Heritage tour half way update

This is going to be super short because I want sleep but I want to fill you all in. So right now I'm in Switzerland. We visited Assisi already and spent two days in Rome. I love Rome. I know people who probably wouldn't be fans but I love it. So today we drove from Rome to Geneva. Europe may be smaller then we think... But that still is a long drive. So we ate still all getting along. We haven't gone crazy so your prayers are obviously being honored. Pray also for safety, peace, and that what we are learning wouldn't only be head knowledge but also heart knowledge.

I hope you all are enjoying the snow. We have gotten a taste of it up in mountain passes but we actually had 20 degree days in Rome. God is good. I will obviously post more when I am home on a real computer not my little iPod touch ( which is the most amazing traveling companion even if it is a pain to type on).

I Spy With My Little Eye

Does that face look familiar?  No?  Maybe you don't live in Alberta?  What about you Albertans?  Look like someone?

There is an election coming up in Banska, and there are tons of these billboards.  Every time I walk by one I think that it is Ed Stemlach. And it gets me EVERY TIME!  I double take EVERY TIME!

If you don't believe me, google it.

That is all.

Heritage Tour!

We are leaving at 4am tomorrow (Wed) morning to start our Heritage tour of Europe.  We are visiting significant countries to learn about church history.  Its is very exciting.  We have been looking forward for this for quite a while.  So tomorrow night we are sleeping in Assisi, Italy (think Francis of Assisi). Then two nights in Rome. Then to Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, then home to Banska.  Ten days...  Five people... One Van... Many Kilometers.  Should be interesting.  

So I'm asking for your prayers. That we would be safe. That we won't kill each other.  That we would learn what God wants us to learn on this trip.  That we could be open to each others beliefs.  We had a Catholic vrs Protestant moment today, where we figured out that we had different beliefs and sometimes those can be difficult to overcome.  So prayer for those moments would be very, very welcome.   

What else...

I'm not taking my computer on the trip.  I was planning on doing it, but I realized that the backpack I have is not made to carry a laptop, and I don't want to break it or anything... So there will be no updates until I get back on the 6th.   So have a good halloween (they don't celebrate halloween here so no need for a costume for me) and enjoy the snow (depending where you are I guess).

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your prayers. 

Why Not To Get Into Arguments

Okay, I wasn't planning on writing on this first, but because of what I talked about at the end of the last blog entry I feel like I should.

One of the things I've been learning is the significance of being right.  And the effects that it has.  Because being right always comes at a price.

When you are right, it means that someone is wrong.  It means that you have come against them. That you have accused them.  Maybe this doesn't apply to all things, but I think in our Christian lives this has the potential to happen a lot.  I am right, and you are wrong.  I have the right view of God and you have the wrong one.  I have the right interpretation of that scripture and you have the wrong one. I do the right things, and you don't do them...  You get the idea.  And up till now I think that every time I told someone they were wrong, I thought it was in their best interest. But I recently had another way of looking at it explained to me. And it makes WAY more sense.

When we are being argumentative, we are accusing each other. We are tearing each other down. We are attacking each other.  And those are all things satan does.  He is the accuser. He attacks us.  So why would I do that?  Why would I act in a way that leads to satan's end?  I'd much rather act in a way that is consistent with the nature of God.  To act in love is to act like God.  Holy spirit is our comforter.  He comes along side of us.  So rather than going against someone, I want to come along side them.  I want to not be adversarial in my disagreements.   And I will still have disagreements.  But I want to act in a different way towards them.

And the more I think about this, the more it makes sense.  If I say "no, you are wrong" to someone, what is their first response? To dig in their heels. To get defensive.  They might not even really believe what they just said, but your adversarial stance made them believe it a lot more!  So even my amateur psych mind agrees with this.  God obviously knows what he is talking about (doesn't he always?)

So this is why I don't want to argue about all the things I'm learning and will be posting on my blog.  I would much rather simply explain myself and answer questions, as that leaves you to choose for yourself if you agree or not.  I think questions are great, because it forces me to think through these things that I'm learning, but I don't want to get into some huge debate about if the book "The Shack" is harmful to Christianity or not (it isn't, you are over reacting). Okay, that was just for fun.  I do hope that if you are reading my blog you will get something interesting from what I'm posting, and I am so thankful for your prayers.

Blessings.

How to Read My Blog and Not Get Upset.

Do you know how hard it is to explain five weeks of learning? SO HARD!

So I'll start with a short explanation to hopefully get everyone on the same page.  So our DTS is run in an ecumenical manner with both Protestants and Catholics.  There are three Protestant students and one Catholic.  So in the first week we needed to put effort into learning about each other's beliefs.  I think that most Protestants have a skewed idea of Catholicism and most Catholics have misunderstandings of Protestantism too.  So that was a hurdle that we had to overcome.  And I think one of the most biblical ways to describe the differences is to talk about the men walking to Emmaus. (For those of you who want to follow along in your Bibles it is Luke 24).

So these men actually knew Jesus.  They were walking and Jesus shows up. But they don't recognize him. And they don't recognize him the whole time they are talking and walking although it says later that their hearts were burning as he revealed things from the Scriptures.  But they don't recognize him until he breaks bread with them.  So if they knew what Jesus looked like before he died, Jesus obviously looked differently to them after he had risen. But Jesus could have chosen to look exactly like he did before so that they would easily recognize him, but he didn't.  So we can say he disguised himself.   And the same thing can happen today.  Jesus can give revelation in a way we don't recognize because we aren't used to it. And because it isn't "normal" we are in danger of dismissing it.  But if we listen with our spirit, our hearts will burn like the men and we will know that it is God, even if it isn't what we expect.

So from this we can say that Catholics and Protestants (and even different denominations of protestants) have different revelations of God and how he works and wants to commune with us, but we can't reject each other's understandings simply because they are not our own.  God can reveal himself differently to different people, and we probably have more to learn from each other than we are willing to admit.  Just listen with your spirit, not with your mind which wants to make everything fit into the system you have created.

It has been a process to learn to listen with my spirit or heart.  Coming from a very academic outlook of research and being able to prove who is right makes me very careful and critical.  I want to see three academic papers on anything before I believe it is true (okay, that might be an overstatement, but you all get the point).  So I think the first big thing I've had to learn is to listen with my heart first and then with my brain.  To let God confirm to me in my spirit if a teaching is true to his nature, his intentions for me, his love, before my brain has a chance to automatically reject.  And some things I do have to put on a shelf and leave it for me to kinda mull over for a while.  And thankfully, God realizes that I do really like evidence and he does give me supports for everything we are learning.  In lecture we might hear two verses to support a concept and an example, but then God will know when that isn't quite enough for me and give me some other kind of confirmation.  And I'm so thankful for that.

So my goal is to share some of the things that I'm learning. However, I am fairly certain that some of these things will bother some people. They might not sit quite right with you.  But I hope that you can at the very least keep an attitude that is inspired by the men on the way to Emmaus.  That God might reveal himself in different ways that you are used to.  Maybe some of the things I'm learning will speak to you.  But maybe others you will just have to put on the shelf and God can give you more revelation on the topic in the future.  But I'm very excited to share some of these teachings with you all.

Note: I love hearing your feedback, but I would rather not get into theological debates on my blog. Please do comment, even with questions so I can clarify.  But please refrain from attacking other people's opinions.  I think I might actually make my next post an explanation on why I think that it is important.

Request for More Information

So I've been getting a lot of requests for more detailed information on what I actually am doing in Slovakia.    And I will admit that I have been taking the easy way out on this blog.  It is so much easier to post pictures of what we are doing on the weekends than to describe in many many words the things I'm learning about God and what he is doing in my heart.  I also selfishly kinda want to come home and preach a couple hundred sermons on this stuff, and if I just post it on a blog I don't get any of that.  :) But selfishness is the enemy of godliness so I'll give you some "teaching" for free this weekend.  I'm going to spend some time myself going over my notes from the last five weeks (especially this last week because it was stuffed full of information).  So while I'm doing that I plan to pull out some major points that have made an impact on me, and convict me (and hopefully will be used by God in some of your lives also).

So stay tuned for the multiple posts that I'm expecting to come up over the next few days.   But until then I'll give you an example of how learning Slovak is going for me.  I was at Mass with Janka last weekend and this was written at the front of the church:

The service was in Slovak so it wasn't overly stimulating for me ( I actually felt like most Catholics who went to Mass back when everything was in Latin).  So I was looking around at the beautiful church and realized that I knew what this means!  In English we would say "My Lord and My God".  But literally its something like "Lord Mine and God Mine".  (Pan is Lord, Boh is God, Moj is mine, and "a" is and).  So I obviously am learning something even if I feel light years behind everyone else. 

Have a great weekend!

High Tatras

What do you do while you are waiting for your computer to update your ipod?  Blog of course!

So there is one part left from our weekend that I haven't shown pictures from yet:  The High Tatra Mountains.  We visited a village up the mountain and walked around a ski resort. When i write it that way, it seems really dumb, but it was a cool experience.

First there was a lake:

Then there was a restaurant with big wooden people.

Then there was a wooden swing:

We liked the wooden swing.

We really liked the wooden swing.

But we had to move on, mostly because the swing was getting to exciting and Art was being too loud and all the other tourists were staring and we were worried the restaurant owners would come and ask us to stop scaring away customers.

But thankfully what was around the bend was way more exciting!

Ski Jumps!  Now maybe some people think that isn't very exciting but remember that I come from the prairies. And although i have visited the mountains, I have never seen a ski jump like this. There is actually an old ski jump and a new one... or at least that is what we have guessed.  

This particular spot was were some kind of games happened in 1970 and they had ski jumping and cross country skiing. The area is known for their cross country athletes, which forced me to bring up Beckie Scott. Only an Olympic Gold medalist in cross country from my home town. 

They had never heard of her. 

Oh well.  

So we also saw the torch from those games.

I think it shows that it was from the 1970's.  It doesn't hold a candle to the Vancouver Caldron. (pun intended). 

Also notice the olympic mittens.  

They make me, and everyone else who wears them, feel very Canadian.

And of course I needed to stand where the medals were awarded.

So it was quite the little alpine adventure!  

Strba

So last weekend we went to Strba, the town/villiage Janka's parents and grandparents live in.
It was so interesting!

It is a cute little town (this is actually not the whole town in the picture so don't be deceived)

There is about 2000 people in the town, but no one lives in the "country". The only houses are in town.

So there was a field, actually many fields surrounding the town which made me feel so much more at home!  I haven't seen stubble in so long! This field had oats in it and my companions were so confused how i could know that when i was already harvested. :) Farmers' daughters know these things.

So we went on a walk around town and saw the Evangelical church:

The Catholic church:

The pretty coloured houses:

The historic wood house:

And the mallet outside the historic house (now museum):

The leaves also were beautiful. I enjoyed having some resemblance of fall in Canada if only in the leaves and fields.

Lastly, and probably my favorite part was meeting an amazing old lady who was dressed totally traditionally.  She was such a cute babka (think baba in Ukrainian).

This week we are learning about spiritual warfare. Deep stuff.  Really interesting though. 

Thank you everyone who has told me lately that they are praying. I really appreciate it. 

Blessings!

Weekend with Janka's Family

These are the promised pictures from our trip to Strba to visit Janka's home:

Janka's parents had just built a house, so it obviously was beautiful.

They had a dishwasher, which is quite a luxury here.

The doors on the cupboards almost seemed like cushions because of the cool curves. 

And Slovakians really like colour.  All the walls of their houses have colour. Outside and inside.

Janka and her sister's room was green and yellow.

The room I stayed in upstairs was yellow and orange.

They were so very welcoming. They greeted us with bread and salt when we arrived, and served us traditional food. And on sunday we had an amazing meal together.  And both of Janka's parents don't speak english, although both their daughters have excellent english. So we felt even more how loving they were to take us into their home without really being able to communicate with us. 

This is a picture of the three visiting students with Janka's parents. 

And this is us with Janka and her sister. 

It was such a beautiful weekend. We prayed for Janka's grandmother because she is sick, and it was a very moving experience for us all we think.  Her dad's family doesn't believe so it was something to have all these kids praying for them and asking God's blessing over their extended family.  And we had such hugs when we were about to leave. I truly feel like I have a Slovak mother now. 

Weekend in Strba

This weekend we finally got to visit Janka's family.  So we had a great time in Strba. (think Struba but then take out the U).  I'm so tired right now so I'm not going to say alot except it was a very genuine experience and that I LOVE Slovak people.  I'll post more later.

Healing on The Streets

Today is Thursday. So today we go to do street ministry. Last week I took some pictures, so I want to share them now.

We have a sign that says Uzdravene (I may have missed an I in there somewhere...) which means healing. And we just set out chairs. And people have been healed. Some days people are more open than others, and not speaking Slovak makes it pretty difficult. But sometimes we have great little moments with someone.

This guy turned Art down and Art asked "Why Not?"  It really was something to watch. 

This is our friend named Fero (okay, that spelling might be wrong, but his name sounds like Pharaoh which I think is amazing!) and he is always on the streets when we are. And he is a pro at getting people to pay attention when they walk by.

So hopefully today is one step better than the last times.  Everyone needs to experience how much God loves them.

  

Slovakian Countryside

So this weekend we went on a beautiful drive to get to the Oravsky Hrad (Castle). And Orava is one of the most traditional regions of Slovakia. Very religious and seemingly very agricultural.  So I saw some pretty cool things.

First though, we had to go through Donovaly (which is a beautiful ski resort town).  So we had mountains, and ski lifts and cool chalet's.

Then we saw cows. Which i hadn't seen in Slovakia yet.  So this was exciting. The owner was even out with them with his dog.

We saw a couple tractors out in the fields.

But mostly we saw older men and women out in fields doing work by hand. One guy was spreading manure by hand. He had it in a trailer but he was spreading it on this field using a shovel (keep in mind this field was not very big... Maybe double my Grandma Nawrot's front lawn? But that is still alot of work!) There was a cute old lady with a hoe in one field.  But I think the most amazing moment was when we saw this:

Yes, this is two men ploughing a field using a horse drawn plow. I really wanted to stop and talk with these people. But we were on a schedule... I don't think I'll ever forget this though.

There also was hay drying on these racks that are kinda triangular?  We saw one guy putting the hay on it, and yes this is another job done entirely by hand. I'm guessing it will go on a hay stack somewhere when it is dry.  

So all these farm things made me think of how hard it used to be to be a farmer.  I don't even know if my grandparents plowed with a horse... maybe on their parents' farm?  

But the last cool thing we saw totally could still happen on my farm.  HONEY!  They were selling honey on the side of the road.  But the coolest stuff was hazelnuts in honey... the idea sounds good... and they looked good... but I didn't buy them.

So that is all for the Slovakian countryside for now.  I'm sure there will be alot more to come.

Oravsky Hrad

This weekend we went on a trip to Oravsky Hrad (Orava Castle in English).  Orava is a region of Slovakia. If you google "Oravsky Hrad" it comes up with tons of pictures of the castle.  Better than the ones I took.  But the experience was amazing.  So this is the sign which actually shows best how big the castle is. It is huge!

I could tell you all kinds of facts about the castle, but truthfully, I would just be looking them up on Wikipedia and then re writing them. So just go to Wikipedia yourself! 

 Link To Wikipedia: Orava Castle

We actually arranged an english tour, so we arrived right on time for that.  It cost 3 euro for a student, 5 for an adult (I'm still as student, yes!).  And you just show that you paid at the gate when you start your tour.  They actually don't let you go through unless you are with the guide. This is not a "self tour" sight.  So we had a very gracious guide. He was so nice considering that we were a large group on foreigners who broke alot of rules.  Hopefully it wasn't the worst part of his day.

Outside the gate

To tour the castle you start at the bottom and work your way up, even though the oldest part of the castle is at the top... but walking straight up would have been super hard so I'm glad we took 1.5 hours to get up to the top.

So this is the first "courtyard" looking up from the third gate. There are three gates so it must have been super secure!

One of the first rooms we went in had all kinds of armor and weapons. Alex and Ben could have defended the castle I think. 

The next room we actually weren't supposed to take pictures in. But everyone got there first so they were standing in front of the "no camera" sign. So i honestly didn't know this picture wasn't allowed!

Behind the picture in the middle is a secret passage to the chapel that actually is on the other side of this wall. But it cost an extra euro to go into the church and we didn't pay it so we never saw the church.

We had 16 people with us, with all the families that came. One family is actually from Romania and they have four little girls who don't speak english. But they were sure cute! I caught one on her way upstairs. I think that all the stone staircases that spiraled were one of my favorite parts.  

But they came second to the fall views out of the windows.  I loved the views and the windows themselves were really cool!

We finally got to the top and the view was AMAZING! Apparently we could see Poland. (not in the this picture though. This is the amazing downward view)

So that is a snipit of all the pictures that I took in the castle. My camera actually ran out of juice when we were almost at the top. Perhaps I'll post again when I get the pictures from everyone else that I'm actually in. But I hope you have enjoyed these!  (hint: leave a comment!)