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.

Arrival in Vienna

After 11 hours on a plane, I arrived in Vienna, Austria this morning at 8:30. Dan, one of the pastors of the Lighthouse church, picked me up and we headed to Bratislava, Slovokia. Dan had a meeting with a friend for a couple of hours so I just hung out and started reading the book Redeeming Love. From Slovokia, we traveled by car to Vsetin where I will be staying the next 3 months.

Vsetin currently has about a foot of snow on the ground and the high temperatures have been around 30 degrees. This afternoon, I met Hanka whom I will be living with for the first month. She has a flat (apartment) here and lives within a 15 minute walk to the town and Majak Church. After unpacking, Hanka and I walked around town. This evening, Hanka and I played volleyball with a group of people, some who attend Majak Church. It was a blast playing with such good players. It is challenging to play with them because I have no idea what they are saying but I'm hoping I will catch on quick! Tomorrow, I will see a lot of the people I met this summer at camp. I cannot wait to see them all!

You can only imagine how tired I am after being in 5 different countries (US, Canada, Austria, Slovokia, & Czech) within the last 24 hours, walking 4 miles today, and playing volleyball.

Dobre noc (Good night)

Czech Trip 2010

American/Czech team at the train station

This summer I had the opportunity to spend 3 weeks in the Czech Republic with a team from my church. Just as a little background information, less than 0.5% of the Czech population claims Christianity and Czech is known as one of the most Atheistic countries in the world. I really didn't know what to expect since I had never been abroad. When we arrived in Prague we had a 6 hour bus ride to the hotel where we went through camp training with other church groups from the states. After two days of training, learning the camp song, and bonding as a team; we all headed off to the different camps we would be at for the next week.  I will never forget the day the kids arrived. Our team, Americans and Czechs, walked to the train station to wait. As the train neared the station, I got butterflies in my stomach and all I could do is smile. I was overwhelmed with excitement. After all the students checked-in and unpacked, we just hung out playing games and getting to know them. Every day we sang and danced to the camp song "Never Going Back to OK" and sang fun worship songs every evening.

 At our camp, we had Sports and English groups. The English group had about 30 kids and the Sports group had 12 kids. I was part of the Sports group. Each day we taught a different sport. Throughout the week, we played softball, American football, and soccer. During free time we played volleyball and went swimming. Every day was unique and filled with fun games and activities. One of my favorite days of the trip was Wednesday, July 21. This was the day we did the hike to the top of Lysa Hora. The hike stretched 10 miles and was not easy. Hiking in my Chacos left my feet blistered and sore but after 3 hours, we made it to the top. The day we chose to go was really foggy so we couldn't see the beauty of the country from the top but it was an amazing day. We got to know the kids more by asking questions, sharing our lives with them, and in some cases, sharing Jesus.

Sport Girls!

I don't want to bore you with every little detail of camp and it would take me hours to write it so this is just a small look at what we did. During the week, we taught line dancing, held our own Olympics, did the camp song in the pool, played games, learned some Czech words, and so much more. Towards the end of camp, we had a gospel night. A few people shared their testimony's and set up a labyrinth. The labyrinth was made to make the kids think about their beliefs and really challenge them. At the end of the labyrinth, there were small candles in the shape of a cross. If you had been touched by something during the week, wanted to learn more about God, or wanted to give your life to Christ, you were instructed to light a candle. Out of the 40 or so kids at camp, 36 of them lit a candle. Throughout the week, 4 kids said they wanted to learn more about Christianity and God and a lot of the kids said they wanted to attend youth group. God was with our camp the entire week and we could see him working in the kids'  hearts.

Airsoft Team

With camp coming to a close, the American team had to find a place to stay for follow-up. Anicka, a girl in my sports group whom I really connected with, wanted me to stay with her family in Vsetin. During follow-up, we played soccer and volleyball. We also went to a 300 year old cabin and played airsoft. That was fun! After airsoft, we all hung out around a fire and made s'mores. Some of us climbed 60 ft. up a tree and watched the sun set. This night, was also a night I won't forget. Once the sun went down and we headed back to town, some of us went to walk around Vsetin at night. We had drank Kofola (czech soda) and ate delicious late night treats from a bakery in downtown Vsetin. Our last night with our students, we played signs and made ice cream sundaes. It was an emotional time because we wouldn't see these kids again for a long time. The next morning we headed to the train station, jumped on a train, and headed to Prague...

With our time in Czech coming to a close, we said bye to our students, met up with the rest of our American team, and headed to Prague for the last two days. In Prague, we were strictly tourists. We ate Czech food, walked around all of Prague, and bought gifts for family and friends. The most amazing sight I have ever seen was from Charle's Bridge. This picture doesn't do it justice but it was breathtaking. Along the bridge, during the day, vendors fill the area with local paintings, jewelry, and souvenirs. At night, the bridge is packed with people and local musicians playing for entertainment. We took a boat trip and also visited the cathedral in this picture. The stained glass in the cathedral was so detailed and the statues were perfect. Attached to the cathedral was the South Tower which consisted of 287 spiral steps to the top where you could see all of Prague. Prague is such a beautiful city. Though we all could have stayed in Czech for a lot longer, it was time to go home. The next day we headed to the Prague airport, hopped on a plane, and flew back to the states.


This blog is a very short summary of my time in Czech this summer. If you want to know more about what God is doing there and what we did a as a team, just ask me.  I would love to share with you. Since I have been back, I have been praying about the opportunity to go back some day. Well, the time has come. I am going back to Vsetin in February. I am staying for 3 months this time. I am so excited to see what God is going to do while I am there. If you could be praying for me, that would be greatly appreciated. The intention of this blog is to keep you all updated and involve you on my new journey. While in Czech this spring, I will try to post new entries once or twice a week. Feel free to e-mail me any time vballvaskii05@yahoo.com or Facebook me.

New and Exciting Things

 

The tall building in the background is Majak (Lighthouse church). 

I am creating this blog for a few reasons. I have the opportunity to go back to the Czech Republic this Spring for three months. I am going to Vsetin, a small town four hours East of Prague. I will be involved with my church's 'sister' church there, Majak (Lighthouse), helping with the youth group as well as teaching English studio. I won't have a phone so I will be keeping you updated through Facebook and this new blog. Also, I want everyone to be able to see what is going on in my life and how God is working in me and through me.  I am still in the process of designing my page and figuring out how to add photos and things so just bare with me.