Good old Saint Nicholas

Tonight my little town switched on its Christmas tree lights! Today is the 5th December which means it's Saint Nicholas' day, or Saint Mikuláš here in Czech.

In the run up to today there are angel, demon and Saint Nicholas figures around - including special sweets and breads baked into their shapes. As I drove back from my Czech teacher's home this morning I saw the trio walking outside a primary school. The bad photo above has the trio and a little kid singing.

Why an angel, devil and Saint Nicholas? Why singing?

Well, you should watch this short video to find out! It was shared by the wonderful Petra and it will tell you about these traditions. Tip: it involves threatening little children that they might be dragged off to hell. 

Josef's Terror: St. Nicholas Day in the Czech Republic from Amy Hadley on Vimeo.

Funnily enough there was a nativity set up on the main square today too. It's just accepted as part of the fairy tales surrounding Christmas. 

One of the stalls on the main square had a "Jesus postbox" - a postbox for you to post your letter to Jesus in, because it's baby Jesus who brings the presents on 24th December.

I'm glad the Christmas lights have been switched on, and it was a lot of fun to spend time with the Thomason family tonight, and I'm praying that this Christmas many in this country would come to know the true joy of Immanuel, God with us. 

Joining the Movement of God (Article)

Time and time again this part of the world, and particularly Czech, is highlighted as a region where few are evangelical believers. Across the countries that JV works in less than 1% of the population fall into that category. 

Czech is actually top in the world in terms of percentage of the population "unaffiliated" to any religion with 76% declaring themselves in that category. Even China and North Korea have lower percentages than that. And the evangelical population of Czech is less than a third of one percent.

And yet this country has a glorious history of the Gospel and movements of God. Jan Hus called for reformation in the church and inspired Martin Luther. And in the early 1700s a revival broke out in this part of the world that rippled throughout the nations.

You can read about this revival in this article which even mentions the town I now live in as the nerve centre of the revival, which also went on to inspire the people who became known as the Moravians.

The Moravians were pioneers of the missions movement and prayed continuously for one hundred years. There are stories of Moravian missionaries who were willing to sell themselves into slavery in order to preach the Gospel to those enslaved through the Atlantic slave trade. They also deeply affected John Wesley, contributing to his conversion experience when he saw their deep faith during a storm on a boat crossing the Atlantic. 

God has been drawing people to Himself in this part of the world for centuries and from this region ripples have went out that have changed the world. 

It is our prayer that again we would see God's mighty work in this region, that He would call many to Himself and that it would transform not only this country but the world. 

Where is Český Těšín?

So, my language course is done and I’m now in Český Těšín where this week I will be signing a contract for my little Český Těšín flat! 

But I know what you’re all wondering…  where is this town?  I’ve talked about it before – I’ve visited here multiple times in the past year or so – but I wanted to give you more information.

First, let’s start with the name.  The correct way to write it is Český Těšín.  It’s a lot of accents, I know.  The hat above the “c” makes it like an English “ch”, the hat above the “e” makes the “T” ‘softer’, the hat above the “s” makes it like an English “sh” and the line above the “i” makes it longer. 

Want to try and say it?  No one will hear you…. You can check how you managed it by comparing it with the audio file here.

It gets a little more complicated when I say that Český Těšín is really only one part of a town, and the other part of the town is in Poland.  The Polish part is called Cieszyn (how Těšín is written in Polish).  So we have Cieszyn and “Czech Cieszyn” or Český Těšín! 

There is no real border any more – in fact the only reason you know you’re in Poland is because you have to cross the river to change countries.  There’s no border control.  It’s quite fun because it means you’re often in two places at once, when one foot is in Czech and the other in Poland. 

Český Těšín has a population of 25,000 and Cieszyn has 35,000.  It really doesn’t feel like it has that many people living there, and a lot of the town seems to close around 6pm. 

It is a beautiful town to live in – there is a lovely path along the river to walk along, lots of cute little shops to buy different things in, bilingual street signs (Czech and Polish) – and lots more for me to explore as I continue to settle here.

It takes at least four hours to go from Prague to Český Těšín on the train so the nearest airport is Krakow in Poland.  You can see where Český Těšín is on the map above – it’s marked by the “A” in the red circle.  You can also read more about Český Těšín using the Wikipedia article on the town here.