January 8

Ahoj!

We officially have our first day of ministry under our belts. After not knowing what to expect in the English classes, it feels a little more peaceful on this side of things. Today most of our teams taught the same class of 2nd-4th graders for about 3 hours. What an experience! The language barrier was a concern of mine, so it was good to see that many of the Czech children were enthusiastic about learning the language. It was exciting to see the kids connecting to us as well. We were hounded by our class for 'autographs' (because we are SO famous), and at one point in time Ben had about 8 kids fighting over him.

We walked from the school to the cafeteria which was about a 5-10 minute walk. (It's amazing how much they walk here and how much you can fall if you are wearing boots without traction!) The school fed us a meal of pork, potatoe dumplings and spinach. We had several afternoon hours free with which some went to a coffee shop, other planned for an event we are having tomorrow night and a group went shopping for our weekend meals.

This evening we split up into two groups. One group had a game night with younger students at the church and was able to do a skit for them. The group that I was in walked to a gym and played more active games with kids around Jr. High age. Several members of our team were able to give testimonies with them and the kids seemed attentitive; however, I think we are discovering that the language barrier is going to take more effort and thoughtfulness to overcome than we expected.

We had the later half of the night to have team devotions and spend some time just having a little fun. Tomorrow we were suppose to have a soccer tournament with several kids' homes from various Czech locations, but because of the snow it is cancelled. Although we will be having a night of worship and testimonies with several youth groups from the area tomorrow night !

Thanks for all of your prayers and support back home. It means a lot to all of us to know that you are lifting the Czech people and ourselves up before God. Some specific things you could be praying for right now are:

A boldness to put ourselves out there and not let the language barrier hinder ministry.
Soft and humble hearts: both for the Czech and our team.
Tomorrow's night of worhip and sharing.
For kids to truly connect with us during English classes so that they have a desire to come visit with us after school during youth group.
For health (against colds) and warm bodies.

Thanks so much for reading. If there are specific things you want to hear more about, leave us comments and we'll try to keep you as informed as possible. Updates will come about every day.


--Abby Haverdink for the Czech team