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!)

Excitement in the Square

The other day we were walking down the square and we saw something very exciting.... A fire truck!!
Now some of you will be more excited about this than others, but I just want to share the nice equipment they have here!

Yep, that is a levitating fire truck (no wheels are on the ground).  With a huge hydraulic thing on the top.

This is it driving away later.  Maybe it is just a normal fire truck and I've never seen one in action before? I donno... But I will say it was a cool experience.

More interesting pictures coming soon, and amazing stories also on their way!

  

Jesus Culture

Have you ever heard of Jesus Culture? I didn't think I had until this month.  Now I'm thinking I would have had to sometime. How can such a youth revival be alive on my continent without be knowing? Without someone making a reference?  I think I just said "that is nice" if anyone ever discussed them.  I know I've heard of Bethel Church in Redding, CA. So how could I not have heard of it?

Anyways, now everyone who doesn't know about Jesus Culture wants me to explain.  Honestly, I still don't know alot. They are a group of revivalists who want to raise up youth to fulfill the callings God has on their lives and to see cities saved, campuses revolutionized, and nations discipled. (okay, so that was pretty much word for word off their website)  But not only do they love Jesus, but they give their lives to prayer, have spiritual disciplers (is that a word?), and want to walk in the supernatural.  It makes me think of YC but with a lot more healings and speaking in tongues and ministering to one another, and more people going home ready to do something truly crazy for Jesus. (Not that I don't love YC, I think YC is amazing. This just seems to take it another step)

So I'll let you look into Jesus Culture more if I've made you interested. I think everyone will find something that will intrigue or challenge them.  But the reason I'm putting this post up is because of how much I appreciate their worship recordings. Kim Walker-Smith and the Jesus Culture band are just amazing.  And Brian and Jenn Johnson are my other latest favorite worship couple, and they are also from Bethel. ( Brian and Jenn sing "Where You Go I'll Go") So I'm going to try to attach two youtube videos of Kim singing for your enjoyment.  There is nothing I like more than spontaneous worship so the first is the song "I asked you for life" and the second is a spontaneous song of worship that flowed out of the first song.  If you just search for Kim Walker on youtube you can see live video recordings but these are actually from her album and the videos have been made just by everyday  people.   I actually find watching the video distracting.... but enjoy however you see best.

Content Alert: the second song includes Kim singing in tongues. I don't have a problem with that, but some people might. This is for your information.

I Asked You for Life- Kim Walker

Spontaneous Song of Worship- Kim Walker

I hope you enjoy, and I hope that someone just found their new favorite artist!

Slovak Food

My parents were surprised to hear that there are cornflakes here.  So i figured that I need to take some food pictures. Obviously these aren't exhaustive. There are many other things in the fridge and cupboards but these I thought are interesting.

Kofola (Co-Fo-La)

Its slovak cola. They sell Coke too. Many people prefer this.

Becel?  I haven't figured out if its the same company, but its the same thing!

Corn flakes.  Only distinguishable by the illustrations.

Chocolate Spread. I call it Nutella, but I don't think there is even hazelnuts in it. And its two colours in one! Who doesn't want white and milk chocolate together? Its a perfect midnight snack on toast.

And for all my dutch friends:

Yep, sprinkles!  We have one guy on base who is dutch and I think he brought these. I've decided that Dutch people must have amazing metabolisms, because he will also just pour plain white sugar on his toast in the morning.  I don't know which is worse, hagel slag or sugar?  But neither seem healthy to me!

I'll keep my eyes open for anything else interesting we have here. Maybe I'll take my camera on a trip to the grocery store?  That would be cool to show you all.  Beer aisle anyone? 

Outreach

Crazy night tonight.

We had prayer for where were are going for the outreach phase of our dts.  And we have been praying about that for the last while at different times.  Today though, God showed us somewhere specific. And not just to one person.  All four students all had the same area of the world impressed on us by God.  I'm not going to share where it was until we have definite plans and a little more confirmation from God... but it was so cool to experience something we had only read about up until now.   We had read of prayer meetings where all the people seek God's will separately and then at the end share what God revealed to them and have all of them come up with the same impression of His will.  I've been very interested in the concept since I had read about it and had seeking for God to reveal himself that way to us. But I think it surprised some of us that he actually did it!

So praise be to God that he wants to share his ways with us like he shared his ways with Moses.

Psalm 103:7
He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.

Moses was close to God and knew his ways. God told Moses what he was planning and why things were happening. But the masses only saw what God did.  I want to be like Moses, knowing what God is doing before it happens.

Sunday of Cameras

Have any of you realized that I only post on the weekend?  Today its because I spend a couple hours today just taking pictures. So now I want to share them!  Actually, its seems like i documented everything today, probably because the weather was so nice.

So my first thing:

This is the church we have gone to the last three weeks. The brethren church which actually is quite short, but it is good because sometimes it can be difficult when you have to pay attention to an interpreter (especially when you are sitting the farthest away from the interpreter)

Then after church, Steve and his family treated us to coffee on the square at the cutest little shop! I actually am kicking myself because i didn't take an overall picture really.

But this is the seating area to eat:

I got a hot chocolate and a pastry, and they were both so good. Hot chocolate is especially thick here... I'm not sure why. It isn't exactly drinking chocolate from "Mink" (a chocolate cafe in Vancouver) but its still pretty good. And at 1.50 euro I don't think its too bad for price. 

This place also had the most amazing wall paper.  Its taking me forever to upload pics so you don't get to see those today, but they had wall paper all about coffee, and one that said chocolate in all different languages, then the cute stripes you see above and in the arches (all old slovak buildings have arches in the walls) was coffee bean wall paper.  And it was textured so all the beans actually bulged out!  Very cool.

Then we went to lunch (no pictures, sorry). And then we decided that it was such a nice day... that we should climb up the town tower and take pictures!

From the top of the tower looking down the square.

You can see the hills that surround the town in the background.

Then we walked around and took pictures of the other church and its tower... it was just a really nice day.

This is little me in front of the big tower.

We were pretty excited.  

Thanks for reading!

Long Week of Amazing Teaching

I can't even express how great this week has been!

And if you read the last blog entry you probably think I'm nuts!  But even though I've been various degrees of sick all week, the teaching we have had was amazing.  Reona Peterson Joly was our speaker, and she is one of the people who have been in YWAM since practically the beginning.  YWAM had its 50 anniversary this year, and she has been involved for over 4/5 of that!  She and her husband Albert were such blessings to learn from and even to watch interact.  I think Art's favorite part of the week was that they still called each other darling although they are approaching 70.  But I was overwhelmed by the faith that she has had following God's calling on her life.   It takes faith to smuggle bibles into Albania in the height of Communism in that country.  Her first visit to Slovakia was before the fall of the Soviet's, and she smuggled bibles into Slovakia.  I'm sure she only told us a fraction of the stories she could have.  But even those few were so inspiring!

And she wasn't invited to talk at the school about her experiences. Her actual topic was Intercession and the Character of God.  WOW. I want to just type all my notes for everyone to read. Because this is stuff that the world needs to hear!  Did you ever realized that prayer works better when you realize that you don't know how to pray? When you ask God to guide your prayers so you can partner with him and have the same mind as him?  Have you ever paused to question if maybe it was thousands, or hundred of thousands of believers praying that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union?  I have no doubt now that it was exactly that.

Did you know that 110 000 people enter the kingdom daily?  That 1000 new churches are begun each week?  You didn't did you? You didn't nearly that many people were finding Jesus.  But they are!  You have been believing the lies about Christianity.

So during this week we learned 5 keys to prayer/intercession.  We learned types of prayer. We were inspired for our daily quiet times.  We talked about the rights that you have to give up to follow Christ.  We went on some of the most inspiring tangents to these topics.  And one tangent that I thought was so entertaining was one about the number of single women in YWAM.  Apparently there is an unproportionate number of single women who take DTS courses and an unproportionate number of single women in full time missions with YWAM.  And Reona says its because these women are so committed to being radical Christians that they refuse to marry someone just for the sake of marriage. Their husbands will need to also be willing to do crazy things for God... and apparently there aren't that many of these men in YWAM. (We have been blessed with a DTS that is two guys and two girls so we aren't typical apparently).  So all you guys back at home... you think about that.  Is God calling you to do something awesome for him in another country?  Could you be one step closer to creating equality of the sexes in missions?

There are so many other amazing things that I learned from Reona this week but if I continue to type I run the risk of coming across even more crazy that I have already.  I can't believe its just the end of week two.  Its seems like its been months and months and months already!  Every day is so full and so much fun...

Today Art had jam filled perogies (pronounced different but similar...) for lunch.  So here is a picture of those...