Tag: language

Sunday School Speaking

Something amazing happened today: I heard Titus speak Czech. Now, before we get really excited, I will say he was just saying Czech words, not phrases. However, this doesn’t really make it any less amazing in my mind because of what was going on in Titus’ brain. Here’s the story.

During Sunday School this morning I stayed with Titus in his classroom. The kids were doing some kind of activity where the teacher was asking them questions and she was going around in a circle and they were responding. When she got to Titus, I heard him say something and we couldn’t really understand it. I said to him, “what was that, buddy?” He said it again and I was still unclear. Then the teacher said, “Ohh…tři, čtyři, pět” which means “three, four, five” in Czech. Even though Titus couldn’t answer or didn’t understand what was being asked, he had made the switch in his brain to answer in whatever Czech he could–in this case it was numbers. It was literally the first time I had ever heard him attempt Czech numbers or words in response to someone speaking Czech to him. A little later the kids were playing a game where one person thought of an animal and the kids had to guess. I was impressed by Titus because he figured out what they were doing and tried guessing an animal. He said, “krokodýl” nice and loud which means “crocodile.” His guess wasn’t right, but I was amazed at the process in his mind. It’s a fun process to watch him grow and learn.

I didn’t get any photos today, but I did get a little timelapse video from Titus’ Sunday school class. Usually they have a little drawing activity and so I got some footage of all of the kids at their tables. You can watch it below.

Sunday School Timelapse from Shay on Vimeo.

As for the rest of the day we had a great lunch at home with some fresh croissants we got at the store. Steve and Judy spent a lot of time just hanging with us today which was a lot of fun. I just love the questions they ask and they have been a huge encouragement to us. We’ve talked of books, ministry, life, parenting, missions, and anything in between. It truly has been such a joy to be with our “family,” that is our extended church family from the States.

Tonight we decided to have a quick dinner with Steve and Judy at McDonald’s in Poland. We ended up going to Poland because there’s a new McDonald’s just inside the border, about 7 minutes from us. But when we got there it was actually not even open–that is, it’s so new it’s still under construction. So instead of going back in to Czech we drove a little further into Poland toward another set of Golden Arches. I’m so glad we did because our drive home was right around sunset and it was stunning. Rain had been falling this afternoon, but the sunset peeked through the clouds while we drove and we were in awe of God’s amazing creation. A photo wouldn’t have done it justice!

There are some plans tomorrow do a little shopping with Steve and Judy in the morning after we take Titus to school. Right now I’m planning on staying home for the morning to get a little work done, but hopefully we’ll find something fun to do in the afternoon. They are only here two more days so we’ve gotta pack our time in and see what else we can show them! There’s also a rumor that Bethany and I will be taking a date night which just sounds really fun. Until then…goodnight!

Tags Czech, language, speaking, speech, Titus

365 Czech Republic

On Trying New Things

We had our weekly language lesson this morning with Tamara and it was a very helpful one. Above you can see a photo of us trying to categorize certain words based on masculine, feminine, and neuter and then we had to add an adjective in front of it. In English this really isn’t too hard grammatically, but in Czech there are a lot of things that change based on the gender. The simple act of drilling these things is always so helpful to get it to really stick.

This afternoon we were driving up to our house after picking up Titus from school and we saw the postal service lady on her bike delivering our mail. As we got closer we saw her launch a package over our fence on to the wet brick. When I say “launch,” I mean it. That bad boy flew! After parking the car in the garage Titus ran and got the package off the ground and I heard him say, “Hey!!!” as he realize who’s name was on there. He saw “Titus Thomason” written on the front and it was a package from Nana and Papa for his birthday. He was so excited (as you can see in the photo above) and I quickly grabbed my camera to try and capture his emotions. We haven’t let him open it just yet, but he’s getting excited about turing five next week!

Earlier this week I was driving in to the office and I was thinking about how much harder it is to try new things. As we’ve been here almost 10 months we’ve basically settled in to a routine and haven’t really branched out as much lately as we did in the beginning. This goes for everything from food we buy at the store, trying new coffee houses or restaurants, and even just exploring the town. Now, it has been pretty cold until recently so walking the town hasn’t been high on the priority list, but I still think we were a lot more open to getting out there and seeing things in the early days of arriving here.

With that in mind, today at our lessons we were talking to Tamara about our town and things and she mentioned that the Polish side of the town we live in has really good, inexpensive restaraunts. She even pulled out her computer and showed them to us on a map. We wrote some notes and I even put some info in to my phone so that we might explore that later. But this afternoon Bethany said, “Do you want to go try one of those new places Tamara told us about?” I said, “Sure, let’s do it.” Her next questions was, “Are you sure you’re up for that?” What she’s trying to ask is, “Are you ready for the language barrier and the hassle of getting out trying something new.” Because Bethany knows that it’s not easy, just the same way I do. I think that’s part of the reason we haven’t explored more in the recent months. It’s not easy to get out there and test the waters, be vulnerable, make mistakes, waste time, be confused, etc. But we decided to venture out and I’m glad we did!

The restaurant we went to is only a few minutes from us by car, just inside the border of Poland. It’s in the town square and we’ve been there before, and the kids love chasing the birds around. The place we ate was inexpensive and the waiter spoke English which made the experience for us much nicer. The hardest time we had was trying to figure out how to pay for our parking because I didn’t have any Polish coins! I ended up using an ATM to get wash, walking into a Kabob shop and buying a coke just to get change (again, inconvenience often keeps us from trying new things). But we had a sweet time with the kids and we even went ahead and tried their vanilla ice cream with hot raspberry sauce dessert…mmm….it was good. We all loved our food and I’m just really glad we tried something different today. I’m constantly amazed at how hard it actually is to get yourself to do something you know will be annoying, hard, and difficult, even when it’s just going to a new place to eat! That’s all part of the transition, I guess?

Tags dessert, food, kids, language, mail, new things

365 Czech Republic

A Language Day

The last couple days have been wet and dreary. Even though the weather had warmed up a bit last week, it was really short lived and is currently just above freezing. Us southern Californians aren’t used to that because usually when it warms up it stays that way for a while. As I walked to Titus’ school this afternoon to pick him up I took the above photo to give a little bit of an idea of how it looked pretty much all day. The rain is like an all-day light mist and everything just kind of stays gray.

As I approached Titus’ preschool today I realized just how funny the entrance is (shown above from the photo I took today). After you walk through the gate and up the path you come to a large door that for an American is something out of a movie. The doors are heavy and loud and if you didn’t know that there were a hundred little kids running around inside you would think maybe I was entering some kind of castle. I like it.

When I got to Titus’ class they had just started the Lego movie (dubbed in the Czech language). Titus was pretty excited and didn’t want to leave so I let him watch for a few minutes. Plus, it’s always a bonus to hear kids movies in Czech because the language is usually simplified and I can try following along. I also liked that Titus had his hand on his friend Denis’ chair. Also funny was that it was basically almost all the boys watching the movie while the girls were in the other room playing.

We had our biggest language study day to date and it was absolutely wonderful. Our language teacher Tamara came to our house today because she had a car available and was already running errands (normally we drive to her place about 15-20 minutes away). For two solid hours we worked through our Czech language textbook, and we also had a little time to review a Czech tourism book that Tamara brought us (below). What I really enjoyed about our time with her today was that Tamara will just speak Czech while we do things. For instance, while we were looking at the beautiful photos and scenery shown in the book she brought, Tamara was just simply telling us about the places all in Czech. She was speaking slowly and helping us in English along the way, but it’s an exercise of just listening and paying attention to the words you can understand while picking up new ones along the way. Oh, and by the way, this is a beautiful country.

Between 2:30-4 we had a little break before our second round of Czech lessons started with Jenny and Landen. We also try to have hot water for tea and some snacks on the table (which you can see below). I took this photo today because I realized this has become the norm now and we’re well prepared to get into the Czech language!

Today was kind of special because Jenny and Landen brought a young girl from our church who speaks both Czech and English (I also think she speaks Polish!). Her name is Miriam, and she became a little bit of our “Czech helper” (it’s like a teacher, only she doesn’t have to prepare) and we had fun listening to her speak and laughing at all of our mistakes. I think this was the first week we have done five straight days of language time with Jenny and Landen in the afternoon so it’s been a really fun and full week. I can already tell that with how much studying we’re doing that things are starting to click in my mind much faster. By no means are we great Czech speakers yet, but we’re definitely making progress! Here’s a photo of all of us (minus me, of course) sprawled out on the table working on our lesson.

Since we had such a focused day of language, and because the kids did pretty well during all of it, we decided to take them out to eat tonight. It’s bit of a drive to find a place we can all enjoy, but it’s just nice to get out. We went to a newer mall about 20 minutes from our place and enjoy an easy dinner and just walked around a toy store together.

Bethany has been talking a lot lately about how much baby #3 has been kicking and hiccuping. I believe she’s officially entered her third trimester and she’s starting to feel a little more uncomfortable. In the next month or so we have to begin to figure out which hospital Bethany will deliver at and put together a “birth plan” with a Czech speaker to try to minimize the surprises when she does go into labor. You can be praying for us as the due date gets closer and closer and as we begin to finalize our plans of having a baby in another country.

Tags language, preschool, school, Titus, weather

365 Czech Republic

Czech Makes You Do Funny Things

Post author By Shay
Post date March 11, 2015
No Comments on Czech Makes You Do Funny Things

“You put the green book under the yellow head.” I think that’s the sentence that Landen was putting together in this picture. To the left you see his wife, Jenny, laughing because it’s hilarious how silly we look sometimes but how focused we are while we’re doing these things. You may not think that putting a green book under your chin with a color card would mean much, but for us it’s helping us understand adjectives and how those words change. In the Czech language the endings of words change often and that’s true of adjectives, like when you’re using a color to describe an object (e.g. “the green book”). So we’re building sentences from simple objects and trying to listen as Jenny tells us what we’re doing in Czech. Fun times!

Another funny (maybe strange?) thing about Czech is an Easter tradition where boys use sticks to hit girls on Easter Monday (that’s not a typo, it’s the day after Sunday). Above is a photo Bethany got of those sticks today at the grocery and instead of trying to describe the tradition myself, here’s how one Web site explains it:

Young, live pussywillow twigs are thought to bring health and youth to anyone who is whipped with them. An Easter pomlázka (from pomladit or “make younger”) is a braided whip made from pussywillow twigs. It has been used for centuries by boys who go caroling on Easter Monday and symbolically whip girls on the legs. In the past, pomlázka was also used by the farmer’s wife to whip the livestock and everyone in the household, including men and children. There would be no Czech Easter without the pomlázka.

I guess I’ll make sure to keep Bethany indoors on Easter Monday!

Tags Czech, Easter, funny, language, silly

365 Czech Republic

Verbs, Czech, Love, and Optimus Prime

Post author By Shay
Post date February 20, 2015
No Comments on Verbs, Czech, Love, and Optimus Prime

We spent a more extended time in our Czech language study today and it was a mix of grammar and speaking. This morning we had our normal language grammar lesson with Tamara and we were working on verbs. There are so many forms that verbs in Czech take, it’s amazing. After some serious drilling and writing, I was feeling much better about it. Tamara has been a huge blessing and I’m very thankful for our time with her.

Above is a photo I took of Bethany during our second round of study today. We were doing our normal speaking drills with Jenny and Landen Llamas and we were building simple sentences like “I picked up the book” or “I put the book on my head” and I just had to get a photo of Bethany because it made us all laugh. You’re not really thinking about what you’re physically doing, but mentally just trying to put sentences together and I realized I should probably get a photo of it.

As Jenny and Landen were leaving they found a package on our doorstep from America. Even though it took a little while to get here, we received our Valentine’s Day cards from Bethany’s parents which they have been sending to us for years now. There was an envelope for each of us and they threw in some of our mail that was delivered to them in the States. Bethany’s dad also included a handwritten note inside which was really nice. We don’t get much mail, so when anything comes it’s kind of special. Thank you, family, for thinking of us even on Valentine’s Day!

Tonight we took a short trip to the grocery store as a family just for something to do. We only picked up a few things, but as we were walking around and just browsing I turned around to find Titus with this mask on (shown above). He kept saying, “Dad! Take a picture of me!” I didn’t realize until tonight that it was a mask of Optimus Prime from Transformers. Titus has no clue what that is, but I just love that he’s enjoying being a boy. While driving to the store he told Bethany he wanted to go on a date with her tomorrow. They have been talking about it for a while now, but I think it’s going to happen tomorrow. I just hope Titus has more ideas on what to do on a date in Czech because I’m just plain out of them!

We had some plans to make a little trip to Prague tomorrow to see our friends, but we’re delaying them until maybe next week. The youth group at our church is having a big party tomorrow and we would really like to be part of it. But we also want to get out and explore Czech. We’ve never really had much opportunity to spend time in Prague so we’re hoping to do that soon. It’s so crazy that we live in Europe.

Tags Czech, language, store, Titus

365 Czech Republic

Full Days This Week

I don’t like to talk about how tired I am, but at this moment I’m really feeling a little out of gas. The last few days have been longer than usual with different things going on at Josiah Venture, including the national orientation that I talked about yesterday. Above is a photo that I took this morning of the entire group and some of the leaders of the orientation. It hasn’t been snowing the last few days, but it was still pretty cold out and you can see just how much snow is still on the ground. I believe there are about eight different countries represented in that group and I was told by one of the leaders that they seem to be a really great group with lots of energy and interaction. Tomorrow I will be with them and sharing a bit about our story and how God used technology to help us connect with others during our support raising. I’m really looking forward to it!

We had our usual language talking time at home this afternoon and if you look on the far right (in the above photo) you can see we’ve added another member to the group. Our friend and teammate Daniel joined us today for some Czech language and we had a good time together. Mostly we’re making sentences like, “I took the bus to the store,” with really basic grammar and words. As has been true thus far, it’s amazing just what you can learn by repetition and listening.

I didn’t do a great job of being daddy tonight. Shortly after I took the photo above, Avery spilled that orange cup of dirty water all over the floor and me. I got pretty short with the kids and just in general didn’t have a good attitude. Bethany pointed it out to me and finally I realized I just needed to lay down, which I did for about 20 minutes. Tiredness is never an excuse for sin, but it definitely can influence it.

The night ended better and we enjoyed a good dinner, Bible time, and a new thing we’ve been doing with the kids which is there verse. Bethany has a little verse on the wall in their room and for the past week we have been reciting it with them. The kids and us say together,

When I am afraid,
I will trust in You!
In God I trust.
I will not be afraid.
Psalm 56:3-4

The kids have it completely memorized and they can recite it together and by themselves. It’s been fun to do and serves as a reminder to them that they don’t have to be afraid of the dark. I was blessed to hear them say it again tonight and am so glad we’re able to watch them memorize Scripture at such a young age.

Tomorrow we’re up early to head to the Foreign Police to receive our official two year visas. We won’t be going with a translator because we’re told it’s not hard to do, but you can definitely pray it goes well. Until then…

Tags Czech, language, national orientation

365 Czech Republic

Learning By Listening

I was back at church this morning by myself because the kids were up most of the night coughing. I asked Bethany if she wanted to go and I stay with the kids, but she was up most of the night attending to them and was really tired. So I was by myself for the second week in a row, but I guess this really isn’t much different than some weeks we had in the States.

I shared last week that I’m changing the way I approach church here. Instead of trying to get what I can out of the English translation of the sermons, I’m just approaching the morning as a language learning opportunity. For now, this means I’m writing down every Czech word I can hear or understand and marking it a little notebook. As I hear the words repeated I put a hashmark next to them.

Today I heard 122 individual words. We had a guest speaker who I believe is a pastor from another church, but I’m not really sure about that. The word I heard the most was “Kristu” (a form of “Christ”). I also heard “children,” “father,” “youth,” and “now” a lot. At one point I understood we were turning to 1 John, but it wasn’t until it came up on screen that I knew what the reference was. Here’s the passage the pastor read from:

I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

That’s 1 John 2:12-14. I guess it makes sense that I heard those words the most. I assume because they were in the text that he was just referencing those words more often. The pastor seemed very passionate about what he was saying. There were a few moments where he was choked up and couldn’t talk. Maybe he was sharing some of his testimony? I also observed that he was making people laugh, even just shortly after showing his own emotion.

Even though I don’t know what exactly was what communicated, I’m learning that simply by listening and making notes I can actually start to make clearer distinctions in the language. Much like doing Bible study where you observe what is written first before going deeper, I’m trying to observe and just listen to Czech. I’m even starting to pick up more on the cadence of the language. It’s weird to feel like an outsider with the language, but I know this is just for a time.

As for the rest of the day, we’ve been taking it easy this afternoon and mostly resting. It’s almost dinner time and Bethany made cookies for dessert! I’m off to enjoy that and the rest of our evening.

Tags language, Sunday

365 Czech Republic

A Good Work

In Philippians 1:3-6, Paul writes these words after his initial greeting to the church in Philippi,

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Those words rang loud in my heart tonight as I writing a few different emails to some of our supporting churches in the States. I sat here tonight praising the Lord for the many different people God has used to send us to a place like Czech to bring the gospel of Jesus. There is a “partnership in the gospel” that amazes and humbles me. And then there’s a promise that a “good work” is going on in our lives and the lives of our supporters that God promises to complete! This too is amazing and humbling. I praise God tonight for the work He is doing around the globe to not only call others to Himself, but to work in the ones He calls to make them more like Jesus every single day.

We had the joy today of going to another doctor visit as a family where we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat. Titus thought we would see an ultrasound, but that wasn’t on the docket today. The doctor gave us a good report that everything looks normal thus far. Praise the Lord for his continued grace with our third child.

I took a short trip with my team and another missionary to Poland today to, believe it or not, look at some t-shirts at a printer. Next month we’ll be ordering around 4,000 shirts that will be worn by as many young people around Central and Eastern Europe and our team was asked to meet the printer in Poland and pick out a nice shirt. These are for this summer’s camps where thousands of young people will hear the gospel for the first time. It was a fun little trip and even though picking a shirt sound trite, I know that they represent an opportunity for some young man or woman to come to Christ. That is my prayer and I will ask you to join us in praying for the hearts of these young people to be open and ready to bow the knee to Jesus.

This afternoon we had our third day in a row of language practice with our friends Jenny and Landen (you can see them in the photo above). Today was a very encouraging day because by the end of it we could hear a simple sentence and know what’s being communicated. For instance, Jenny could say “I went to the post office by car” in Czech, and Landen, Bethany, and I could understand. Then, we were able to build different sentences ourselves and say them back in Czech. It’s a little to explain the process of how we could come to that point so quickly, but we were even surprising ourselves that we could do it! It’s weird how just speaking the simple sentences over and over you start to hear the nuances of the language and can kind of just, for lack of a better word, feel the right words come out. Like I said, it was really encouraging and I’m excited about our progress in such a short amount of time.

Our language lesson went a little late tonight so we decided to actually go back over to Poland tonight with Jenny and Landen for a quick dinner. They had never been to this fast food place that has cheeseburgers and chicken, so we decided to all go together. It was a great finish to a full day and I’m just happy tonight as we get ready for bed. God is so good and so faithful. It’s such a joy to serve the King.

Tags Jesus, language, Paul, Poland, shirts

365 Czech Republic

Learn. Speak. Repeat.

This afternoon we started our first series of “LAPs” (Language Acquisition Projects) with our friends Jenny and Landen. Basically, it’s a bit of a counterintuitive approach to learning any language. It was a system we learned at our pre-field training in Colorado and something we haven’t really been able to try out until now. Thanks to Jenny (our “language helper” and native Czech speaker, we basically just learn sentence, speak it, and repeat. More than anything though, we spend our time listening and trying to hear the nuances of the language. Much a like a child learns their native language, that’s sort of the approach of LAPs.

We will definitely continue our normal lessons with our friend Tamara, but I guess (and I’ll make up a phrase here) “LAPs fill in the gaps.” If our usual book lessons focus on grammar, then LAPs just focus on talking and hearing the language. If our normal lessons focus on vocabulary, then LAPs focus on creating sentences and phrases. We’re hoping for the best of both worlds and based on our time today I think it just might be the extra dose of language we need.

With the added language time, it’s going to push our schedule around a bit so that’s going to be a stretch. However, we always felt that our time in language is some of the best use of our time and will allow us to be more effective long term in the Czech culture. Please continue to pray for us as we make a transition here and hope to continue regular focused language instruction and practice.

Tags friends, language, LAPS, lessons

365 Czech Republic

Memory Monday

One of my teammates, Daniel, celebrated his birthday yesterday and a few of the missionaries here wanted to do something for him and celebrate. We decided that this morning would be a good time to take him out to breakfast and enjoy some fun together. After taking Titus to school, Bethany, Avery, and I drove out to a little cafe in Ostrava to join the fun. Breakfast places are actually kind of rare in Czech and this little cafe made some great food. I believe I had my first omelet in Czech and the only one I’ve eaten since leaving the States. I trust Daniel was blessed and I’m glad we were able to celebrate him while he’s so far from family and other friends. I hope it made a memory.

The snow was falling all morning and this made Bethany’s drive back home a little challenging. I had actually caught a ride with Daniel to go back to the Josiah Venture office which is a different direction then our home, so I wasn’t with her. She ended up being about 30 minutes late picking up Titus from school but they were very understanding. It has been snowing all day since this morning and we’ve got at least four inches on the ground, even though it might be even more now.

Bethany was nervous about putting the car in the garage because she thought she would have to come pick me up due to all the snow that was coming down. I ended up getting a ride home, but here’s a photo of our car in the driveway as it sat when I got home. It took Bethany and I a few minutes to wipe it all off and put it back in the garage, but we were laughing and having a good time. It made a memory.

Another really fun moment today was going to the post office. I can’t believe it, but I was able to send a letter to America and buy stamps all in the Czech language! Granted, I wrote everything down and had notes I was using, but it really doesn’t change the feeling of being able to actually do something in another language. As I walked out of the building I took the photo below of the outside just to remember the moment and I said out loud, “YES! I did it!” I have a renewed passion to do as much Czech speaking and learning as I can possibly do and today was a win in my book. It made a memory.

I also got a quick video of my excitement.

A video posted by Shay Thomason (@shaycam) on Feb 9, 2015 at 8:28am PST

Lastly, tonight we opened our February envelope! Each month we open an envelope from our small group back in the States. This was a really fun envelope from some great friends of ours. It’s bittersweet to see the notes and kind words from them and remember the sweet times we enjoyed with them. Thank you, friends, for caring for us and sending us these wonderful gifts. Here are a few pictures of the kids opening it up and some of what was inside.

A sampling of things inside were new toothbrushes for the kids, Burt’s Bess lip balm, new books (see below), coloring books, a puzzle, bead key chains (a craft for the kids), a drawing from our friend’s kids and a nice card for us.

It looks like someone was scanning our Amazon.com wish list. Thanks for these awesome books!

I tried to get them to smile for this last one, but it didn’t happen. Smile or not, they were happy to get these new fun things and so are we. Thank you!

Tags birthday, Czech, Daniel Reimer, envelope, language, snow, speaking