are a lot of them. With everyone not feeling great it’s been hard to get them cleaned. We were so thankful for the kindness of our landlady to do that for us. The only tricky part was the 9:30pm part. I assumed it was AM, and I was actually right, but she came today around 11. No biggie. We were home and she did an awesome job.

For lunch today we decided to get pizza to-go from a local place here in town. To give Bethany a little break, I took the kids with me. It’s a walkable distance, but with Titus and Avery it pretty much doubles the length of time I’m going to be gone. It was raining lightly when we left so I brought umbrellas which quickly turned in to “bumper umbrellas” as the kids kept running in to each other and laughing. The pizza guy speaks great English so I ordered and I told him we would be back in a few minutes and off we went to the bookstore.

I needed to look for some new Czech language books as we are pursuing a new teacher and she goes through different material. I was able to find the books after going through the store two times over. The only problem was they only had 1 set of the books in stock (there are 3 books in the series). When I got the checkout it proved very difficult to communicate that I needed another set. After a few minutes of trying to speak and trying to use my phone to translate I kind of got the gist: I think they needed to order more and would arrive in the future, maybe next week? Another lady in the store overheard me and the clerk trying to communicate and walked up and said, “Do you need help?” in perfect English. Score! I told her I think I know what’s going on but she was able to tell me that they are ordering the books and they will come tomorrow. Ah! “Tomorrow…” — that’s the word I confused as “next week.” Now they know why I need the books.

Tonight we got a babysitter and had a date night. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten away together just Bethany and I, so it was a blessing. We had originally planned to go to dinner with friends but I felt like we just needed some time to ourselves tonight. A girl from our church watch our kids and she was great. Bethany and I went to the mall in Ostrava and had–wait for it–Burger King for dinner. Don’t judge us. It actually sounded really good, is cheap, and just the small taste of America, fast food or otherwise, is a blessing. After dinner we just walked around and relaxed and ended up leaving earlier than we expected. It was a fun night together and I’m thankful for the focused time with my wife.

That’s all for today. Onward.

Tags books, date night, language, pizza, windows