Tag: rain

Another Wild Day in Czech (In Photos)

Post author By Shay
Post date June 19, 2015
1 Comment on Another Wild Day in Czech (In Photos)

Somehow I ended up with a ton of photos from today so I thought I’d just tell today’s story in photos (with captions beneath each). Let’s do this!

It was raining and cooler this morning so Titus and I donned rain jackets and umbrellas while walking him to school today. I probably should have sent him to school with rain boots, but I was worried we would be late for some event they were going to be leaving for. But I found out when they got there that it had been cancelled due to rain. Go figure.

The word “easy” in the photo above is a little misleading. From Titus’ school I walked over to this cosmetic drug store thing (so hard to explain what it is) that apparently has the only instant photo machine in our town. It was 8:15am and they had just opened. There I was in my black rain coat, looking really shady walking around the store looking for something I couldn’t find which was the machine you see above. I eventually left without saying anything and I’m pretty sure I saw the lady checking my hands as I grabbed my umbrella and walked out the door. Thanks to Rachael and Martina who I texted about this, I went back to the store about and hour later and was able to find the tiny machine.

I had to get prints made for Karis’ passport photos and this was my best option. I finally figured out the machine while the lady tried to explain things to me in Czech. I did finally leave with 6 prints, all of which cost me about $1.25! I was stoked and left a happy man.

Here’s some of her mug shots, I mean, her passport photos.

Karis had a doctor’s appointment today so Bethany gave her a bath just before lunch. I ended up taking Karis in her towel and placing her in front our little heater because she was a little cold and crying. She calmed right down.

Bethany, Karis, and our friend Martina drove to the next town over to the hospital where they had referred Karis. They actually did an ultrasound on her hips/legs. They’ve done that in the States, but it’s just an internal check to make sure there’s no issues with her internally. I believe in the States they just do a physical check with the doctor’s hands, but here’s just a little different. While the girls went to the appointment, Titus and I walked over to the haircut place and I got a trim (no photos of that, sorry!). I did get to show some photos of the baby to my hairdresser lady so that was fun.

When Titus and I walked to get a haircut we saw they they had set up a huge carnival deal in the town square. I believe it’s a big celebration for both our town and the sister city in Poland. I believe they are celebrating the founding of the city or something like that, but whatever it is, it’s important. They went big for this one with rides and tons of shops and food. Below are a ton of photos of what we saw.

I love that the ride above has an image from Toy Story which is actually a sad part of the movie.

Sweet tooth, anyone?

The grills were looking good! I may be wrong but I think something on there might be pork knee (a Czech favorite from what I can tell).

The huge stage already had local dance crew performances going on.

This “bowl” was probably 4 feet across. Sausage and potatoes…yummy.

We ended up going back to the town square as a family this evening so the kids could play and we could get dessert as a family. It was a much different experience from when Titus and I were there a few hours earlier because the place was jumping with people and live music. We ended up getting some traditional Trdelník with cinnamon (it’s so yummy!) and then bough tickets for the big bounce house slide thing.

This is Titus and me waiting for his turn to go up the big slide. I had bought a ticket for Avery to go up to, but she wasn’t “up” for it…get it, “up” for it… because it’s really tall. Yes, tall… like me as I stick out like 8 feet above everyone else in this photo.

Here’s a 30 second video I got of Titus enjoying the slide.

Lastly, here’s Karis as she rode around in the stroller tonight. She was awake most of the time and did great. We had to bundle here up pretty good because it was like 55 degrees out (dead serious).

There you have it–another day in the life of our little family. In the words of Porky the Pig, “That’s all folks!”

Tags carnival, Cesky Tesin, festival, food, kids, photos, rain, town

365 Czech Republic

And We Wait

Post author By Shay
Post date May 30, 2015
1 Comment on And We Wait

As I write a storm has quickly moved in, taking over what was a beautiful sunny day. Rain is now falling and I believe the forecast is calling for thunderstorms in to the evening. I had been playing with the kids outside just a few minutes ago, but with the weather abruptly changing we put all the yard toys away and I’m glad we did because it was only seconds after we came outside that these big drops started coming down. As Titus said, “Whew… that was a close one!”

It was outside in the yard that I got the above photo of Avery. Titus has a mini basketball that we were playing with and we jokingly were putting them under our shirts and telling Bethany to come to the window to look at us. Avery wanted to join the action too and this was the photo I was able to capture of her. I think it tells the story of how we wall feel right now as we wait for this little baby to come. Someone asked me the other day when Bethany’s due date is and I responded, “Some where between May 28 and June 1.” I feel like this is the first time we really don’t have a really accurate date. At least for me there’s been some confusion on the due date based on how the doctor here was measuring the baby, so needless to say we don’t exactly know a perfect date. Bethany had some early contractions (if we can call them that) last night, so we’re keeping a close watch on her. The drive to the hospital is about 40 minutes so I want to make sure we have plenty of time to make our way there. We drove the route yesterday and there’s some new road work being done that caused some traffic, but I’m hopeful it won’t affect us when we’re in need to get to the hospital quickly!

This morning I was gone for about four hours because I was a tiny part of the Josiah Venture intern training event going on at Malenovice. All of the summer interns arrived this week and they are getting trained on a lot of different things for this year’s summer ministry. I had a small presentation on social media and some of the projects my team will be working on which require the help of the interns. I regret not taking a photo of the room and seeing the excitement these mostly college aged students have for the gospel of Christ. Shortly after my presentation, I was meeting with another missionary serving in Ukraine, trying to help her setup a document for translating the harmony of the gospels into the Ukrainian language. Hopefully my little skill in technical design software will help aid her in getting the Scripture in to the hands of the people in Ukraine. That country has been in such turmoil the past few years and they are in constant need of God’s Word and the prayers of the Saints. Please pray for ministry there that even in the midst of much conflict, God’s Word would be proclaimed.

The smell of lasagna is wafting towards me while Bethany, Papa, and Nana work in the kitchen making my absolute favorite meal. It’s been fun to have help with meals and things around the house this past week and we’re thankful for Bethany’s parents willingness to come all this way to do just that. So while we wait for the arrival this little one we’re continuing to enjoy the time with them and I’m looking forward to enjoying this wonderful meal tonight that smells so good!

Tags baby, intern, lasagna, rain, training, wait, weather

365 Czech Republic

Rainy Day in May

If this was California you would think it was winter. It was about 50 degrees today and rainy, a far cry from the 70+ degree weather we’ve been enjoying lately. Honestly, it doesn’t bother because I think the colder air and rain keep the bugs under control, especially those pesky mosquitos. For the kids, however, it’s a bit of a bummer because that means they don’t get much outside time which they have been loving so much. Even now at almost 9:00pm the rain continues to come, but I know warmer days are sure to come.

Now I want to talk about dogs. I mentioned a few days ago about a little black dog that has been coming around the JV office and after Bethany read that particular post she said it sounded like I don’t like dogs. I just want to set the record straight and be clear that I actually do like dogs. I grew up around dogs and enjoyed many great ones, but maybe they set the bar too high for me because I rarely find a dog anymore that I like as much as the ones I grew up. This may be true for a lot of people who had childhood animals, but I like to think that ours were just a cut above. Numerous times my Dalmatian, Sparky, saved me from imminent danger and was kind of like my best boyhood pal. When a dog like Sparky shows up then I might care more, but until then I think that little black dog at the office is just a little nuisance.

This evening our friends from Poland stopped by with lots of goodies because they know how sick we’ve been. I was especially excited to look in to the bag and find some of this Polish fruit juice that we love so much. It was so kind of them and we’re excited to try some of the new foods they brought us that we’ve never had before. Bethany actually made potato soup tonight which really felt right with all the rain today. Warm soup on a cool day just makes sense. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to completely enjoy it because I still can’t taste anything. One week running with no sense of taste is just, well, bland.

Tags dogs, food, May, rain, taste, weather

365 Czech Republic

A Chocolate Lamb

Rain/Snow/Sleet/Hail Today from Shay on Vimeo.

I don’t want to spend too much energy describing the weather, but it has been pretty wild the past few days. Today was no different with rain, hail, sleet, and snow all falling at different times. Again, the sun only shown through the clouds for a few minutes this evening, but mostly it’s been overcast and dreary. Bethany took the video above today of the snow and rain falling, but even tonight we had a lot of hail coming down. What’s weird is that at the Josiah Venture offices today it was mostly dry and I may saw a snowflake or two, but the weather didn’t do much. It’s amazing how much different the weather was at home versus there and they’re really not that far from each other geographically.

Tonight we enjoyed eating our “lamb cake.” I put that in quotes because I don’t know what else to call it. It’s a lamb shaped cake covered in chocolate (which you can see above). It even had two little icing dots for eyes. I did a quick Google on the subject and here’s an excerpt from one site about this Easter tradition,

Even before the days of Christianity the symbol of the lamb was widespread in Mediterranean culture, with its long pastoral tradition. For Christian churches the lamb came to symbolize the Lamb of God – Jesus Christ. In the southern Czech Sumava Mountains there used to be a tradition that blessing a lamb would help wayfarers to find their way through the forests. These days lamb is rarely eaten in the Czech Republic, but this does not mean that lamb has disappeared completely from Czech Easter celebrations. It still appears in the form of a cake.

Above is a photo of us sacrificing our lamb. It seemed appropriate during the Passion Week.

Finally, today Bethany and Avery were counting plastic eggs. This weekend we were invited to spend Easter with some other missionaries and their kids, and we’re going to combine our eggs for a little fun. Bethany said she separated the eggs by color and then Avery lined them up. I’m especially proud of our baseball eggs which you can see in the bottom of the photo.

But more than plastic eggs, Easter is coming Sunday and I’m excited to think on the cross and our resurrected Lord. I know it will be hard to not hear the sermon this week in English, but to join the saints in worship here and around the world to proclaim the gospel will be a great joy. I can’t wait!

Tags Easter, hail, lamb, rain, sleet, snow, tradition, weather

365 Czech Republic

Spring Rain

As you can probably tell from the photo below, it was a little rainy today. I don’t think the sun came out at all and I woke up this morning to rain hitting our windows so I assume there was just a little bit of a breeze. The temperatures dropped significantly from where they’ve been, but that didn’t stop Avery, Titus, and me from going outside later this afternoon and playing.

Titus was back at school today, but he struggled again this morning. He’s been out all week with sickness, so that’s not too surprising. Bethany took him this morning and he was really wanting her to pray with him, which of course she did. It’s hard to evaluate how he’s doing there, but we have noticed when we pick him up the other kids will say goodbye and he just kind of ignores them. This has always been a concern for me that he is doing the same thing to his teachers, but again we really don’t know.

Normally on Fridays we take Titus to school and then drive to our Czech lessons in a nearby town. But this morning our Czech teacher, Tamara, called and asked if we could do them at our house since she was coming this way with her son to see their family. Her coming to our place is great, but I actually ended up walking out of our lessons and laying down because I wasn’t feeling well. I ended up sleeping another two hours! I don’t know if my body is fighting something or I’m just actually that tired, but I ended up missing the rest of the lesson which Bethany finished by herself with Tamara.’

We just got back tonight from spending some time with another missionary family. The wife, Lauren, is going to be helping us with all the hospital and baby stuff and we had a great time talking through the details tonight. Lauren has delivered all four of her own kids here in Czech, speaks Czech, and is actually a certified doula in Czech! She knows a ton about the systems and how the hospitals work so tonight we had dinner together and our kids played with her kids while talked through some of the process of having a baby in Czech. Mostly it sounds similar to the States, but there are still many cultural things that are different and will probably come up. It’ll be nice to have Lauren’s help and we’re blessed to have her be part of this journey with us.

That’s all from me. Good night!

Tags baby, birth, Czech, doula, rain

365 Czech Republic

Literally Stuck in Frozen Czech

Post author By Shay
Post date December 1, 2014
2 Comments on Literally Stuck in Frozen Czech

Update (11:35pm): Made it home after 6 hours stuck on the highway. The roads are frozen over and the driveway to our place is basically an ice rink. But it’s nice to be home!

As I write this, I’m sitting in my car in the middle of a freeway with the engine off. I’m about 6.5 miles from home with little hope of when traffic will resume. The hundreds of other motorists in the same predicament are all asking this question: will I get home tonight?

Today in Czech Republic, the weather turned from cold to freezing rain. As I was working out of the Josiah Venture office (about 30 minutes from home), I hadn’t paid much attention to the weather, and no one had informed me about what was going on outside. Then I got a text from my teammate Daniel who had left earlier saying he was stuck on a hill with a bunch of other cars. That was at 3:53pm and I was in a meeting and it really didn’t click for me that maybe something like that couldn’t happen to me too.

An hour later, Rachael came in to the office and said that someone in Cesky Tesin (our mutual town) informed her that the roads were getting bad. Rachael asked me if she could get a head start back to town in her car, and if something went wrong, asked if I could help her. Of course, I said sure and called Bethany to tell her about what was going on.

Not 15 minutes later, Rachael called me. The highway onramp was closed and she wanted to know if she could come back to the office and if I could help her. Of course, I said yes, and that’s basically where the story starts and basically ends. That was three hours ago.

When I got to my car it was literally frozen solid. There was ice covering the entire thing and icicles hanging from the sides. It took about ten minutes to warm it up and scrape off. By this time the onramp had reopened and Rachael didn’t trust herself in this ice so I decided she could ride with me. Off we went going slowly on the highway knowing that there was ice between our tires and the road.

Since I began typing, we still haven’t moved. It took us about an hour and half to go about 16 miles and that’s how long we have been sitting still. We saw people literally sliding on the icy sidewalks and multiple times we have stopped for 10-15 minutes each. Police have snaked their way through the traffic a couple times now, and the second batch had an ambulance following. I don’t know what’s going on ahead of us, but I assume people got hurt.

[long break from writing]

It’s 10:30pm. We’ve been stuck for over five hours and apparently the road is closed in both directions. We got a text from a Czech friend telling us they’ll be closed until at least midnight. I’m going to try and post this blog from the car via my phone and see what happens. I will either update it throughout the night or just try and post more about it tomorrow.

Here are some photos from the adventure (captions below each):

This was my frozen windshield as I got into my car around 5pm.

Here’s an ambulance squeezing through traffic.

This is the salt truck. It got so close to our car we could high five the driver.

More police clearing a space through the already tight traffic.

This is how all the trucks looked…icicles!

Not sure how this truck got snow on it? It was the only car we saw like this.

Tags car, freezing rain, rain, storm, weather

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

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

Meeting Our Landlord and Seeing Our Apartment

Post author By Shay
Post date June 30, 2014
1 Comment on Meeting Our Landlord and Seeing Our Apartment

For the first time since we arrived in Czech we got to go inside of our new apartment. We have been staying in a another missionary’s place temporarily as we wait for our shipping container to arrive, but today we actually got the keys to go and see where we’ll be living for at least two years.

We had a meeting with the landlord around noon and she doesn’t speak English so our friend Mel drove over to help us communicate and make sure all the paperwork was in order. It’s a great place that we think should work well for us. I hope to post photos as soon we get the time to shoot them. After our walkthrough, Mel, myself, and our landlord drove to the electric company to transfer the power into our name–I didn’t even know that was on the agenda. Sadly, because we don’t have visas yet, the electric company said they couldn’t process the request yet and we’ll have to go back. Hopefully we’ll get our visa approvals soon so there won’t be any issues in the future.

Helena (our landlord) is actually a very sweet lady. She brought little chocolate wafers for our kids and even offered to upgrade us to a larger garage on the property for about $10/mo more which we did. This was a blessing from the Lord as we really do need the extra space for storage and it looks like we should have plenty of room now. Before we arrived she had already added our name to the call box outside the gate (shown in the photo above) and in general she was just really kind to us. We look forward to getting to know her more, even though it will be a challenge with the language barrier.

It basically rained all day today. For us southern Californians it’s a nice change. Titus really wanted to go to the park, but it was just too wet to make that happen so we let the kids jump in puddles and play on the sidewalk as we walked to and from our new apartment. Rain is very common in this area so I’m starting to wonder how we’re going to get creative with things to do for the kids when it’s too wet to go outside.

Tomorrow we have the exciting task of going to get our mail at the post office. Apparently some things came in already and so we got a slip from our landlord telling us to go and pick it up. According to our friend Mel this is, “one of those cultural experiences you just need to have.” He was laughing when he said that and it sounded more sinister than sincere. I guess we’ll take it one day at a time…what else can you do?

Tags apartment, landlord, rain