Photo Friday

The retreat house that was the home of our girls' retreat. I loved spending time with the youth group ladies here!

I cheered Ireland on as they played New Zealand! I so so wish the game had ended at 80 minutes. 

The first snow! There will be more to come!

A meeting of the seasons.

Food all prepared for Thanksgiving.

A slice of delicious pumpkin pie!

It was so wonderful to celebrate my very first Thanksgiving with the wonderful Josiah Venture family. Missionaries from Czech and a couple of nearby countries travelled to our hotel/conference centre at Malenovice to celebrate. I am so thankful for the missionary family God has called me to here.

Exit Tour and Spiritual Battles

Exit Tour is a ministry of JV that involves an American Christian band going into local high schools to connect with students through the universal medium of music and to provide education on real life issues. The Gospel is presented and students are invited to a big concert at the end of the week. This is all done alongside the local church who want to reach out to the young people of their communities.

The Dicksons serve in Czech and head up the Exit Tour here. Kevin's college recently ran an article on their work and what it looks like, particularly in terms of the spiritual battle that surrounds it and the incredible results they are seeing.  It also talks a little about the Czech culture and spiritual climate. To read the article click here. 

Exit Tour has just finished up in a few cities and it will be going to more Czech towns before the end of the year. Please be praying for this ministry! And for the churches who are now following up with students who were interested in the Gospel.

Deep Dive (Free book!)

Deep Dive is a book written by Josiah Venture! And it's free for Kindle (and, remember, you can read Kindle books on your Kindle, iPhone, iPad, computer... etc!) for another day or two. 

From the blurb: 

During 2012-2013, six teams from twelve national organizations of Josiah Venture, bringing the gospel of Christ to the emerging generation in Central and Eastern Europe, embarked on a qualitative study of their ministry environments. Through the Deep Dive Project, 90 youth leaders conducted 422 in-depth interviews in Slovenia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, and Slovakia. Their objective was to see more clearly and understand more deeply the youth and youth leaders they serve. This book is about what they discovered.

I really recommend this book if you'd like to know more about young people, youth ministry or the context in which I serve! 

Photo Friday

I went to the zoo in Ostrava with some other missionaries. It was 0 degrees that day and the flamingoes looked out of place!

I was moaning as I text Jo about my thermostat that I just.couldn't.figure.out. Cue her husband looking online for the manual and a FaceTime call to help me figure out how to properly heat my flat! The bonus was an impromptu FaceTime with Jo.

The sunset out my kitchen window... my very dirty kitchen window.

I get all my post sent to the office so this is what my desk looked like after my birthday! I am so thankful for my crazy thoughtful friends.

I was preparing to speak at my youth group's girls' retreat.

I've become a black coffee drinker. Crazy. (I still probably prefer having milk but I can definitely drink it black now).

The panel of ladies answering questions at the girls' retreat.

Book: God Knows My Name

I read this book a few months ago and it was such a refreshing read. It was such a great reminder of who God is - our Saviour, Restorer, Defender, Helper, - how great His love and grace is, and who we are in Him. 

Lessons from Wellie Boots

I bought these wellie boots one rainy afternoon in Cardiff and I remember trudging to lectures in snow in them and, last winter, wearing them as I flew down hills on plastic bin liners…

It seemed like a good idea to bring them here with me but I didn’t clean them before I shoved them in a box for shipping. And then I wore them a lot at the rainy Fall Conference.

So now, as they sit in my entryway, they have both Northern Irish mud and Czech mud on them.

And maybe I should clean them and restore them to their original purple but for now they seem like a good analogy of my life – bits of Northern Ireland (and Cardiff) and bits of Czech all mixed together. Memories and experiences from various places all making me who I am.

Photo Friday!

I got a lot of food for my birthday - American candy on the left and then Northern Irish/British the rest of the way over. So so good. And, yes, caramel squares (or millionaries shortbread) are something I crave on a regular basis.

I was all tucked up in bed at 11:30 (because it had been a long day and I'm 25 now) when I got a FaceTime call from Rach and Amy at youth group in Saintfield! Which led to lots of hellos and was a perfect ending of my birthday!

My birthday weekend: breakfast with Kristin and Caleb on Saturday and then the other four pictures are from a beautiful walk around a nearby lake with my Czech friend Martina and a shopping excursion for a winter coat that ended in a lovely Starbucks shaped treat! There was lots of other unphotographed niceness - youth group, church, etc.

The fact the lady in the shop assures me that my coat is perfectly fine at -10 degrees C concerns me just a little... Because that is now a perfectly average temperature for my winters.

And here's what Monday morning looked like!

But then the post arrived and so did lots of hilarious and thoughtful birthday cards! 

Celebrating a very productive Tuesday.

Ministry often happens outside church walls, and instead over things like drinks of hot chocolate.

Czech homework in front of Narnia.