Time for a Ball

For the past two years in October, we've gone to a special event here in Frydlant.

Claire had one last year and Caleb had it the year before.

It's the ball for high school students who are taking dance class here in Frydlant. 

 

There were a record number of students at this year's class here in Frydlant. The dance floor was full!

It's such a fun event, being with friends like JV missionaries, Rob and Audrey Chestnut...

...and our dear Ashley Ross, the JV Kid care person...but mostly, a friend to all of us!

I loved seeing kids we've known for years...

...sharing smiles and laughs with my son...

...and seeing Caleb and Claire together...with Ash in the background! :)

Who doesn't love an event like this?! This happens across the Czech Republic, where high schoolers take dance lessons for ten weeks and have two balls where they get to show what they've learned to parents and friends.

Tonight was the "halfway" ball.

The next one will be in November.

I'm already looking forward to that one!

...because it's still one of my favorite cultural events here in Czech!

Cabin and Lodge Project

It's been a while since I have written about progress on the cabins and lodge that are being built. They are part of our ongoing expansion at Malenovice, our JV hotel/ministry training center.

While it might look like the size of a normal house, this is actually a lodge that will have space for 60-80 in the meeting room down below, and space for 30 to sleep upstairs.

You can see the two completed cabins to the right, and the lodge to the left, as well as the foundation that's been poured for the third cabin. We are praying for finances to build this third one as we don't do anything that puts us in debt.

This is the meeting room downstairs in the lodge....what a great room it will be!

And this is upstairs where it will be divided into four rooms with beds for thirty people!

The old house on the left is the original house on the property - when the cabins and lodge are finished, we'll figure out what we're going to do with it!

This is taken from the soccer field, looking towards the cabins and lodge...such a beautiful spot!

Thanks to Caleb for the good pictures today!

And thank you Lord for the resources you continue to provide to expand your work here!

For Two Dads

Do you ever have a project that somehow just takes a long time to finish, even though it's in front of you every day?

This is the story of one of those projects around our house...and a message to two dads (mine who lives in Oregon, and Caleb's who is away in the States right now!) to say that it's finally finished!

Five years ago, in  May 2006, my dad came out to stay with us for a month. While he was here he noticed something missing at our house.

Through a really cool story (too long to tell...sorry!), while he was here he got word of some money that he had invested 40 years before, that was finally paying off. With much love for us, he offered to use part of it to buy something that would meet that need.

A garden storage house for our yard! After looking at various stores in the area, we found just the right one to fit our needs.

We built a foundation for it...(more work than it looks like in the photo!)

And one day in June, after my dad had already left, a crew delivered the wood...

And put it together on the spot, like a giant Lincoln Log project!

It looked so cute when it was done - like having a big playhouse in the yard.

Later that summer, we spent a Saturday staining it as a family.

What a project that was, getting two full coats on - though we did have some pretty awesome helpers to get it done!

It looked great when it was finished, except for one thing...

We didn't have roof tiles to put on it (those didn't come with the delivery!)

Years went by, and still no roof tiles - it was one of those things we kept meaning to do, but somehow it was never in the budget to actually purchase them. The garden house worked (it holds so much stuff that would otherwise be crowded into the garage), and didn't even leak too much as it had a tar paper roof. But we knew that some day we'd have to put some tiles on it.

I'm not even sure when the next part of the story happened...maybe two years ago? A friend of ours gave us some roof tiles from his parents house which Dave and Caleb put on. Unfortunately, there weren't enough, so only half the roof was done.

It sat for another year with a partial roof of tiles.

But finally this week...Caleb went and picked up the last tiles...more than five years after this project was started!

He headed up to the roof and I waited on the ladder for the last nail to go in!

Ta-dah!!! The roof is finally finished dad!

Glad to have that project finally checked off our "To Do" list!

Thanks SO much dad for making that investment in the garden house for us!! I think of you every day when I see it!

Exit Tour SK

 

For those of you who have been following JV and/or my blog for a while, you know that one of the most special doors God has opened up in our ministry has been through the television program "Exit 316", a Christian program that we produced, which aired on national Czech TV for 82 weeks a few years ago.

This opened the door for Exit Tours, which brought Dizmas, a band from southern California into schools across the Czech Republic. In public high schools, they were given day long assemblies to promote the television show, build relationships, give concerts and lectures, and most importantly, share the Gospel.

Long after the television show ended, these school programs through the Exit Tour continued...in Czech, Poland and Slovakia. They have literally reached tens of thousands of young people with the good news of Christ over the past three years.

And it's happening again! The Exit Tour team arrived today in Slovakia where they will be based this tour. The tour will be in several cities across that country, as well as in at least one city here in Czech.

 

Because I know it's hard to imagine what these tours are all about, take a moment to read more about this very exciting opportunity on the Exit 316 blog for Slovakia. 

And remember to pray for this amazing ministry that God has opened the doors for!

**Photos thanks to the Exit Tour SK Facebook page.

October Afternoon

What a gorgeous fall afternoon!

The weather report says it's all going to change on Saturday (even predicts snow next Monday - yikes!) so Claire and I took advantage of the pretty weather and headed up to the cabins at Malenovice where there's an apple tree, just waiting and ready to be picked.

There is nothing like a fresh picked apple, that's for sure.

Kaylie was positive she liked apples too...

...was funny watching her try out a fresh apple. Licking turned out to be more her thing than eating. :)

Seriously, does it get any better than this? A warm fall day, fresh apples off the tree, three minutes from home...LOVE!

Oh yes...maybe it does get a little better...

Thanks to Claire, warm apple muffins are in the oven baking right now, along with homemade chicken soup. Perfect fall food!

The rest of the Krakow story

HANG WITH ME on this long post!!!

Caleb and I took off from home Friday evening, headed for Krakow with just one task...find the school where they're administrating the SAT. Simple enough.

Or not.

I literally drove around in circles Friday night, in the dark, in the fog, trying to find this school.

Because Caleb had to be there at 7:45 Saturday morning, I didn't want to take the risk of not being able to find the school, which by the way, is OUT IN THE BOONIES! They might SAY it's the International School of Krakow, but it's no where near there!

I'd been on Google maps, Mapquest and Michelin maps, yet no one had a detailed enough description of how to get to this place. And...according to the school's website, due to construction, there was a detour to get there to boot. But I couldn't find it after an hour of wandering. (Objazd means detour in Polish!)

So we went to the hotel at 11:30 PM where I sent Caleb to bed.

In the meantime while Caleb slept, I talked with the hotel desk clerk trying to figure out the directions with him (this hotel was only 4 km from the school and he couldn't figure it out...tells you something). After not a whole lot of success with him, I went up to our room and sat in the dark looking on the internet, trying to figure it out. At 12:30, I still didn't have much of a clue where we were going to go in the morning.

So in desperation, I wrote an SOS prayer request to a friend in the States, asking if she'd pray that we'd be able to find this school in the morning. Then I went to bed, though not to sleep...hardly slept a wink all night.

Side note...the day before, a friend of mine had given two pieces of advise for taking the SAT. Get a good night's sleep the night before, and eat a good breakfast that morning. At that point the good night's sleep was kind of out the window. And the desk clerk told me that on Saturdays they start serving breakfast at 8. We needed to leave at 7. So Caleb wouldn't get any breakfast either. This whole situation didn't seem to be turning out so well.

I woke Caleb at 6:45, and we were out the door by 7. My hands were literally shaking on the wheel as I started driving...and praying.

The desk clerk had given me directions that got us one km down the road, to the first turn off the main road. After that, we were on our own.

I didn't realize it when we made that first turn, but I ended up being behind a certain car for the next 3 km, as we drove out into farmlands of Poland. We got to a point in the road where the night before I'd turned around because it seemed I'd gone too far, and sure enough that car did the same thing - began to turn around.

As they did, I could see a dad holding a piece of paper over the steering wheel, and a daughter in the back seat looking anxious. Before they could drive off I pulled up beside them, rolled down my window and quickly asked, "Are you looking for the SAT school?"

The dad answered yes, and said that he thought maybe he'd missed a turn back 100 meters, and that I could follow them....which I happily did!

We made the turn onto what looked like a farmer's private road, and bounced over uneven pavement as we passed by cows, ducks, geese and even turkeys!

One more turn and we were on a road with a dead end sign (the blue sign you see here) that felt like it was going nowhere.

But, just a half kilometer down the road, there was the school!

 I was so relieved to pull into that parking lot and take Caleb in to get registered!
 

But this is not the end of the story!

After driving back over those tiny farm roads and back to the main road before the detour, I came up behind a car driving slowly. As I started to pass, I saw a familiar scene. A dad with a piece of paper over the steering wheel, and an anxious looking son sitting next to him.

Without even a moment of hesitation, I rolled my window down and said, "Are you looking for the SAT school?" Relieved, the dad nodded his head. I told him to turn around and follow me because it's complicated getting there.

But the story doesn't even end there!

Within about five minutes, I saw ANOTHER car on the side of the road. Same scene. Dad with a piece of paper, mom looking frantic next to him, and anxious daughter in the back.

I pulled up alongside of them, asked the same question, and told them to follow me too.

We literally drove back into the parking lot at 7:45 on the dot, the time they were supposed to be there to register. There is absolutely no way those kids would've made it there on time if the Lord hadn't placed me in their path at the moment he did.

A dad from one car, and the mom from the other, came over and thanked me (they were all Polish and even THEY hadn't been able to find this school!). I drove away with a huge lump in my throat, tears in my eyes, and thanks to the Lord on my lips.

I felt like I'd been an angel of mercy! :) I wonder if God's real angels ever feel such a sense of joy at having been able to help someone?

From there I went back to the hotel, had breakfast, drank a very mediocre cup of coffee, packed up, paid the bill, went to McDonalds for a bit better cup of coffee, then drove back to the obscure location and sat for four hours in the car while Caleb took his SAT.

But before I left wifi at the hotel, I checked my email. There was a message from my friend saying, "It's 7 AM your time and just praying for you before I go to bed. I am asking that the Lord will guide you to just the right way to take to the school so that Caleb doesn't have to go into the test already under pressure."

What an awesome answer to prayer, huh??!!! She was literally praying as we left the hotel, while my hands were shaking on the wheel! Oh God is so good to us!

This is what it looked like just across the little road from the school. Seriously...all I could think about sitting there at that school was the old realtor adage...location, location, location! Did they think about that when they put the school so far out??

Caleb and all the others were finally done at 1:30. I was surprised to see how relaxed Caleb was coming out afterward. I'm glad he felt like the test went well!

As a reward, we headed downtown Krakow (nearly an hour away by the time we navigated traffic) to walk for a bit, then over to a mall for lunch. Nothing like spending a few minutes in historic Krakow, celebrating successful SAT's!
 

It had been a crazy day. But it'd been a good day...with much to thank the Lord for.