Ahoy (or Ahoj)!

St. Joseph Catholic Church here in Fort Collins

I've had a full day of church visits. My roommate and I went this morning to Summitview, a church that we really like here in town. They were finishing up a week of VBS, so the kids led some of the service. Because they did the "High Seas Expedition" theme, they had everyone in the church pump their fist and shout, "Ahoy!" every time they said one of the truths about God's Word that they had learned. Now, "ahoj" (pronounced the same way) means hello in Slovak. So it was fun to hear everyone shouting it over and over. My Slovak friends would have felt right at home.

This evening we headed over to St. Joseph for mass. As part of our cross-cultural ministry training we had to attend a service at a type of church we had never been to before. The Catholic church seemed like my best bet because Slovakia is so culturally Catholic and I'd never been to a Catholic service in a language I could actually understand. It was strange and pretty sad to go from such a joyful church to one where the majority looked like they might rather be anywhere else on earth. Some parts of the service seemed so reverent and worshipful, but much of it appeared very empty. One of the saddest things in the world to me is to see this view of God that most Slovaks hold- that He is far away, that He is just part of a big, empty tradition, that He is irrelevant to their lives. Slovakia has some of the most beautiful churches that I have ever seen, and I pray that they will be filled again someday with people adoring Jesus with their whole hearts.

Potluck & Pies

I have the greatest roommates at Xtrack! Halle and Kristin and I decided last weekend we wanted to "have a few people over" to our apartment. So we planned a potluck and tried to come up with something that started with "P" for a cutesy name. We came up with "Potluck & Pies" although none of us had much experience making pies. We put it on the announcement board, and plans starting getting a little crazy. We realized that "Potluck & Pies" would need to be moved out to the courtyard and that we would need more pies. By potluck time, we had 8 pies ready. I'm not sure if I've ever made a pie before, but I've now made 5 in a 48 hour period. But it was such a fun time!

About 60 people at my last count- so fun!

Sydney asking Patrick, "Why?... Why?.... Why?"

Showing off a few of our pies

Key Lime, Lemon Meringue, Banoffee, and more

The aftermath

Olivia really just wanted to eat rocks.

I am so thankful for this time at Xtrack and for such fun fellowship. It's a weird feeling to be getting ready to move away from America, so it's incredibly encouraging to be here with 100ish people who "get me." And now I've got lots of new friends to visit all over the world!

Across the Lands

This summer my church is doing a children's program called "Across the Lands" to teach the kids about world missions. The kids will "visit" countries all over the world and learn more about other cultures and about how they can be praying for the world. It's pretty amazing how many people we have in our church who have lived in or are from different countries. The whole thing is so cute- the kids have passports and get stamps with the names of each country. And each week they'll get a bookmark with prayer requests for the country they visited that night.

So tonight I took about 30 5-7 year olds to Slovakia. So fun! It was so cute to hear them speak words in Slovak, and I was so impressed with the questions they asked. They were very concerned about how long it takes to get to Slovakia. I found a recipe online for medovniky- traditional Slovak honey cookies- and made icing for the kids to decorate the cookies. They loved it-

So how do the kids' cookies compare with the real thing?

I hope this summer is the beginning of lots of little Clemson Pres kids going to take the gospel to the world!

Welcome to Amerika

My parents have a student from the ministry in Slovakia on project with them in Gatlinburg this summer. I met Jakub a few times during the spring semester but really got to know him on the trip to Serbia last summer. Friday night I picked him up at the airport in Atlanta, and he spent the weekend here in Clemson before I took him to Gatlinburg. Aaron (my SK teammate) and Meredith spent the weekend here too, and we had so much fun showing Jakub around Clemson!
After he slept til noon the first day, we took him straight to Cracker Barrel. Aaron got him some sweet tea and macaroni and cheese- I don't think he'll be ordering any more sweet tea while he's here!


Before we left for Cracker Barrel he discovered the rocking chairs on my front porch. He also tapped on the vinyl siding and said, "It's not wood?" Haha- how do you explain vinyl siding?

After lunch we went to Wal-Mart to look at guns and get some "cosmetics." Also known as toiletries. We made him use the self-checkout and he said, "Wow- you don't have to talk to anyone."

Then we went on a tour of the greatest place on earth- Clemson, South Carolina. Complete with Death Valley and Howard's Rock and hanging out in the dugout at the baseball field.

Jakub was so amazed by the queen size bed in Kevin's room that we gave him the king size in Gatlinburg. I think this was the first thing he really wanted a picture of.

It was pretty interesting looking at America from a non-American's perspective. I also have a new understanding of how Slovaks see us when we are in their culture. And why they talk about so much us in Slovak so that we can't understand. It's a funny thing to learn a new culture.

One last Jakub story- we were standing in Corky's BBQ and looking into one of the side rooms. Jakub said, "A picture of Elvis, baseball on tv, and people stuffing their faces with fried chicken. I need a picture." Welcome to Amerika.