Sunday Adventures - To Mustek to ICP to Ladronka Park to Tesco to Home

We spent another very interesting day in Prague. We awoke to a lovely day with bright blue sky and temperatures in the low 70s. We of course start the day with coffee and looking at email, hoping that some of you have sent us a newsy letter. Then a quick load of wash that will run for about two hours, so we will hang it indoors on a drying rack when we get back home.

At 9 o'clock we set off on foot for church. We like to walk to the metro stop Mustek which is about thirty minutes from our house. However, today we were a little ahead of schedule and decided to stop at a McDonalds on Wencelas Square for another cup of coffee. This McDonalds has a nice restroom, so we make stopping there on Sundays a family tradition! So we jumped on the yellow metro line and headed to Andel stop where we caught the bus to the International Church of Prague. We arrived just as the service was starting and set in a row of CISP people. It again is a great little church with really dedicated leadership.

After church and a bit of chatter with other parishioners we headed out in a group to Ladronka Park for a church picnic. About one hundred people showed up for the picnic. We basically had two little tables for food to be set up on and a table for drinks. The park was quite impressive. It was about one mile long and a couple hundred yards wide with a long inline skate track. You can rent inline skates at the park. We spent the afternoon talking with others, sitting in the sun and eating. The two pictures below show Liz's first grade student Molly Waldrop with a dog someone brought to the picnic. Dogs can go anywhere in Prague. They can ride on the metro and tram as long as they are mussled. The can go in restaurants and grocery stores. Their only problem is that there is not enough grass for them to do their business on however, so you have to be careful walking on sidewalks.

The picture on the right (or above perhaps) shows part of our group lazily spending the afternoon in fellowship and food. We had a pleasant time and met a few new people. After the picnic, we walked to a tram stop and headed to Tesco for a shopping trip to the Tesco at Narondi Trida again - same as yesterday. We went to the school supply area and I picked up spirals for each class and some graph paper. I checked out in one of the slowest lines I have ever stood in as scads of people were also buying school supplies. Liz went to the lower level to buy some curry powder and a chicken. She was a very bad girl as she got in the wrong check out line. She was told that she was in the "dry line" and should not have been there. However, as being mildly chastized, she was allowed to pay and we met up again. We still are not quite sure what the "dry line" really is and will ask one of the Czech teachers at the school what the situation really was.

We went home on the 9 tram, got off at the correct stop, walked the correct direction to our apartment and were so proud of ourselves that we had not gotten lost at all today that...whoops...we just realized that we actually had walked past our apartment about a block and a half back and had to sheepishly turn around and walk the other direction to get home. Well, we did really well navigating and going new places today with that minor exception.

One interesting tidbit about TV here. Last night we found an American football game between Virginia Tech and East Carolina on our television. We assumed that it was a tape of some Thursday night game or something so Liz called her brother in Virginia and we found out that we were actually watching a live game. We get live English soccer matches but had no idea that we could get a live American football game.

Saturday - Some Work and Some Play

This blog message is co-written by John and Liz. Part of it is an email Liz has sent to a group of people and John will add and intersperse comments within her text. We have not blogged for two days because of a heavy workload trying to get the school building ready for the new school year. All the teachers have been madly working the last two days in particular to make things presentable and useable. One inherent problem with schools for MKs staffed by volunteers is a recurring lack of teachers available. Those teachers who are here often need to return to the USA or Canada to renew acquaintances and do fund raining so that they can live overseas another year.

John spent part of yesterday and then again last night and this Saturday morning yet, putting together the high school schedule and class room assignments. (The principal just got back yesterday and is a bit overwhelmed by all that she needs to do to get this year underway.)

The high school part of the building was reconfigured and the high school also uses an apartment one block away for some of its classes. This is a very strange situation. We are housed within an elementary Czech school which has grades one to six, but this year the Czech School reconstructed within the building and created four large "daycare" rooms which will have 20 three to five year olds each. This is an older neighborhood of apartments and we see many elderly people walking with canes and walkers. We remarked that they are probably not put into nursing homes like back in the states, and every day they get out and walk to grocery store for their food items. Then there is a turnover in population where now many young families live and both parents work, thus the need for the daycare. We were informed that a mother can be off her job for three years with the baby and still go back to the same job which is held open for her. Most women cannot afford infant daycare, so staying home until the child is three is common.

Liz’s job as first/second grade teacher took on a different perspective yesterday when I learned that on Tuesday/Thursday, I will have three additional students in my classroom. That is the "homeschoolers" who come in to the school for those two days. I was originally assigned to take on that Tues/Thur program as a separate entity, however since I am now in a regular classroom position, all the teachers just absorb the extra students for those two days. I am sure I will have some interesting stories to report once the mix of students arrive.

Our principal is making a trip to the states to recruit young teachers for the teaching positions over here. Do you know anyone with an adventurous spirit who would want to experience the joy of serving in such a school? There are a variety of mission organizations who send teachers abroad. All of the elementary teachers -- that is five of us are short term and leaving after this year. We are still short some teachers. John and another gentleman are taking on additional math classes. I do not know yet who is taking on the Soctial studies classes for the teacher who is still waiting on a visa.
We met Curt and Vicky Mobley at the school yesterday. They were touring with their E-Free church country representative whom we had dinner with last week. Vicky wants to take language classes and teach high school math at the school next year. John has been wanting the principal to ask her to teach at least one class this year to take some of the load. John has three math classes and one Physics class, but very few students taking these classes. He has from one to five students in his classes.

Awaiting our adventures of the weekend, we know we have a bit of school work to do today first, then we will probably just do more shopping and walking around in the "old town" today. Tomorrow the International Church of Prague is having a picnic in the park, so we plan to attend that.

After spending the morning helping out at school with various last minute tasks, we felt somewhat exhausted and went home to eat and refresh. Liz created lovely sandwiches using typical ingredients that one would use in the USA. We had deli meat, deli cheese, lettuce and mayo/mustard sandwiches along with a potato salad that we thought was some sort of sandwich spread when we bought it. Shopping is always fun and one must use his imagination when selecting unfamiliar items. We go by pictures and the few words we know. So far we have stuck to very basic commodity purchases at the grocery stores.

We had started a wash before going to school this morning, but we did not think it was done when we got back. The washer usually runs for about two hours. Our washing machine is nothing like an American washing machine. We can not really read the dials and do not have a user’s manual, so we do the best we can with setting it. I think we should be able to find something on the Internet on operating it, but my initial efforts to do so have failed. Anyway the cycles finally finished and we hung the clothes on our drying rack and the towels on a contrived line in the bathroom.

After lunch and taking care of the washing, John set out to find a shop that sells inkjet printer cartridges and Liz busied herself with a nap! John found the shop, but it was closed. Most small shops close on Saturday after and remain closed all day Sunday. Only the big western European stores are open Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

He returned without the printer cartridges, but stopped by a midsized grocery for some needed items. On return, he found Liz ready to set out on an afternoon adventure of sightseeing and shopping for school supplies. We hopped on the 9 tram and road to a large park area just across the river from us – maybe a fifteen minute ride. We had considered riding the funicular up the hill to what is called Prague Castle, an early settlement and seat of government and military affairs. However, at the last minute we decided that a walk up the hill would be more pleasant on such a glorious day weather wise and we set out on our peregrination to the top – wherever that was. We walked up gentle switchback like paths through the lovely large park we had entered. We crossed the funicular tracks a couple times and saw it moving up and down the hill. What was most amazing was the views while climbing. When we came to clearings, we could see far to the east over the city nestled by the river. We could easily see the magnificent TV tower that stands above our apartment building. Such great views – and we forgot our camera. But that gives us an excuse to repeat today’s adventure later in the year.

We arrived at the top to see the model of the Eifel Tower that has been erected above Prague Castle. The model is probably only half or less the size of the Parisian original. We continued on our walk and John thought he recognized the path from his visit last year and convinced Liz to follow him on his trek that should end in Mala Strana area of Prague. However after walking about a mile, it was becoming more evident that relying on John’s sense of direction was a mistake again. We could see Prague Castle in the distance, and not close at hand as it should have been were we on the correct path. But all we could do was keep on this road less traveled (or turn around and retrace our steps). After thirty or forty minutes of walking we started to see sights of the tourist area we had been in. We arrived back at Prague Castle which we had been five minutes from about an hour ago and got our bearings. We walked across the Charles Bridge and set our bearings to find the Tesco store at Narondi Trida. Another ten minutes of walking and we were there. Phyllis picked up several items for her elementary classroom. Then we checked out television sets. Our landlord will buy us a new TV as the one we have gives quite a distorted picture. However, he will allow us to buy only a non-HD set. We will probably try and find a used set in good condition from the ex-pat community to see if we can get a better set.

John had been keeping an idea in the back of his mind and suggested to Liz that we stop by an Irish Pub on the way home to eat and watch some English football. We arrived at O’Reilys’s and found that they now have a no smoking area. We were able to watch Wigan dominate Hull to John’s great joy. We enjoyed a lovely fish and chip dinner together and finished with a lemon cheese cake. Then we were off to Muzeum and the green line to take the metro home. We stopped off at our neighborhood fruit and vegetable market to pick up some items to take to the church picnic tomorrow.

At home we decided to make some phone calls or Skype video calls. We talked with friends in Topeka, our grandchildren, John’s brother and one of Liz’s brothers. The technology we are able to enjoy in this day and age is really a blessing. We had the TV on and while talking to Liz’s brother we realized that the American football game we were watching was really live. In fact, we were watching Liz’s brother’s favorite team lose in the last few minutes. It is about bedtime now, so we will sign off.

Random Fun Things To Do In The Czech Republic

A few pictures showing our life as tourists in the Czech Republic. Visiting the beautiful gardens of Prague Castle
Posing with the handsome young Palace Guard
Dutifully carrying out a romantic tradition while crossing the famed Charles Bridge
Scaling new heights to see the beauty of Tabor in southern Bohemia

How To Unload a Truck and Fill a Dumpster

Tuesday was another interesting day. We had our second day of new teacher orientation which was morning only. Then in the afternoon we spent the day getting the school more ready for the students and for the Open House which is Tuesday, Sept 2nd. The secondary rooms are still not ready. Some construction outfit is supposed to come Monday and install more green boards and assemble new furniture. That is really late considering when the open house is and when school starts - Sept 3rd.

I had to leave school at 3:30 to wait for a desk to be delivered to our apartment. The desk was free, but I had to pay about $35 to get it delivered. It is a fairly nice desk and matches our other furniture pretty well. I was also given a Lexmark Z615 printer - pretty old but free. We got a somewhat rickety office chair thrown in on the deal so that is nice. Hence the kitchen table is back in the kitchen and we have the computers on the desk.

About 6:00 PM we made a trip to a shopping center about 30 to 40 minutes away where there is both a Globus (Wal-Mart like) and an Ikea. We got a few things at Ikea for the apartment - hot pads, utensil holder, and hand lotion. At Globus we bought twelve large plastic laundry baskets like things that Liz will use as the "lockers" for her charges. She has two fairly large shelving units just outside her room door where she can put one of these for each of her twelve students. Now if one drove to the mall, buying 12 laundry baskets would be no big deal. If one takes the metro and walks and needs to transfer from the green to the yellow line, it is a bigger deal. Imagine carrying these 12 baskets about 300 meters from the store to the yellow line. Then trying to look non-shalant while sitting in the metro car with the baskets on your lap and then carrying them another 200 meters while you go up escalators and stairs to get to the green line transfer point. You repeat by getting on the metro, looking non-shalant with a massive load on your lap and you finally arrive at you home metro stop. You go up the stairs and carry the stuff home - about a quarter mile. It is certainly not that difficult, but a little different than living in Lenexa.

Wednesday was a work day at school. We arrived about 8:15 AM and Phyllis got to work in her room. I helped Leah arrange her classroom - moving chairs, desks, cabinets, etc around in the proper position for classroom management and for learning to take place. Then I assembled a table to put the staff refrigerator on. It would be so great to have some power tools. We have a couple screwdrivers, a poor pair of pliers and a hammer. But we do have two measuring tapes! I spend some time reading my Physics text and working some problems - some of which I got right!

By then it is about 11:20 and Renata finds me and says the textbook shipment is to arrive at 11:00 but obviously is late. However it soon arrives and we go into action. David, about eight students, Renata, Eva and I go out to meet the truck. I notice a couple problems (or situations) right away. Even though we are getting about two to three thousand pounds of books and supplies, the truck has no lift gate. Also, the truck is parked about 100 feet (30 meters) from out front door. And lastly, the wooden crates the stuff is in our really imposing to someone who has only a few screw drivers and a hammer. I am somewhat in shock initially.

Renata and Eva get the driver to back the truck up closer to our door, but this takes at least fifteen minutes of maneuvering. I climb up in the truck as I think, after all, I am the adult man here and I should be able to do something. Eva, who is just incredible at doing manual things and helping move stuff, even though this is not her job - she is the office manager or some such title - finds a couple big screw driver and a hammer - non claw. The truck driver grabs a screwdriver and craws on top of the crates and starts unscrewing the deck screw like screws holing everything together. I think, this is going to take forever, but Eva finds two more Phillips drivers so she and I can work on the front board. To make a very long story short (or not so long) we actually get the front and top boards off so we can access the ton or so of books inside this monster. We get the students to carry the books from the back of the truck to the second floor and 90 minutes later the truck contains only the debris of the ripped apart crate.

Then the driver mentions that he cannot take all the debris with him and we must dispose of it. He will not change his mind even though Eva and I try to cajole him into taking it. So now we have about 200 pounds of stuff we don't want and don't really know where to put. Eva or Renata then talks to the people remodeling the Czech part of the school in our building and we are told we can put it in their dumpster - which is quite small. So the kids and David hall it to the dumpster and I then get the students started on the inventory process in which we need to stamp all the books, "Property of CISP". I find I have great help and the kids have done this before - so we work with vigor. Had I mentioned it was hot in the truck and I am now hot, dirty and hungry? Fortunately, Liz has gone home and made sandwiches which she brings to me along with a liter of Coke Light. So I devour those and then we start the inventory in earnest.

We work till about 3:45 when the kids need to leave and I am totally ready to go home and rest. However, just then Renata comes and says that we have filled the dumpster too full and we need to remove most of the wood and cardboard we put in it. Since there are no good alternatives at this point and the kids have all gone home, Eva, David and I go to the dumpster and try to rip the pieces into smaller pieces and move some of it to the recycle area. Oh, had I mentioned that we have very few tools to do this with previously?

Well, fortunately God had read our thoughts of, "we don't have a plan, a place to put this stuff, the tools to disassemble it, the ...". I suspect he got an earful. However, in the beginning of our angst, the man with the truck to take the dumpster away shows up. He is very reasonable and says that if we can make sides on the dumpster with the boards he will take it all away. We are overjoyed!!! He has about a 3 pound sledge hammer, so that he lets me use to try and pound the big pieces of plywood down into the dumpster to make the sides. However, I break his handle - this is really embarrassing. He is doing us a favor and I just destroyed his hammer - what do I do. Being an American, I offer to pay for the hammer - he will have none of it and does not seem disturbed at all by my clumsiness.

Anyway, he took nearly all the stuff and we left feeling even more certain that God is with us each step of the way. The timing could not have been better. What if we had been told much earlier to get the stuff out of the dumpster? What if he had come later? What if, what if? Only God's perfect timing salvaged the day for us and made us grateful and confident.

We stopped by a local restaurant on the way home with David and Rebekah to celebrate our redemption. It is the people who make Prague and CISP a great place. I had offered to tip the truck driver as I thought he had gone out of his way to help us get the crate opened and the book boxes out. He thought he was just doing his job. He would accept nothing and told Eva that he had nothing to spend the money on. What a great attitude he had! He was content.

Liz and walked home, stopping at Alberts to shop for a few essentials such as coke, deli meat and cheese, cereal, other drinks, bananas, etc. Then Liz stopped at the Potriviny near us that has excellent fruits and vegetables of all kinds while I went home to unload.

It was an exhausting, but glorious day. I found the students at CISP delightful, the workers in Prague exceptional, the Czech office staff at CISP (Eva and Renata) totally helpful and the other staff exceptional.

Sunday Number Two - A Day to Fellowship

Sunday Pastor John Waldrop at the International Church of Prague spoke using Psalm 91 as his text. This Psalm tells us that

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the LORD, who is my refuge-
10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

It is actually a bit easier to make the Most High your dwelling when you live in a land that is foreign to you, in which you cannot speak the language and in which customs and culture are somewhat different.

In Prague it can be difficult to figure out what would be a normal situation in Lenexa that takes no thought to accomplish. Living in an urban setting also makes it more difficult for us to execute normal situations. Here, like on Manhattan Island, one must go to an apartment building, push the buzzer at the entryway and wait for the occupant to respond over the intercom. To someone raised in the suburbs this seems strange. Also, we must double lock each of two locks on the door to our apartment. Of course we also have a security gate that we can buzz people in who call us through our intercom. Having security like this after living in Lenexa just makes one wary of crime which may or may not be a greater risk here than at home. Also, we have graffiti on our building – this certainly does not give one confidence in the safety of the neighborhood. But there seem to be two kinds of buildings in Prague – those with graffiti and those that have been recently repainted.

There are just many more reminders to us here that we live in a broken world in which evil does exist. We think we have mastered the public transportation system, but now are being confronted with transportation system re-routings due to construction. When one thinks he is getting better at something, the curve balls seem to come.

My previous blog was about our Saturday happenings. Tonight (Monday) I will get Sunday’s events covered and maybe today’s also.

Our second Sunday in Prague had our starting as a repeat of last Sunday. We left home a little after 9:00 AM and took a thirty minute ambulation from
our apartment to the Mustek metro stop. This takes us right through Wencelas Square which is the heart of the tourist district and which is filled with tourists on Sunday mornings. At Mustek we hop on the green line for a short trip to the yellow line where we get off at Andel and then take bus 137 to the Ubanova stop which is right in front of the building the church meets in. It is quite a nice building which I think is owned by a seventh day Adventist group or some such. The worship is much like Westside’s worship and the teaching is similar but longer.

We then went to the Waldrop’s house in Ester van along with Johnny (8th grade), Molly(1st grade), Christina, Dori and two of Dori’s friends and head for Roztoky where the Waldrops live. Once there Dori and her two friends begin a grill that they brought with them. It is probably a Pilipino grill as Dori and her friends are from that country, but Dori has lived here for thirteen years. Luscious fragrances waft from the deck where they are grilling.

Liz and I start chopping veggies for a big tossed salad. Christina (CA girl) is busy making a corn salsa mixture. Molly and Johnny are here and there and Ester is organizing and multi-multitasking. Then Molly strolls through the kitchen with a kabob of beef straight from the grill that Liz volunteers to taste. At just the right time Ester tells me to get out the chips/nachos which I attend to immediately. We have nacho cheese nachos which I begin nibbling on.

Soon many guests start to arrive. It is Pastor John’s birthday celebration. The Waldrops are extraordinarily hospitable people who have lived in the Ukraine as well as the CR. Everyone knows and loves them. Liz and I talk with another IICS fellow, Bill, who has been here and there also. He gives us much good info about the CR, Prague, visas, the foreign police, etc. Then it is time to eat and we dive into the salad, salsa, potato dish, grilled chicken and beef kabobs. All is well in Roztoky.

We leave about 5:30 with a group of about ten who all head for the bus stop together to catch the 5:41 which will take us to the metro green line. We part all board at Dejviska and travel back into Prague. We and a couple from the Ukraine get off at Naroudi Trida and make a few purchases for school at the Tesco at that stop.

Then we know that all we need to do to get home is hop on the number 9 tram. We go across the street to the stop and wait for it to come. We see it round the corner and get on. After a few stops we sense that we are not going the right direction. So we get off and discover that we are not on the normal 9 tram route. What we eventually figure is out is that due to construction on the tracks, the 9 tram does not run in our direction to take us home. We do get help from a man who speaks a little English and do get back home eventually, stopping to shop at Albert for groceries on the way home. Right now it appears that there is lots of construction on the tram lines and we will need to be careful about the ones on detour.
All for tonight. Liz just went across the street to a potaviny to pick up a watermelon for which she is longing. We plan to go to an Alberts for shopping again tonight. Why do we shop so often for food. Just look at our refridgerator and you will know the answer. I think it is about 2 or 3 cubic feet and holds very little except for our drinks and cheese, mustard, mayo, butter, milk, etc.

No Duck In Tábor

Hebrews 11:8 (NIV) tells us that, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. "

Now that we have been here eleven days we feel like that we have gone where we are called, even though we certainly did not know very many details the where and why of are going. God has been with us and smoothed the way and changed our hearts concerning our stay in Prague. He has graciously brought people into our lives here who have spoken encouragement to us, given us friendship and imparted their wisdom about living in the Czech Republic.

We had significant advantages over Abraham in that we knew specifically that we were going to Prague and a little of what it would be like, but one can never imagine the details of a place until he has lived there. In our time here we have come to discover that many things are different from what we may have imagined, but that God is giving us confidence to live here. More importantly he is showing us that we are truly needed and appreciate. And most importantly we can see that our backgrounds do make us suitable instruments to carry out his assignment to us. This is a really great feeling that is giving us peace about living here.

After this preamble, I will give you more details of our recent days and try and show how God is preparing us for living here. First, we definitely feel that people who live here are going out of their way to make us feel welcome and needed. He is beginning to establish friendships that can last a life time. We had been here only fourty-eight hours when the Westrums invited us over to their apartment for dinner and gave us lots of helpful advice. The Givens actually went to our apartment before we got there and gave us some food and drink. Lori G met us at the airport and took us to our apartment. These were just the angels from the first two days.

Once we went to CISP we found everyone equally helpful. The first day we visited CISP Eva and Rebeka took us under their wings and gave us a tour and initial information. Rebeka then took us around town to help us get oriented so we could avoid getting lost each time we went somewhere. Leah helped us make decisions while arranging Phyllis' classroom on Thursday. The Givens had a welcome dinner for us at their house on Friday night and then on Saturday Rebeka became our tour guide again and showed us how to navigate outside of Prague - how the buses and trains work and what to do when you arrive at a smaller but picturesque town. Sunday we were invited to the Waldrops for a birthday celebration. While at this gathering Bill gave us lots of good advice.

In other words, each day we have been shown friendship and hospitality and been given a wealth of information. From the quote of Hebrews 11:8 I do not want to imply that we are literally inheiriting Prague, but we are definitely inheiriting an understanding of the City and the love and friendship of many people at the school and church here. These are the things that our gracious God has seen as necdessary to us in the beginning and He is giving us these gifts. How greatful we are for the people and events of our first eleven days.

Now for the less serious aspect of the last two days: Why is there no duck in Tabor? Well, like happens so often to us we experience the results of the Tower of Babel. We can not speack the laguage and hence communicate effectively. We can not read the signs. We can deal with only the simplest situations of life here. The rest is subject to chance of some sort. But, we go with the flow and jsut shake our heads and (hopefully) laugh when unexpected things happen.

The duck? In Tabor on Saturday, Rebeka wanted roast duck for lunch. Liz (aka Phyllis) thought this was a great idea. John likes chicken. So dearest Rebeka - who has lived here for eighteen months and somewhat knows the language - confidently ordered roast duck for her and Liz at our chosen restaurant - a pictuesque setting in Tabor. See picture to right.

So when our order came John had his chicken dish and Rebeka and Liz had pork! What went wrong. Rebeka, who will not let anything pass, took out her dictionary and realized that the word on the menu that she thought was "duck" was actually the word for "roasted". The two words are very close, but close does not always count in menu reading. The pork was good and good for a laugh after we realized what had happened. After all, the lack of roast duck on Saturday just means that we will need to schedule another getogether with Rebeka to eat duck at another restaurant - this time we will carefully check the menu against the dictionary.

To back up slightly, We left home at 7:15 AM Saturday to meet Rebeka at a local church that is a landmark, then we walked to the metro and rode to the train station. We bought our tickets and set out on a two hour train ride to Tabor. We got there around 11:00 and walked to the town square. Tabor is the most lovely little town I have ever seen - well with the exception of Clitheroe - sorry Shirely. We climbed to different towers for views, clamoured down into an

under ground passageway and generally saw most of the town. Some tme after eating our non-duck lunch, it was tea time. So we chose another quaint shop to have our goodies. Rebeka took Cappuccino, Liz took a latte and of course John took diet coke. Then for deserts, R and L shared a honey desert something like baklava. John took a chocolate, banana, vanilla custard desert. Of coure the girls desert came with only one fork, so we ask for a second fork - at least that is what we thought we asked for. But instead we got a second desert. Fortunately the exasperated waitress took the second desert back. That Tower of Babel is just causing us lots of interesting situations.

We came back by bus and saw the Czech countryside in its late summer beauty. Liz and I liked the bus better than the train, but most people here seem to prefet the train.

Enough for tonight - it is bedtime. Again, the no proofreading disclaimer applies. Tomorrow I will try and tell you about our Sunday.

Friday - We Learn More About CISP

Thursday we had spent quite a bit of time at CISP helping organize the library. Then Friday we spent the whole day organizing Phyllis’ classroom. Yes, she went with the idea of being a part-time teacher with no classroom responsibility but things don’t always happen in the manner that one anticipates. In the Czech Republic the mission community’s motto is “Be flexible.” Phyllis is now officially the 1st-2nd grade teacher at CISP.

Even though life in the USA can be frustrating, one generally knows the outcome of most situations he/she encounters before charging into the situation. Here, the outcome is seldom known until you are in the middle of the situation. Construction is still going on at CISP and there seem to be several unanswered questions as to points such as (1) who will teach what, (2) what teachers will actually come to teach, (3) where are the bathrooms in the school (this one needs more explanation which will not be given at this time, (4) where is John’s classroom, (5) exactly what will John teach, (6) will mission organization X allow teacher Y to return to CISP or will they assign them elsewhere in the world, (7) when will teacher z arrive due to visa problems.

Most of these questions would have been answered weeks before school started in the USA. Here these are questions still pending. There is a least one teacher whom we need desperately who had not yet raised sufficient funds to come and teach here. His mission organization just yesterday said he could come and continue to raise funds from Prague, but if he runs out of money he will need to go back to the USA and try to raise funds from there.

But to put things in perspective, a parent who was given a tour of the school yesterday, was told that things are in disarray at the building and she would have see beyond the clutter and dust was not the least upset at what she saw. Her response was something like, “This is nothing! I am from Russia where there is construction in the schools every summer. This school is much closer to being ready than the typical school in Russian would be.” Hence it is all in your perspective. To me we are in a pickle so to speak. To this Russian woman things looked quite good. Fortunately Phyllis and I have been at schools in Africa before in which there was usually some chaos on opening day that would send a typical USA school administrator into a frenzy. Here we will do the best we can with what we have in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Anyway the good news is that Phyllis’ classroom is in reasonable condition. We moved all (yes all) here books, supplies, shelving, etc from a temporary storage area to her class room yesterday. I had to carry a student table and couple chairs up from the basement storage area – quite a jaunt. Most of the stuff we moved by commandeering the overhead projector table – which has wheels – and pushing it one load at a time about one hundred feet from one end of the hall to the other. We must have made about a dozen trips.

Next Monday and Tuesday we have New Teacher Orientation. We will be the only two teachers there. Next Wednesday – Tuesday will be Teacher Inservice days. September 2nd is Parent Open House during the day. September 3rd school officially opens. Right now it looks fairly certain that I will teach Physics, Calculus, Pre-Calculus and Algebra 2. Phyllis will officially teach a combined first-second grade classroom that has twelve students in it. She has nine fist graders and three second grade students. Five of her charges are ESL (or ELL – is English the second, third, fourth or what Language that they speak ).

We had a lovely dinner last night at the home of a couple who are in a situation similar to us. They are retired and generally depend on retirement income for the majority of their support. They have been here one and a half years – which makes them the longest reigning full time staff who have come specifically to teach at CISP. Yes, there is considerable turnover in the full time staff. Several part time and one or two full time staff are in Prague with mission organizations that have assigned that family to other tasks on the mission field, but one spouse is working full or part time at CISP just to keep it going.

Back to the dinner, since six full time teachers were present, it was also a staff meeting of sorts. We hashed out issues, learned more about each other and were told horror stories of registering with the Czech Foreign (Immigration) Police – something we will do after getting our proper visas. It was a great time and reconfirmed some of the reasons why we are here – because the needs are so great and people with whom we will work are all dedicated, interesting, wonderful people.

Once we got back home last night we spent some time blogging, writing emails, watching a little Olympics on TV and made a telephone call to talk to Steve and Kaley on the phone. At least communications is easy and we have good internet and phone access here. The difficulty with trying to call people in the USA is the seven hour time difference. We talk mostly to people who are home during the day as it is generally too late for us to talk to you after work or school unless we stay up quite late as we did yesterday.

Today we are going to take our first road trip outside of Prague. We think we are going to a city called Podebrad. We are essentially being given a tour by Rebeka and possibly her roommate. We are to meet her at her closest metro stop at 8:00 AM today. The rest of the day is still a mystery to be revealed later. We have heard that the Czech countryside is very beautiful.

All-in-all things are going well. We are quite comfortable living here. We can shop and find our way around town. We have our apartment in a very livable conditon and find it comfortable. We are learning to sleep through the sounds of the night. Our apartment is in a very central location that allows us to walk to school (some of our colleagues and students communte up to an hour each way). We will keep you informed of our future happenings

More Life in the Big City of Prague

It has been some time since I wrote about life in the Czech Republic so I will take keyboard in hand and let the words fly – or maybe crawl – onto the page as it is nearly 10:00 PM in Prague. What have we been doing the last few days you ask? Well…read on to find out.

Wednesday we worked on the apartment some more in the morning, we now have the computers back in the living room and out of the bedroom. John has bought enough extension cords to make the wiring look acceptable. The TV, digital cable box, wireless Internet box, phone chargers and camera chargers all sit neatly on our entertainment center with cables nearly hidden. The computers are still on our kitchen table which is in the living room as it is our only table. The electric to our bedside tables now is one long cord rather than three short ones. Liz (aka Phyllis) thinks I am crazy to pay so much attention to the cabling, but it is important to me. I also put up some hooks in the entry hall to hang our staples – shopping bags and backpacks.

Wednesday afternoon we went site seeing with a young teacher we met at the school, Rebeka, a most interesting and delightful person. She is one of those extraordinarily adventurous people who has traveled far and wide in her young life. She took us on a tour of Mala Strana district of Prague and in particular Prague Castle area. We road the metro, trams, walked and ambled over the Charles Bridge. In between these adventures we had coffee at Starbucks and Pizza at a lovely old restaurant. Rebeka came to CISP last January, but knows her way around Prague really well since she was a student at Charles University here for a year.

On a whim Wednesday night, we left home at 7:30 PM and hopped on the Metro to take a thirty minute trip to an Ikea store in a large shopping mall area. Shopping is just incredible here. The malls are great and numerous. The wealth here is much greater than anticipated. We did not buy much, but needed a good, small rug that would cover the cable TV and Internet cables that run from one wall across our bedroom door to the entertainment center. We also got a small carpet piece for the kitchen and a spatula. We did not get home until around 10:00 PM.

We also made a brief appearance at CISP and got our key and a brief tour by Rebeka and Eva. Eva is a great Czech employee of the school who is becoming invaluable in keeping things running. Yes, we did come here to do a job, but are taking some time to settle in.

Thursday was work at the school and a trip to another mall to look for as-yet-not-found items. Again this was a thirty minute metro ride as the new malls tend to be at the extreme ends of the Metro. We found a “Home Depot” like store and bought some supplies for home and school. We stopped at a McDonalds to use the WC before returning home and I had a bit of shock. I carefully looked at the door before entering and saw a person wearing pants. So I boldly opened the door and started to go in. However, since the bathroom turned out to be quite small, I was immediately confronted by a nice looking blond lady at the sink hand washing area of the WC. Operating in panic mode I immediately looked at the door exterior again and decided that I was correct and this was the men’s WC. She was actually washing the bottom parts of her naked son in the men’s sink. I thought, “this is unusual, but I will go with the flow.” Hence I boldly stepped into the urinal/toilet area of the bathroom and found that it was very small and there was a Czech man in there. So I just waited in the corner for him to finish so I could accomplish my purpose for entering. Then I exited only to find the lady still there. Now she was washing out a dirty diaper in the sink – not good from my point of view. I was rather taken aback but remembered that I had one little foil wrapped hand cleaning towel in my backpack, so I exited trying to look what I had just witnessed was a normal happening in my life.

Both Phyllis and I then exchanged the information that we were both hungry and decided to eat at this McDonalds. I had the Chicken Ming, fries and a diet Pepsi. Phyllis had the Beef Wong and an Urquel – something not found at USA McDonalds. We then journeyed home and I got busy with more work on arranging the apartment. Then bed and a good sleep.

It is now too late so today’s happenings will be reported tomorrow.

Disclaimer: this blog has not been proof read, read at own peril.

Monday Tourists

We started out on our sight seeing adventure by walking a few blocks to Tram 9 and then taking it to a stop near the Powder Gate. This is a much restored Gothic gate which is a relic of when there was a royal palace located there at the entrance to Old Town.


Phyllis is shown standing outside one of the restaurants which feature sidewalk seating. This is very popular all over Prague - not just in the tourist areas.


The picture above shows the beautiful architecture typical of many streets in Prague. This particular shot is of Celetna Street down from the Powder gate. The Powder Gate was actually the place where gun powder was stored in Prague's glorious past.

Musings from Monday and Tuesday

It is late Tuesday night. We have had two productive days since our last entry. Monday we did some sightseeing in the tourist sections of town. We left home and walked to the tram stop and rode it to the Potter’s Gate which is a very lovely and impressive area of well maintained, old buildings. We then went to Old Town Square and saw the Astronomical Clock – at which there were hundreds of people waiting to view the clock perform on the hour. We saw some of the Jewish Quarter, but made some wrong turn and did not see all of it. We browsed in a few shops and ate our first meal out at a restaurant in Prague. We had a salad with smoked Norwegian salmon. Also we had our first taste of bread dumplings. They are not great, but everyone who comes to Prague must try them as they are a traditional fare.
It was surprisingly hot to us and we enjoyed sitting inside the restaurant to get out of the sun. We walked quite a long distance but passed on the Charles Bridge on the Vltnana River as there were just too many tourists on it – we will wait for September or October to go there again.
A huge (in my eyes) accomplishment early in the day was the successful configuration of our wireless router. Somehow I messed it up the first time and had to ask some questions on exactly what I should do next. I used our Skype phone in Prague to call on our 913 area code number to an 800 number and got to talk to a nice chap in India. Isn’t technology wonderful! When we were in Tanzania nearly forty years ago, our means of communicating with the world was the handwritten letter. Today we can talk to anyone in the world for minimal charge. We spoke with Gretchen for about twenty minutes today on the Skype phone. Our landlord lives in England and we regularly contact him by email or phone to discuss issues. Our school’s Director is still in the States, but it is no problem talking to her on the phone either.
We have been spending some of our time preparing for school. Monday that consisted mostly of trying to familiarize myself with the Physics textbook that I think I will be teaching from. Today, Tuesday, we ventured to CISP and met the Administrative Aide, Eva, a Czech who is very competent and speaks perfect English. She was getting ready to show us around when a young America lady name Rebeka came to the office and said she would show us around. Rebeka began teaching at the school last January. She is from Oregon, but did a year of university in Prague and is the perfect person to be teaching at CISP. She is vivacious and enthusiastic about teaching in a Christian school and about living in the Czech Republic. After showing us around the school, she took us out for heavenly pretzels that were freshly baked for us after we ordered them. We talked with her for quite awhile about how to live in Prague and how to function, get along, and go with the flow. She then took us to a small bookstore to get a better map book of Prague – one which shows great detail and has an index of all the streets in the city.
This morning we moved around slowly for awhile before going for a walk. Yesterday we rearranged the furniture in our apartment and spent considerable time doing so. This morning we mulled over what we had done and talked about further changes – which include undoing some of what we did yesterday. Also, the cable TV technician came today to install some English speaking channels. Now we can get CNN International and BBC World. And much to my surprise, I found we have ESPN along with about four European sports channels, but no Sky sports. Anyway, this is nice for us. We have a rather old TV in the apartment, but our landlord is thinking seriously about replacing it with a new model which will communicate with the digital TV better.
It is time for be now, so I will stop this without proofreading. Good Night

End Of The First Weekend

Sunday morning we woke about 5:00 AM and decided to get up even thought church does not start until 10:30. We got up mostly because we are still off schedule, but we slept better/longer last night than any other night so far!

Phyllis did our second wash in our tiny washing machine. It is very different than an American washing machine – it has a small, vertical cylinder that the clothes go in and somehow the cylinder spins slowly and reverses direction to wash clothes, but spins very fast after the rinse cycle to get them somewhat dry. Then we put them on (not in) the dryer – which is an indoor drying rack that takes up about twenty percent of the spare bedroom. We can fold it up and put it away, so don’t let the thought of clothes drying in your bedroom detour you from visiting us!

We still had plenty of time so we walked up the street to the nearest grocery store – Alberts. We have two of them relatively close (walking distance each). We also have several very small groceries within a few blocks of our house, but have not yet ventured in to any of them. After getting a few groceries, we returned home and put them away. Then it ws time to leave for church.

We decided to walk partway to church so we would not need to change metro lines plus get some exercise before church. It was about a twenty minute walk to a metro stop called Mustek. We then took the yellow line to Andel where we got off and took a relatively short bus ride to the church. It took us about an hour in all to get there, but we could do it more quickly if we got on the metro closer to home – which we may do in the winter. We actually met some Americans at the bus stop whom we then followed to church since they knew where to get off the bus.

The service was quite good with worship like we are used to and good teaching. The International Church of Prague is one of four or five (I really don’t know how many) English congregations in Prague. Several people from IICS and fro CISP attend there so we will probably do so also. It is not a very large congregation however.

After church we ventured on to an Ikea store that was (via bus and metro) past the church and some distance from our apartment. Our major purchase there was two pillows for our bed as we find Czech pillows quite different from what we are used to. That does not mean they are bad, we just wanted something that would help us sleep. We picked up a few small items also and then went to Tesco (a Walmart-like British chain). While at Ikea, we had a hot dog and coke light (i.e. diet coke). To return home we chose to take our first ride on a tram rather than the Metro. It was really more enjoyable to us as we could see more of the City as we traveled. It did not seem to take much longer that the Metro would have, so we were happy about that.

After getting off the tram a few blocks from home we engaged in our favorite sport – getting lost and disoriented. We have become excellent at making wrong turns, mistaking one direction for another and generally making a mess of things when trying to get from point A to point B. Somehow we got really disoriented and finally had to ask directions. Of course the only language we speak is English, so it is difficult to ask questions. My question was something like this: “Hello…TV Tower???!!!” Fortunately we asked this question(?) to a group of four people and one lady understood us and pointed and we were told something like,”…straight then left…”. We knew if we could just see the TV tower, we could easily get home as we live about a block from it! It took us about twenty minutes from that point to find a street name we recognized – the one we live on – then we saw the tower and made it home.

While at home we tidied up a bit and put away our new possessions. Also checked internet for emails and new and sports. It was 4:25 PM at this point and Phyllis wanted to rest so John ventured off to Wencelas Square to a sports bar to watch Man U play Liverpool. I made it there with no difficulty and found an English couple at Rocky O’Reilly’s Sport Bar to sit by and talk about the match with. It was a tenaciously played affair which ended in a 1-1 draw. Then I ventured out and started off on a route that I had never been on before. That was a big mistake! I thought I was going north back to the metro stop, but I was really going east I later found out. Hence I circled for a while trying to get back to Mustek. I got back to the Mustek metro station and headed home to the Jihiro Z Prodebrad metro station. At Jihiro Z Prodebrad I exited at the wrong side and was disoriented for about five minutes before I could circle back and locate our main street we walk on – Vinohraska. Again, the thrill of the hunt to find point B was overcome by the uneasy feeling of, “why did I not take a map with me when I left home?” It would always be wise to take a map with me even when I am traversing a path I have done before.

We will spend the evening working on things around the apartment, on the Internet and calling friends and family before retiring and trying out our new pillows. So far things are going well enough. We have become “adequate” at shopping and riding public conveyance from A to B, but get lost between the disembark point and the exact location we are trying to get to.

All for now.

First Weekend in Prague

It is now Sunday and our fourth day in Prague. Our apartment seems a little more like home now. We are beginning to get settled after a few trips to the shopping mart to add a bedcover, sauté pan, and various other items to what is a fully “furnished” apartment. There is a small washing machine, but no clothes dryer. The dish washer is now John and Phyllis. There is no garbage disposal, so it is like stepping back a bit in time
Our shopping trip included our first venture onto the “metro” which is an incredible subway system that links the city from north to south and east to west. However, directionality is a difficult concept to grasp since there are no straight squared off blocks of streets with street names being very foreign and changing from one to another.
We had a lovely dinner with an American couple who have been in Prague for five years. They are with the Evangelical Free Church and assist missionary couples in all of Eastern Europe. They were able to share some vital information on how to communicate by internet and phone, how to recognize and what to shop for when buying groceries. There are quite a few supermarket type grocery stores with many other small grocery, fruit and vegetable, meat markets, and bread bakeries all around where we and thousands of other people live. Since we live in one of many old apartment buildings in the area, the necessity for people to walk and carry their food to their home is the way of life.
Today we will attend the International Church of Prague which is an English speaking church. John, who has been there on his last visit to Prague, estimates that it will take about 35 minutes by subway and bus to get from our apartment to the church location. That also include a little bit of walking.

The couple that we visited last night told us they wear out their shoes quickly with all the walking one does over here on cobblestone streets and sidewalks. We purchased some good walking shoes before leaving the States, however, we see the same brand of shoes sold over here with a higher price. Yes, as someone had told us, one can buy anything here. The shopping malls are like American malls. They are not within walking distance, but easy metro rides for us.

It is a sunny day today after experiencing two days of rain. We will find joy in this day with church worship and more sights of the city.

First Full Day In Prague, Vol. 1

It is about 2:00 PM in Prague. Our second day, first whole day in Prague has been interesting. First we found out that the traffic noise outside our apartment is much worse than anticipated. Second, a lot of light from the nearby street light shines into our bedroom. Hence Phyllis has a bit of time trying to sleep. These combined with jet lag and seven hours of time zone change made sleeping last night more difficult than desired. We did get some sleep and felt reasonably good this morning.

Also, we discovered this morning that our connection to the Internet did not work, so John spent considerable time trying to figure out why with no avail. We had a light breakfast and set out on a walk around 9:00 AM. We easily made it to Wenceslas Square where all tourists end up. We walked in that general area for a while. Nothing is quite as easy here as in the USA.

We stopped at a McDonalds (there are seemingly hundreds of them here) to use a bathroom. As in most of the world, you are charged to use the bathroom. However we had forgotten that and Phyllis went with no money. But you do what you have to do, and it worked out ok. I later used the facility and paid the lady. While there a British lady also claimed she had no money. How is one supposed to even know what a five crown coin looks like after one day. It is all a bit confusing.

After leaving McDonalds I decided to show Phyllis how well I knew my way around Prague, so we went on a small excursion. However, as I did last September, I got one hundred eighty degrees turned around and we wandered for a while. A young Chinese lady then asked us for directions! That was a mistake on her part. We wandered with her for a while, each of us what with map in hand trying to locate the street we were on and looking for a cross street. The good news was that after about fifteen or twenty minutes, we actually got oriented and parted ways, each on the right course.

We headed for home and stopped at a mid-sized grocery store quite near our apartment and had a rather successful shopping adventure. There are lots of items available here. However, the food is expensive. We filled one plastic, hand-held basket like you could carry around in a USA grocery store and filled it with $60 of food – nothing exotic, just regular stuff. We came home and made a sandwich lunch eating the deli meat we bought (from unknown animal), some kind of white cheese and some kind of deviled meat spread. We now know the word for chicken is kure and will look for that in the future. There are really nice fresh fruits and vegetables available in little shops near us as well as in the mid-sized store that we shopped in today.

I am typing rapidly because I do have the Internet working on one computer but not the second and need to make an experiment to see if my current conjecture about the problem is true. However, I dare not change anything until this message is published. We hope to make it to a big (read WalMart-like) store here called Tesco (an English chain), but could not find it this morning. We may look for that later today or just go back to Flora, the really nice mall near us, later today.

I will publish this now. If you don’t hear from us for a couple days then my conjecture on the Internet access problem was incorrect. If you hear again soon, that will mean I may have been correct. All for now.

Takeoff: T minum zero hours

Takeoff day! We got up about 5:30 AM, had coffee and watched the news on TV – knowing that we would not experience this again in our Lenexa home for some time. We took at two or three mile walk, but did not have time for our normal longer route. We had to get back early enough for Phyllis to make her 8:00 AM massage appointment. This would replace her normal morning relaxation routing of yoga at the health club. While Phyllis was getting her massage John busied himself with one final round of suitcase weight distribution. The initial weigh-in was good. Only one book needed to be shuffled from one suitcase to another to equalize the weights in our four to-be-checked bags to John’s satisfaction.

While this was going on, we had the washer and dryer going so that we could leave with our bed freshly made with clean sheets and all the towels clean also – along with miscellaneous clothing we had worn the last few days. When Phyllis returned from her massage, she busied herself with final mirror, sink and window cleaning along with the final storage of items in our bedroom that we have been using the last few days. By 9:40 all was neat and tidy, except we still had clothes drying.

Jim Heaton and Schaun Collins from Westside came by to pray over us and encourage us with last minute exhortation. This was a real blessing. Shortly before 10:00 Brentton came with his van to transport us to the airport. The four large bags, the two roll-ons and the two backpacks were stowed in his van and we headed north to the airport.

Our arrival plan was simple. Brenton let us off at the curb with the four biggies and the two backpacks – all we could manage. We went to the United gate while Brenton parked the car and brought in the two roll-ons. A very helpful United lady directed us to what we thought was a vacant station, so we put the first bag on the scale and it weighed in at fifty point five pounds – whoops. But when the second bag was placed beside it the scale read 100 lbs. It doesn’t get better than that! We were standing around expecting someone to check us in when the lady came back and showed us how to self-check-in. She simply scanned our passports and all the vital information came up.

The next two suitcases weighed a combined at a light ninety-eight point five pounds, which means that we could have taken another pound and a half of stuff. But I think we have plenty. Since our first flight was on United and the remaining two (Chicago to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Prague) we received boarding passes for the Kansas City to Chicago leg only – a small inconvenience.

Note that Phyllis' yellow backpack is the sign to identify us to Lori G (whom we do not know) who is to meet at the Prague airport and then to transport us to our apartment. (She later told us that the yellow backpack was an easy clue.)

We had at least two hours after check-in before take-off so we strolled around pulling our roll-ons topped with backpacks. But that became too labor intensive quickly and we decided to eat about 11:30. We got a prime table in front of a really big screen on which we could watch the Olympics. We split a lime-infused chicken breast dinner with sides of steamed veggies and fries. It was good except for the rubber consistency of the chicken. We then made quick stops on the way to go through security to enter the gate area at MCI.

We were pshyched to do things properly while going through security and made it more easily than usual even though we had two laptops, myriads of small cables and iPod like devices, phones, cameras, etc. It was a breeze. I credit this partly to my having purchased a belt with no metal on it so that I did not have to take it off. Somehow that always seems to put me off. Taking off shoes is no problem, but the belt always throws me!

The plane was a little late in leaving and the scheduled time was ten minutes later than shown when we had purchased our tickets. We therefore had a scheduled paltry fifty minute layover in Chicago, but with the late start I was thinking that we might miss our connection. I made the assumption that if we did miss the connection it would have been because our visas had been approved and we would then have time to take the train Michigan Avenue and get our visas at the Czech Consulate – but no such luck.

Again a nice lady from United gave us directions to Lufthansa flight 431 as we left our KC to Chicago flight. We had only to go from concourse C to concourse B for flight 431. We arrived at gate 16 only to see a very long line waiting for I-did-not-know-what, but I got in line because that is in my nature. I then mentioned to the gentleman just ahead of us that I did not have boarding passes and he wisely told me to go to the counter at the gate. That was certainly the right thing to do. Upon arriving at the counter, we were helped immediately by a lady who was somewhat concerned about our baggage. She took extra time to make inquiries or something and then seemed satisfied that our baggage would make the flight in spite of the very brief connection time. We went from the counter to the boarding gate. The long line was now non-existent and we went right through to the jetway and entered the cavernous 747-400 that would take us across the Atlantic. It is now 9:40 PM CDT and 4:40 AM CEDT. We are to land about 6:40 AM in Frankfurt. Our connection to Prague leaves at 8:20 so we should have plenty of time to connect. The traveling has been very good. I will be tried when we land in a couple hours. Phyllis has managed to sleep some on this flight. I have not. Our seat partner in the three seat side we are on is a Swedish young lady who has spent the last year in the States. She is extremely pleasant and a great third in our row.

What lies ahead when we land in Frankfurt? We need to get our passports stamped as Germany and the Czech Republic are both members of the Schengen Treaty of EU States so there will be no customs or immigration when we enter the CR. However, fortunately our bags are checked through to the CR, we will likely avoid customs on our checked bags.

All Is Well: T - 46 hours

The time for us to actually leave Kansas and travel to the Czech Republic seems really close now. Today, Monday, we are attending to details. We have finished packing three of our four large suitcases. We have about two pounds of weight to put in the fourth one. Phyllis has her carry-on stuff all ready to go, John is still procrastinating on that last minute detail.

Sunday we had a most enjoyable day. At Westside Family Church we said goodbyes and heard a great teaching that hit home to us. Several points were made, but the one that stuck with John (author of this wordy message) was that we should not get irritated/upset/mad at people who seem to misbehave, but get mad at the spiritual forces of darkness who try so desperately to keep people (like me) in bondage to bad traits. The solution is not to try and change the person, but to cry out to the Lord to fight against the spiritual forces that subjugate us to actions that we probably don’t even want to do ourselves, but against which we seem so powerless. In other words, we should not use earthly weapons to fight spiritual battles. Spiritual weapons are the only ones that will work.

Anyway, that teaching lifted our spirits. After church, we went on a nice walk for about an hour on the Mill Creek Trail. After a light lunch at home, we took our two heaviest suitcases to the airport and went to the United check-in window and asked them to weigh the two suitcases. We did this because John is paranoid about being overweight – that is the suitcases being overweight – and Phyllis suggested that we do this to calm him. We got good news from United. Our heaviest suitcase weighed in at 49.5 lbs – full half pound under the limit and the other suitcase was three pounds under the fifty pound limit.

After getting that good news and stopping to get Phyllis a latte, we stopped by John’s cousin Leo’s house and chatted with Grace and Leo for about three hours. We always spend time reminiscing some and talking about current events, sports and family with them. As an added bonus, Grace had just made an apple pie which we were delighted to sample.

We drove home in time to drop off the two suitcases, chat with Jared and Michelle very briefly and then head to Paneras for a supper with Brentton and Sharon. It always good to be with them and receive their wisdom and encouragement.

This morning, as mentioned above, we did some packing. Then Phyllis was off to yoga and John continued packing and miscellaneous matters. Then it was off to the bank for John to wire the September rent on our apartment to our landlord’s Czech bank account. While there, the wonderful lady who was helping me said that she could set this up as a recurring transaction. However, nothing seems completely simple at B of A. We spent about an hour trying to get the right forms and then fill them out correctly. When it looked like we were nearly done, she discovered that it can be set up to automatically transfer a set dollar amount but not set number of Czech Crowns. Hence, the outcome was not entirely successful, but not all bad as now I can call the bank and tells them each month to wire 20,500 Czech crowns to the landlord rather than someone actually needing to make a trip to the bank as we were once told.
Then came the final, or maybe it was the penultimate, call to the Czech Consulate in Chicago. The refrain rings true again as I am told that our visas are still pending. My brain races to try and come up with a plan on what to do if I should call tomorrow and the visas are approved. However, there is no simple way to get the visas and make our flight on Wednesday – so I will just quit thinking about it but probably call tomorrow anyway.

Phyllis’ nap is now over, so I will post what I have written and pack my carry-on stuff. We are to meet with Phyllis’ brother DeVon and his wife Peg this evening and then have a farewell dinner for immediate family Tuesday night at daughter Gretchen’s home.

The Saga at T Minus 118 Hours

Making arrangement to leave one’s home country and to move to an unknown country brings many surprises. I have made several phone calls to the Czech Consulate in Chicago this week and last. The one constant in our lives in the last few weeks arises from these phone calls. The constant response, “your visa is pending” has been the constant for us. I think a poem or song should be written around this topic. I am sure many people have heard this repeatedly before us and will continue to hear it repeatedly after us.

So what is new and what is our situation? Right now we have resigned ourselves to the almost certain fact that we will leave for Prague with no visa to stay there past ninety days. Only a miracle and last minute effort will get us visas before we leave. But as our daughter Gretchen reminded me, “remember 1977”. That was the year of an unheard of venture by John that secured visas for us to leave for Nigeria.

Yesterday, in a phone call to the Consulate, (and I must credit the people at the Consulate with being very courteous and helpful, but lacking authority to do much) when I told them to send us our passports back (which they have had since May 20th), the response was, “you must send us a letter requesting them back”. I am thinking…”just another overnight letter to pay for”, with no option since time is running out. But the dear lady on the other end of the line then said, “you can fax the letter”, which brought great relief and joy to me! So I penned a letter that seemed crystal clear to me and both Phyllis and I signed it and faxed it to Chicago.

Today I called the Consulate just before noon and the letter was no where to be found. They told me they would call back in thirty minutes telling whether someone else had the letter or I needed to refax it. At 2:10 PM I called back since I had not heard from them. My conversation started with, “have you found my fax?”. I was put on hold immediately. But to my great relief the nice lady returned to the line and told me she has found the fax. I asked them to send the passports back immediately and was told they would put them in the post this afternoon.

After some further discussions I came away slightly perplexed, but more ready than ever to battle bureaucracies around in the world. Two answers I received to follow-up questions were, “I don’t know” and "I have never done that before”. This was truly great training for further encounters with government workers in the US and abroad.

So what exactly is our current situation? First, we plan to leave home on August 13th and fly to Prague, arriving on August 14th. We have a one way ticket to London from Prague on October 23rd in case the immigration people demand to see how we are leaving the Schengen region, which the Czech Republic is a part of.

Second, what happens when we land at Ruynze Airport in Prague? Well, this is where I need to begin thanking people who are already in Prague. There are several people who are working for us in Prague and have been willing to go out of their ways on our behalf. First, Lori G will meet us in Ester W’s van. Lori with drive us to our apartment which Renata V, Leslie J, Marilyn G and David G (all of who are with CISP) have helped us secure. To reiterate from other correspondences, we will live in a two bedroom apartment in the Zizkov area of Prague. Hence we have room for visitors.

Our son Trevor and daughter-in-law Jennifer are the first to officially announce a date that they will visit us. We are thrilled to know they will come at Christmas which will make the Holiday more joyful. So book your dates early as the rush is on!

There are many friends and family who have been so helpful in the USA. We want to thank all of you who have supported us with prayers, with financial contributions, and with counsel and encouragement. We would not have made it this far without so much support. Thanks to all of you. Special thanks to Pat for having a going-away dinner for us with friends and for Dan and Sue for a second going-away dinner.

Next Wednesday special thanks will go to Brenton and Sharon who will drive us and our large suitcases to the airport. Special thanks go to all the staff at IICS who have helped us with arrangements and encouraged us. Special thanks also go to those in our Life Group who have supported us in our preparations for this new adventure in life.

What is next? We wait for our passports to arrive Saturday or Monday. We will do the final packing of suitcases (which for the most part have been ready for three weeks). We have a family goodbye dinner Tuesday evening. We entrust our house to our nephew and niece, Jared and Michelle, for safe keeping. They have graciously agreed to receive our mail and do our banking for us while we are gone.

John

The Story Begins: T Minus 160 Hours

We leave for Prague in approximately 160 hours. We have many questions in our minds and hearts. We have asked ourselves the following questions many times over the last several weeks. The answers have changed, but tonight we can tell you the following:

Why are we going? We want live our lives with a purpose - serving mission families overseas.

Where are we going? Aug 13: KC to Chicago to Frankfurt to Prague. We will be traveling about eighteen hours before arriving at our new home – an apartment at Čajkovského 1, Praha 3 – Žižkov. Our full postal address Čajkovského 1/1289, Praha 3, 130 00.

What are we feeling? Confident/uncertain, excited/ anxious, able/inadequate, prepared/not ready, joyful/sad, eager/whoa!

What are we going to miss? Our friends and family, but especially Steve and Kaley. We pray that our separation from our family will result in the Lord’s peace and presence filling the voids we leave.

What do we need? We need your prayers for competence and trust. We need visas to stay long-term in the Czech Republic. We need strength for the journey. We need new friends in Prague.

We want to keep in touch with all of you. Remember, we have chosen a two bedroom apartment in hopes of receiving many visitors.