Tag: weather

St. Patrick’s Day, Playing Outside, and a Prayer Request

Post author By Shay
Post date March 17, 2015
No Comments on St. Patrick’s Day, Playing Outside, and a Prayer Request

It’s St. Patrick’s Day. I’m sure you saw many people today walking around wearing something green and tonight people around America (not so much Czech) will celebrate by throwing parties and drinking beer (on a related note, I have an entire story about witnessing a drunk driving accident on St. Patrick’s Day that I’ll never forget). It’s sad to me that this is how we (as Americans) celebrate on a day that is supposed to remember a Christian man who loved gospel of Jesus Christ (for more on that, see Kevin DeYoung’s excellent, short post today).

At the Josiah Venture office today there were a few people wearing green, and our Norther Irish friend, Rachael, brought green clover cookies for us to enjoy at our our meeting. They were (magically) delicious–sorry, I couldn’t resist. We had a great meeting a Bible study this morning from Philippians. I’d much rather be spending my St. Patrick’s Day around God’s Word then doing just about anything else!

Bethany took the kids to the park this afternoon and they said that had a great time. In fact, when I got home today the kids came running to the garage to tell me all about it. Above is a photo that Bethany got of the flowers near the park (and hey, there’s lots of green!). While they were there they even saw some kids from our church. Titus even found a new friend who was riding a little play motorcycle and Titus was just running around alongside him for a while. It’s been really nice to play outside and enjoy the warmer spring air. Here’s another photo from the park with Avery enjoying the sand.

Tomorrow Titus will head off to a longer day of preschool because they are doing a “school swap” thing where they bus the kids to another school in town about 10 minutes away. Normally we pick him up around noon but he’ll be staying until 3pm. I can tell that Bethany was prepping him today because he kept telling me all about what he’ll be doing tomorrow. He loves riding on the bus so I’m sure he’ll enjoy that. Below is a photo of the announcement about it at the school and we normally just use Google to try and translate it all. Thankfully this time around his teacher emailed Bethany directly about the trip and what she should pack for him. As I’ve been writing this, she as hard at work trying to get everything together for Titus’ backpack.

Our prayer request is simply that Titus would do well and not be scared. We have been memorizing a verse on fear together and we are continually reminding him of the words. He’ll be going tomorrow and Friday on these little trips so we’re hopeful that it will go well and that he would do alright. Thank you all for praying and for continuing to encourage us!

Tags outside, park, playing, preschool, St. Patrick's Day, Titus, trip, weather

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

Pancake Day, Beautiful Weather, and National Orientation

Post author By Shay
Post date February 17, 2015
No Comments on Pancake Day, Beautiful Weather, and National Orientation

Today was “Pancake Day” in the U.K., and since one of our teammates, Rachael, is a Northern Ireland native she brought pancakes for us to enjoy this morning at our team meeting. Traditionally you eat them with sugar and lemon juice which was new to me and surprisingly tasty! At one point I asked for a fork, but Rachael noted that she usually just rolls them up and eats them. So if you’re feeling international and hungry for some pancakes, don’t heat to IHOP. Make your own at home and grab the sugar and lemon juice!

It was bitter cold this morning (in the teens), but by the afternoon we were enjoying temperatures in the mid forties! You wouldn’t think that would merit opening the window and thinking it’s a Spring day, but that’s exactly what was happening. In the photo above that Bethany took you can see how the snow was melting in the sun, but anything in the shade is just solid ice. It’s such a dramatic change for us living here when it comes to weather, but we’re getting used to it.

Unrelated to weather, here’s a photo of Titus with pipe cleaners on him. Just for fun.

Finally, tonight I had the privilege of introducing my team at the Josiah Venture national orientation. No clue what that is? Let me explain. The mission of Josiah Venture is to “equip young leaders in Central and Eastern Europe to fulfill Christ’s commission through the local church.” One way that is accomplished is through a core value we call “indigenous empowerment.” Basically, we want to see the nationals (that is, anyone from the same country they serve in), we want to see them empowered to reach their own people with the gospel. Josiah Venture helps support those local ministries and today began a 3 day orientation where 19 nationals become part of the greater Josiah Venture family. This week they will learn about JV, our core values, history, etc. and will be introduced to raising support in their countries as supported missionaries. I will actually be teaching them on Thursday about how to use technology and social media to aid in their support raising efforts. I’m looking for to my time with them! Here’s one photo I got of the room tonight. Pray for these leaders!

Tags kids, leaders, nationals, pancakes, weather

365 Czech Republic

Good Times and Playing Outside

Post author By Shay
Post date January 6, 2015
No Comments on Good Times and Playing Outside

The weather in Yakima today was amazing. For the past week it has been below freezing and today it shot up to 60 degrees which meant Titus and I could play a little baseball outside! We played a little outside, but you can only last so long before your hands are frozen solid, so today was a nice change. Titus loves baseball and I always announce the game as if it’s a major league playoff which Titus thinks is hilarious (OK, I think it’s funny too).

As we approach our final week here, we did some final shopping today just to make sure we’ve covered everything we’ve been hunting for. We browsed through Costco today and while we were just hanging out the kids and I found some sweet leather chairs to sit on. I was pretending to lay in the chair when the kids jumped in and joined me, so Bethany got the above photo of us. Too bad you can’t fit leather chairs on airplanes…just kidding.

Titus got in on the leather chair action too. Here he is testing out another option.

If Costco wasn’t enough America to take in, we also enjoyed a little Asian-American cuisine and had Panda Express for lunch. The food was a little disappointing (maybe it’s our changing taste buds), but it’s one of those weird things you miss when you’re in Czech. Here’s a photo of Avery playing with one of Titus’ cars as we waited for our food.

Tonight I had the joy of spending a little FaceTime (video chat) with my friend Matt. I don’t know how long we chatted, but it was really special to be able to catch up and just talk about our new lives overseas. Matt and I used to meet regularly for coffee and I think often of those times and miss them. That is definitely one of those things you sacrifice when you move across the planet…close friendships. Matt and I will be friends for years, I’m sure, but it’s hard to be in a different time zone on the other side of the world. I’m thankful for the time we got tonight and hope for more in the future.

Tags friends, outside, weather

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

Tired, Cold, and Wet

Sleep was limited last night. Not only did I have some kind of insomnia, but Avery coughed for at least an hour from around 2-3am. We were up early and out the door this morning so I think I only got around four hours of sleep. Needless to say I’m just plain old tired right now.

I’ve written for many days now that sickness has just absolutely plagued us. Every day seems like a battle for better health. Today Bethany gave the kids a mid-day bath (photo above) because they were just really congested and the warm water and steam helps give them some temporary relief. Their smiles are proof positive that, for at least a little bit today, they were feeling good.

It was cold and wet today. Gray skies have stuck around for a few days now and I’m left wondering if the bitter cold is approaching. Every day I’m a little surprised that we’re not quite below freezing here yet. We heard the news about Buffalo New York and the massive amount of snow that came in just a couple days, and in my mind I just kind of expect that to happen here. The funny thing is I really have no idea what the weather is like here so I think I’m just planning for the worst weather and anything else is a surprise.

Tags cold, tired, weather

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

Duck, Duck, Goose (St. Martin’s Day)

Post author By Shay
Post date November 11, 2014
1 Comment on Duck, Duck, Goose (St. Martin’s Day)

Today is St. Martin’s Day in the Czech Republic. Mostly it’s a European holiday, and in Czech it’s celebrated with a goose or duck meal. I was with some teammates today at a restaurant and everything was duck. I even had what I’ll call duck noodle soup. This particular restaurant even offered a family size goose meal if you ordered in advance. You could say today’s specials were duck, duck, or goose (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Today is also the Czech name day for “Martin.” Every day of the year has a name associated with it in Czech and today is Martin. I can only assume that’s on purpose. Below is a photo of the chalk board sign they had at up at the restaurant today.

As I did a little online research on St. Martin’s Day, I found a few interesting things. One thing actually helped explain something from the other night that I didn’t understand. Remember when we were at Titus’ preschool and we walked around town with lanterns? Well, in most Western European countries, they have been doing this for many years in the days leading up to St. Martin’s Day. According to Wikipedia, in Germany “children walk in processions carrying lanterns, which they made in school, and sing Martin songs. Usually, the walk starts at a church and goes to a public square.” This is almost exactly what Titus did the other night which really helps explain at least the origin of the tradition for me.

The second interesting thing I read was that in Czech, St. Martin’s Day signifies the first half of November when it usually starts to snow. Today that couldn’t be further from the truth. Even as I type at 9:00pm, it’s only 55 degrees out and just a few hours ago I was playing tennis outside in the driveway with the kids at it was 60. There was a lady working in our entry way (she works for our landlord who lives upstairs) and she said to me, “teplo noc” which means “warm night.” I said, “Ano! Moc templo” which means “Yes! Very warm.” Now, you might think 60 degrees isn’t that warm for some parts of the world but for here it’s very nice. When you only have to wear a sweatshirt and not a snow jacket outside, you know it’s nice. I’ll take a teplo noc any day in November.

I was really encouraged today by some Czech language CDs that a teammate gave to my team. I started listening to them in the car today and in an hour’s worth of time (round trip to the JV office and back) I learned a bunch of new phrases. It helps that we’ve been engaged in language already, but I was able to talk a little tonight with our landlord. It’s amazing how even just being to say, “I understand” or “I don’t understand” can keep a conversation going. My landlord and I talked about a light being broken in the garage and what I got out of the conversation is that she wants me to email her. As always, I’ll take the win with that one!

Tags duck, goose, holiday, St. Martin's Day, warm, weather

365 Czech Republic

Sunday (Literally) or What We Miss Sometimes

Post author By Shay
Post date October 5, 2014
3 Comments on Sunday (Literally) or What We Miss Sometimes

I think Tuesday was the last time we saw the sun shine. It was on our drive home from Vienna and it wasn’t for very long, but I do remember the sun coming out. That was five days ago.

Bethany and I talked today about the sun, or the lack of it. We never really thought we would miss it, but when you don’t see it for five days you really appreciate it and notice it when it does. Things are really gray here when the sun isn’t shining. Mostly, I think it’s because it gets really foggy and the clouds hang low. In California, even if it got foggy, it burned off by noon and you had clear skies. Not so much here. But today the sun poked through a few times during church this morning and then finally stayed out around 3:00 or 4:00 for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written this before, but someone told us once that “when the sun’s out, the Czechs are out.” That was us today. We spent as much time outside as we could. We walked through town (as you see in the top photo) and we played in the backyard (shown directly above and some below). Bethany said, “I didn’t realize how much I love blue skies.” I totally agree. We had so many blue sky days in California you have the opposite problem–you want cloudy days! So we’ve flipped now and I would say we’re still adjusting.

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot about language learning the past week or so. We’re still looking for a new tutor and we’re going to start having a young girl from church come do some mini-lessons with us this week. Today at church was yet another reminder for me how bad I want to learn Czech. I know it’s hard. I know it will take time, but I’m feeling the pinch right now. Our prayer is for God to provide someone soon who can focus with us and be flexible with our family. We’ll see what the Lord does.

Like the sun, we’ve been missing other things lately too. Skyping with our friends yesterday reminded us how much we miss them. Oh, we pray and trust that the Lord will bring new friends and close relationships here, but we left so many behind. I found myself missing the pumpkin patch today. I saw a photo on Instagram of another friend at our favorite place in California with their kid, and that was one of our traditions. Traditions here are unknown right now. I don’t even know at this moment if they have a pumpkin patch for us to take our kids to. Maybe that’s something we left behind as well? Yet the one thing we haven’t left behind, or rather, He hasn’t left us behind, is God. He is constant and unchanging and that is a wonderful reminder.

Last night as we were video chatting with friends in the States they said, “From reading your blog, it doesn’t seem like you miss anything here.” Well, if I’ve communicated that then I’ve probably missed something on the blog! Those big picture things are hard to communicate on a daily basis, but today as the sun came shining through it was a real and physical reminder of what we have been missing. We’re thankful God has brought us to this needy place and by His grace we will continue to do whatever we can to show His love to others. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have moments where we remember what we left, or better said, who we left.

Tags church, friends, missing, sun, weather

365 Czech Republic

November in August

It’s August 24, 2014 and I don’t know where I’ve been at the end of every August, but I believe that more than 90% of the time I have been in California. August in SoCal is hot. Just now I checked the weather and it’s 85 degrees in Santa Clarita. But you wouldn’t have had any idea it was August here in Czech today. The high was 60 and right now it’s in the upper 40s. It rained most of the day and at one point it was just coming down hard (photo below). It cleared up tonight and Titus and I went outside to play for a bit and I said to Bethany that had I not known it was August I would’ve thought it was November. I had a sweater and pants on and found myself trying to see my breath. All that to say I’m starting to get a little nervous about the winter here. If August is more like November where I’m from in California, then what must November feel like?

I’m sad we weren’t able to go to church today. Bethany really didn’t feel well today and even though I had gotten up and showered, I knew Bethany wasn’t well enough to go. And the thought of taking both of my kids to a two hour Czech church service by myself was a little daunting so I spent the morning with the kids while Bethany rested. I’ve noticed we have good days and bad days with our health and I wonder if our bodies are just adjusting. Already I can tell my allergies have been a problem and numerous days Bethany and I have had weird headaches. Not sure what that’s all about but I hope it’s not a long term issue.

We are nine hours ahead of California and we read online today the news as it was happening regarding the 6.0 earthquake in Napa. From what I saw there were some serious damages and apparently critical injuries. We will be sure to pray tonight for that area. Often when big events like that happen it’s an open door for churches to give the gospel and share the love of Christ with their neighbors. By God’s grace, He will even use an earthquake to draw more to Himself and that is our prayer.

Tomorrow morning I’m headed out early with a translator and our landlord to finalize some paperwork regarding our electricity and gas. Please pray it goes well because historically anything at an “official” office doesn’t go smoothly. That’s just life in Czech.

Tags earthquake, health, weather