1 month down, 2 months to go!

     Today marks the 4th week I have been in Czech! Time is flying by. My stay with Hanka is coming to an end as I will be moving over to the Hurta's place on Thursday to live with them during the month of March.
     Monday, I spent in bed all day. I got a cold from the hike on Saturday and I wasn't about to go outside in the frigid cold weather to risk getting even more sick, so I stayed in bed, watched movies, and slept. Tuesday, I relaxed during the morning and had English Studio from 4-7:30. This weeks topic was a free day--the students had to big questions/topics that they wanted to discuss. We talked about "dream jobs", artificial intelligence, wildlife & activities in Colorado, and much more. I went on about how much I want to be a nurse and my passion for taking care of people for about 30 minutes until I realized that I wasn't letting anyone else share their thoughts. I promised them next week that I will not talk much. :)
    Wednesday, I spent with the Kaspar's. Lucie called me in the morning and asked me to go to the local Butcher to get some sausage to make for lunch. She told me exactly what to say in Czech and I practiced saying it to her a few times on the phone before I headed out. I asked that she send me a text message of what to say as well, just in case I forgot. So, I walk into the Butcher shop and there are TONS of people and I got intimidated....it was my turn to order so I said to her "Neumim Cesky (I don't know Czech)" and showed her the phone with the text message on it. :) It worked and I probably made her day. Next time, I will order it on my own...I hope.
   Thursday, I taught at both the Gymnazium (high school) and the Sycrov basic school. I taught 11th grade at 8:00 am and gave a powerpoint about Holidays in America. They were a fun class but not very talkative so I am hoping next week, they will be. After the Gymnazium, I taught 7th, 8th, and 9th grade at the Sycrov basic school. We practiced pronouncing words like thanks, father, mother, this, that, and so on. (It is quite difficult for Czech's to say words with "th") I also taught "use to" questions, describing where parts of the body are, as well as animals.

The boys' domino train

 Friday, I spent the morning with the Kaspar's again. Lucie and I made kish together and it turned out yummy! Club (youth group) was at 4pm and Lucie gave the message. At church last week, the sermon was about how you can tell someone is a Christian and what are the defining marks. So, she thought it would be a good idea to cover them again because most of the students who come to club, don't come to church yet they would consider themselves Christian. The talk went well and I ended up sharing part of my testimony which was interesting. I have never done that in a public setting but it was good to help the kids understand why I live my life the way I do now and what it means to me to be Christian.

Playing Spoons

 

       I am officially the "game queen". My job title, if you will, has been established and I am in charge of the games every week until I leave at the end of April. So, at club we played Fish Bowl, Spoons, and then the kids had to build the best domino train they could in 10 minutes.
   Neither domino trains fell like they were supposed to but it was fun to watch.
   I had never played spoons until this day, though I have heard about it many times. One thing to know is that Czechs take their games very seriously...I am definitely glad we weren't play with knifes because someone would have definitely lost an eye.
  My Czech vocabulary continues to grow as the games we play and things we talk about are not always translated... forcing me to have to catch on.

   Today, we had a "Kooking with Krista" day. My parents sent a bag of chocolate chips in the "care package" they sent me for Valentine's day so I thought it would be a great idea to teach the kids how to make chocolate chip cookies. "Chocolate chips" do not exist here in the Czech Republic and brown sugar is quite expensive so it was a treat to have "real" chocolate chip cookies. Only 3 students came to learn (2 of them being guys) so Eva, Hanka, Marci, and I made the cookies while the boys hung out until the cookies were ready to eat.
This evening, a group of us from Majak played volleyball. It was a great time.


Tomorrow, I am going ice skating. I have only been 2 times in my life and I am horrible at it so it will be interesting but should be fun. I am going to have lunch at Ondrej and Hanka's (a family from Majak) and then go to church at 5:00pm. Freddy will be teaching about sex and we invited a ton of the students and their friends so I am looking forward to the service tomorrow evening and meeting new people.

Hiking in Slovakia

       This morning, we took some of the Youth Group kids hiking in Czech/Slovakia. The place where we hiked has many different trails that lead to a ski slope where many of the kids go to ski and snowboard. We only hiked 6 km (about 4 miles) but it was a solid sheet of ice 90% of the way. Me, being the only American, hiked in tennis shoes while everyone else was in hiking boots...I fell 9 times. I was definitely the entertainment for the day! Everyone else was slipping around and fell once or twice but nothing like me; a pig on roller skates!

The main reason we were going hiking was to eat the amazing Blueberry Dumplings at the restaurant at the top of the ski slopes! Wow, they were so good!!!

     Each dumpling was about the size of a tennis ball and there were 4 of them, covered in powdered sugar and a delicious frosting-type sauce. YUM!

    After dumplings and some time inside where it was warm, we headed back down the mountain. The ski slopes are right on the border of Czech and Slovakia so the picture below is of me being in 2 places at once!!!! :) Don't ask me what the sign says because the only thing I can read is "Vsetin" and we were no where near the town of Vsetin.

   Though it was cold and windy, we had a great morning with each other. There were a total of 10 of us. I learned some new Czech words and met a couple of new people! I hope to make it back up there to have the dumplings one more time before I leave! It will be better to hike when there is no ice and next time, we can hike a longer distance!

This evening I went to Brad and Lucie's to celebrate their son Adam's first birthday! It was a great time to spend with people from church and again, learn more Czech!

This week will be pretty busy with teaching but I am still praying that I get more opportunities to teach in the high school here--it's the best way to tell kids about English camp and invite them to Youth Group!

Life is a Beautiful thing

        Wow, where do I start? This week was pretty busy and it is going to continue to get busier, which is great. I am continuing to play soccer every monday night with Atletico. This organization is through Majak church and reaches out to kids, mainly boys who enjoy soccer and want to increase their skills. The age groups range from 6-16 with two different sessions; one for the young kids and one for the teens. There is no way to describe how I feel when a 6 year old can out play me in soccer. I am hoping to increase my skills as well as connect with the kids. It's a great way to invite them to youth group, which gives them no choice but to hear the gospel.

        Monday night I went to see 127 hours at the theater here in town. That movie was intense. It really made me think about how important life is and to not take it for granted. I cannot imagine being close to death and not knowing if I'd go to heaven or hell. He doesn't die in the movie but thoughts of suicide fill his head as well as other challenges he faces. I will just leave it at that for anyone who wants to go see it--do it!
       Tuesday I had the opportunity to teach English in the Gymnazium again, one of the high schools in town. The lesson went well and the teacher asked me to come back and teach a different class, the week after the kids get back from break. English studio went ok. The lesson was on Hobbies & free time. This week was a bit more challenging than the first with the language barrier. A few new students joined and it was hard to communicate at times but we got through it. I am constantly learning how to be a better teacher and always asking my students for feedback so they benefit from the time rather than leave confused and not understanding anything I said.

Wednesday was my free day this week. It was beautiful outside so I took a walk around Vsetin.

      Thursday was a great day. I went to one of the basic schools (K-9) with Brad today to help him teach and observe his lessons. We taught 6-9th grade. The classes are 45 minutes in length. It was interesting to see the different level of English with each grade. The teacher we partnered with, Jana, was very excited about me coming to help teach. She wanted me to teach 6 classes each week but I decided it would be best to teach only 4. So, I will be going to the basic school in Sycrov every Thursday to teach 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grade English.  My focus is going to be mainly on the Gymnazium and other high schools in town because I want to put my time and effort into building relationships with the high school students and ultimately invite them to youth group as well as English Camp during the summer.

   Brad and Lucie took me to a restaurant in the top of a nice hotel for lunch. I had traditional Czech cuisine which often consists of a soup and some sort of dumplings or potatoes.
    Today, it rained all day and was really gloomy so I stayed inside. I was able to relax, read and have some great quiet time. This afternoon, we had youth group at the church. I came up with games to play for about an hour and the Brad and Lucie talked about teen pregnancy and how our actions can affect the rest of our lives. It was great to spend some time with the kids again--they are starting to not be so shy about speaking English to me! The kids don't have school this whole upcoming week so I have already started making plans with some of them to go for coffee, dinner, and have a sleep over. I cannot wait to see what happens this week with the conversations we have and fun memories we start making together.

Prayer request: That I would be able to get more time teaching in the Gymnazium and that the students wouldn't be afraid of speaking English to me and opening up.

God is good and I am excited to see how he uses me and works in me the next 10 weeks I am here.

1st Week in Vsetin

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." -Isaiah 40:10

Saturday marked the first week of my stay in Vsetin. I am getting more comfortable with finding my way around town and  I plan on venturing to the grocery store on my own tomorrow. I am also getting used to walking everywhere and I am learning a new Czech word each day.

Sundays, there are two church services; one at 9:00 and one at 5:00. I plan to attend both of them every sunday so I can see everyone. Most sundays, I will be spending the afternoon with a different family from the church--eating lunch with them and playing games. The first few days I was here, I spent with Brad and Lucie talking about the options for teaching in the schools, catching up, and playing with their son Adam who will be one in a couple of weeks. My first English Studio classes were Tuesday night and they went great. I gave a presentation on myself and Colorado and we had a great time getting to know each other a bit more. Thursday was my first time as a guest speaker at one of the high schools in town. I gave the presentation about myself and played a couple games with the students. Thursday night, Brad and Lucie had Hanka and I over for dinner and we played a dominoes game called "Chicken Foot". Friday afternoon was youth group/klub and the kids threw a party for me as well as Brad and Lucie's return to Czech from being in the states for 3 months. We played games, ate czech junk food, talked, and had a great time.

This week, I am teaching another class at the same high school. The English studio theme for tonight's classes is "Hobbies and Free time" so I am working on the lesson plan for it now. Thursday, I will be going to one of the basic schools with Brad to watch and help him teach 4 classes.