Weekend Retreat

We are off to Prague this weekend for a TeachOverseas retreat/mini-reunion!  It will be really nice to see all our fellow teachers again, and to compare stories from the first week in our new home cities.  I'm especially excited to spend some time in the city that captured my heart and drew me to the Czech Republic in the first place.  Not including our passage from the airport to the train station a week ago, it has been probably five or six years since I have been in Praha.

To lift up a prayer concern, we have been struggling with the electricity in our flat all week.  After two separate occasions of having our power fail to the point of clearing all our groceries out of the powerless fridge and hauling them across town to our fellow teachers' flat, we finally have our lights and outlets working again.  However, we still cannot plug in out computers without blowing a fuse, which also means we won't be setting up our wireless internet anytime soon.  Please keep us in your prayers as we struggle to find dependable ways to be able to communicate with everyone back home until our electrical issues are resolved.

Adventures in Ostrava

We've arrived!

5 exhausted and travel-worn ESI teachers + 1 helpful chaperone arrived in Ostrava Friday night, minus about 15 pieces of luggage. We were all taken to our respective flats, given a loaf of bread, some bottled water, and a roll of toilet paper to get us started. Saturday we were to have a free day to get us over our jet lag, but then on Friday night all the new teachers were invited for dinner at Stacy's flat. Stacy and here husband, Al, are Americans working for Young Life who have been living in Ostrava for the past 5 years.

Prior to dinner, Emily, Steph, and I spent the day cleaning out, reorganizing, and arranging furniture within our new home. In the afternoon, miracle of miracles, our luggage arrived, hand-delivered courtesy of British Airways. Taking into consideration our laborious trek from Prague Airport to the train station, via bus and metro, we later came to the consensus that our luggage delay was a blessing in disguise. It is highly unlikely we could have made the entire journey with 6 girls and about 20 bags in tow. This only further affirmed for us that God truly does have a greater plan for us than we have for ourselves.

On a more humorous note, when hauled all our bags up to our flat (which is on the sixth floor, with spectacular city views), we found that we could not for the life of us figure out how to unlock our front door. All of us took turns, but it was no use. So there we were, three silly American girls, locked out of our apartment, keyes in hand, surrounded by all our huge suitcases and duffel bags. Finally we knocked on the door of our next-door-neighbor, a little old Czech woman, and Emily recited the one Czech phrase she had memorized, "Excuse me, can you please help?". She was indeed able to help us, bless her heart, and we later took turns "practicing" locking and unlocking our door. We also managed to flood our bathroom that aftrenoon while doing our first load of wash, but that's a whole other story...

After unpacking our begs and settling our belongings in their new environment, our growling stomachs summoned us to the nearby shopping center, Futurum. Of all things, I leave my job in retail, move all the way to Central Europe only to wind up living right next to a shopping mall. Go figure. As the three of us ventured through the mall, window shopping the various clothing, shoe, plant, and tea shops, we tried to get a handle on the Czech prices and their equivalents. It took us a good ten minutes, hungry as we were, to summon up the courage to order some food at the food court, however, we were quite impressed with ourselves for not copping out and heading to the nearby McDonald's. That night we had an amazing dinner at Stacy's flat across town, and she graciously let us use her phone to call our parents' in the States, and let them know of our safe arrival abroad.

Team Ostrava

We spent some quality team bonding time getting mani-pedi's.

(L to R: Alyssa's foot, Steph's foot, Emily's hand)

Team Fishnet: Stephanie, Heidi, Emily, me, Leah

Spiritual Warfare

Today at training we spent some time discussing Spiritual Warfare, as well as how to equip ourselves via various means of Spiritual Vitality in order to combat any dark forces we may encounter.  "Spiritual Warfare" is not a term I am as familiar with, but is most likely something I will encounter more readily this next year.  As the Czech Republic is a primarily Atheist country, our teams may potentially find ourselves more susceptible to loneliness, spiritual darkness, and doubt.  As the winter months press on, we will also grapple with physical darkness and cold, and their impending manifestations upon our psyches.  Please pray for our teams, that we will find strength in our Saviour to boldly press on when the devil makes attempts to thwart our progress in ministry. 

On a more positive note, our school will hold weekly prayer meetings on Friday mornings, and my teammates and I are already brainstorming plans for commencing some type of Bible-study once we are settled.  We are determined to hold each other accountable, to lift each other up, and to keep each other strong.  I could not ask for better or lovelier teammates!   

Photo Diary from Training: A Few Highlights

Part of the Central Europe team @ Heidi's church

All the Practicum teachers at our closing reception

Presenting certificates of accomplishment to our lovely Level 1 students

Emily with two of our students, Maria & Olivia

one day at a time

So, ( I start lots of sentences with "so," if you haven't already noticed).  So...I think the unspoken pressure of daily developing some deeply profound and meaningful/inspiring blog post has finally surfaced.  Forgive me dear friends, if I neglect to amuse and entertain you on a daily basis.  While I cannot promise that my posts will fail to be dull, I will make a more concerted effort to update my blog more frequently.  That being said, I'll try to keep posts succinct & manageable for those that will be keeping up with my adventures.

I'll be attempting to fill in back-posts as I go as well, so stay tuned!