Excuses

There will be a new post soon, I promise. I have been rather busy lately and have not have time to work on the pictures that I want to put up yet. I will get there though, just be patient! :) Also, try taking a look at H2O News where there is a good discussion going on, and if you get a chance, put your own thoughts out there.

God Bless,

Rachel

Additions

Here are some pictures of the latest additions to our "farm".

Bella

Maria (the bigger one)

Lena

and Jack

They are Kinder (pronounced with a short "i", not long "i" sound) goats. A breed developed for both milk production and for meat use, Kinders are not big goats, but are high performers, or so our research says. Jack and Lena are Maria's babies. We are milking her a little, and they are still nursing. We plan to fatten Jack up for meat next winter, and raise Lena to be a mama. Bella decided to have her babies a little earlier than they were ready to come, and in the middle of wintriest night so far this year. Needless to say, they did not make it, but we will give her another chance latter this year (when it isn't so cold!).

Below is a picture of Oliver. He is now bigger than our beagle and almost too heavy to pick up. He is 10 weeks old this week and had no idea what to do with the snow at first. Now he loves it and has a lot of fun scattering it around with his ginormous paws.

Well that's all for now, I have cookies to bake and snow to go walking in (finally!).

God Bless

Progress on our house

We have a wonderful landlady who has not only allowed us to fix up (paint, new carpet, new trim, ceiling fans, etc.) the house that we are in, but has even gone so far as to buy the supplies herself and reimburse us for our time. We are so thankful for her and her generosity.
When we moved in every room in the house was painted with one coat of white paint. The walls, the trim, and even the ceiling had a thin layer of high gloss paint on them. We started by scrubbing everything down (thank-you to everyone who helped us!), and have since then been working on repainting one room at a time. Over the past several months it has been the front room and the laundry room. Here are some "before and after" pictures to compare.




Front room before.....





and after.....

before....

and after.

The next set is of the Laundry Room/Back Porch. As there was no outdoor storage for a while, we kept a lot in this room. Please forgive the mess!

A before picture

and after. The door frame is still a mess because it is not the right size, so in the spring it will be taken out and fixed. Meanwhile we will survive with it like this. :)

This is the door to the kitchen before..

and after.

And a window frame

now looking better.



One final picture of the clean new walls. I really like the green color that we got, not too bright, and not too pale, just a lovely green.

Christmas

Well Christmas is over. I hope it was a good one for all of you. We had a great time. We went to Colin's parents for Christmas Eve and had Aunt Susan's traditional gift game. It was lots of fun with lots of good food.
On Christmas day we got up and opened presents and then we packed the car and headed to Ohio. My mom's family all live up there and we stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa for several days. It was really nice to see everyone, and for Colin to get to meet some of our extended family. Here are some pictures form Christmas. Enjoy!



Our first Christmas tree!

Colin and his Christmas present, Oliver

Me with my present, a beautiful black dress coat.

Three of my siblings, Sn, Aj, & Ea, playing and singing for us.

My youngest brother, Al, displaying his present.

Oliver, after a long day. He is Anatolian Shepard, and is going to be very big.

He is only 5 1/2 weeks old in this picture.

Well that is all for now, I hope you all have had a great new year so far.

God Bless,

Rachel

Finally Back

Okay, I started this post with the intent of putting up some pictures from our life, but blogger won't let me do it right now so I will try again later. I would also like to see if anyone out there still reads this or not, before I spend a lot of time on it. So, leave a comment if you can, and I will go at it some other time, when things are working better.
Have a good and Blessed holiday season and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

R

Upstairs Update 0.1

I guess it's about time I posted something again, and what would be better than giving a little update on what's going on with the building here?

The above picture is a look at what Daniel and I have spent the past two days working on. You can see the beam above and the old "frame" below. That lower part had to come out so...

...We got out the tools and the electric hammers (like a hammer drill, but not a drill) and went to work. The above is sort of a view of the same opening, but without the lower part. It took us a while, the hardest part being the metal beams that were inside the concrete (which was the white part). They were close together making them hard to cut off, which was made even harder because we wanted the cuts to be [close to] flush with the wall. (Sorry for the dark picture, I'll try and lighten it when I get the time)

We ended up spending a lot of time on those beams (which were really just two "L"s welded together). Daniel worked with the small grinder and cut all the welds holding the two pieces together, and I worked at making the big cuts with the big grinder. I think we went through about four disks on the 4.5in grinder and three on the 7incher (which was due to the fact that the cutting was always had to be done in a difficult position, plus the disks were really flimsy). I was just glad that we only had to do cutting on one end of the beams; the other ends were lifted out/off of the wall.

The next thing that was on the list to do was to attach some rebar braces to the new I-beams. We drilled holes in the walls and then hammered rebar into them (which was my job). Then Daniel welded on some pieces that went from those anchor points up to the beam. The wall we were drilling in had all kinds of rocks in it, so it was great when we would find places where the drill would go in deeper than just 20cm. We didn't get both sides finished, but that's because we ran out of rebar (we had been using pieces we had pulled out of the previous "beam").

Then, after we had finished breaking up, cutting up, and welding together we had to "clean" up. This was done using only a shovel and was accomplished to a good degree of success. The section of wall that has the pile of rubble at its base will be further shortened/narrowed sometime in the next few days; that's why our "cleaning" didn't have to be so great.

The push for us to get this done in the past few days is because the "wall finishers" are supposed to start sometime soon, and we wanted to be ready for them (as best we could). There are still some things that have to be done, like making sure all the cables (of all kinds) are run and making sure that all the boxes/outlets are in the right places. Once the walls are finished, most of the "dirty" work will be done. We really don't know when this phase will be completed, but it should be finished in the next month or so, unless some problem comes up (which I don't think would surprise any of us if something did).

It feels good to finally pick up some tools and start working on what we started on three (3) years ago. It's nice to think that the main part of the building will once again be usable and functioning soon. Between then and now we just have to finish what we can and be glad when the next phase gets done. I'll try and remember to take more pictures when we work next time. I know you'll notice that I'm not in any of the pictures above, but that's due to the fact that, like I've said before, "it's kind of hard to take pictures of myself while I work"!

"What am I looking at?"

"Rouse yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude them all and look to Him. 'Look unto Me'..." O.C. Chambers

I don't usually quote other people's words here, but when I read the above I thought it wouldn't hurt to add it today. It touches on the very problem that I've got - I let the hundred and one things in my life distract me from looking unto God. It's a surprisingly easy thing to do - to allow my attention to wonder from the One that's leading and place it on those waves in life that seem like they are going to drown me at any time. "Look unto Me". And what about the hundred and one good things, the things that most people would think "couldn't harm a fly"? They can just as easily distract my attention from the One I should be looking to. "Look unto Me".

Čas beží *

It's already been a week since I last posted. Not a good way to start out my blogging year. I really wish that I did have something to post on a more regular basis, but I guess I'm prone to just looking over things and not seeing anything really worth writing about.
This (almost) past week has been just one of those ordinary weeks for me. I went to the school again on Tuesday and survived through the two classes (two of the easy ones).

Tomorrow I'm going again, although I may be switching my classes from Friday to another day. I rearranged my "office" the other day. It's not really my office, but I've claimed it since no one else was using it (and because I don't have my own room in the building anymore). It's kind of filled with all kinds of stuff: bookcases with books still in boxes on the shelves, odds and ends (old) computers/copiers/printers, a desk, a few chairs, plus the thing that everyone needs in an office: a server case (one of the big ones that looks like a refrigerator). I got rid of (meaning I just disassembled) the computer that I had been using for internet work. The 21in monitor was just a little over-kill on the desk so I returned it to the floor (where I got it from). I took the tower out from underneath the desk (so I wouldn't kick it to pieces) and put it back in the third office. I then rearranged the pile of stuff that was left over in order to create a little more space. Now the desk has legroom underneath and the top is cleared enough so two laptops can be placed on it at once. I'd take a picture of the "new" look, but the lens on my camera isn't wide enough to take in everything at once, i.e. you would get to see the chairs or the desk or the neatly piled stuff, but not everything at once........or maybe.....

* Time is running

Where are I.......?

It's been a long time since I've posted anything, but I'm going to try and make that up...somehow. Right now I'm a little handicapped in my typing (see below), which is one of the reasons why I haven't posted anything in the past few days. Another reason is that during the past few days I didn't really have any chance to connect to the internet, which, as you can guess, makes it kind of hard to get anything posted. So be happy because I'm posting now!

In my last post I mentioned a number of things that have come to pass. The snow that I bemoaned as not coming finally did get here. The bustle of Christmas has slowed way down, and the quickly arriving new year has finally come. I guess I'll have to kind of fill you in on what I've been doing since I last posted, so here goes...

The picture above probably doesn't seem like anything real great, but it is one of the pictures that I have that best describes what Christmas looked like. OK, so it's not really what Christmas looked like, but it is a picture that I took on my Christmas trip (while I was driving). I spent the Christmas weekend with the Baldis family (Short intro: They are Americans who are here as missionaries and have been here for fifteen years. I met them in the airport when I went home last time, and after getting back into contact, they invited me to spend Christmas with them). I had a good time there and enjoyed learning about their ministry here in Slovakia. It was definitely a different Christmas, but the differences are what made it good. I spent a number of days with them before I headed back to "my" part of Slovakia.

On Thursday of last week I went with a group (comprised mostly of young people from the churches in Trencin and Previdza) to Vienna, Austria for a day of sight-seeing in the city. It wasn't, in my estimation, the greatest time to go sight-seeing, but there was the slight "charm" of being there while everything was still in it's Christmas dress. A little snow would have helped make the cold a little more bearable, but we didn't get that until we were on our way back. Yup, that's right, it started snowing! By the next morning there were a couple inches on the ground, not as much as I had hoped for, but still something.

That was the day that I packed up again and headed off, along with a number of other people, to the chata (cottage) where the youth from NM would spend the New Years weekend. I was told by the people that went before me that I wouldn't make it up the hill to the chata (the van had to be pulled up by an SUV), but I decided to try anyway. To the surprise of everyone in the chata, I made it up without any problems, and with two other people, the trunk and a seat full of stuff to boot! I was then, because of my car's feat, sent back to the city to act as the taxi for the rest of the people who were waiting there. I went back and filled the car up again, but it was much "fuller" than it had been the first time. The car was loaded down with five people, the trunk and all usable laps full of stuff, plus a guitar (in a hard case) and a sled on the roof-rack. Needless to say, I was pretty doubtful that we would make it up the hill, especially since it had gotten colder and the snow was only getting slicker. We made it up the first hard part with just a little slipping, but the second and hardest part we didn't get anywhere on. I then, in progressive stages, had passengers get out and walk but still I had trouble. Then, after trying unsuccessfully to get up, I was backing back down the hill when my car decided it wanted to change directions (which was interesting because it was a slightly sunken one lane road with a nice sharp turn at the bottom). Thank the Lord! it was just what I needed: I simply put the car in reverse and backed up (which was also rather interesting because it was dark and my car doesn't have backup lights). Needless to say (again), there was a little rejoicing once the car got to the top!

The rest of the weekend was a lot of fun and we all got to spend time doing different things with each other. The first night (and following nights) we went sledding on the part of the hill behind the house. It was a great place, especially because it had a little sloping drop-off that ran the width of the hill giving us a little jump for some extra...excitement! On one of the first couple of runs, though, I decided to try and be the third person on a two person sled, and because there wasn't a place to sit, I just stood on the runners. Uh...not a good thing to do! As soon as we hit the lip of the drop-off I fell of the back and whacked my right hand on something (couldn't see what it was because it was dark[!]). We continued sledding for a while, but once we went inside I could tell that I had messed up the little finger on my right hand. It was all swollen and the first knuckle had turned dark in color, looking very much as if it were broken. I used a piece of wood and some electrical tape to make a splint for it, and just hoped that the swelling would go down. It didn't, but now I've decided that I for sure didn't break (as in two pieces) the bone, most likely I just got a stress fracture somewhere in the joint. It's doing a whole lot better now, the swelling having gone down, but the knuckle is still quite stiff so I'm going to leave the splint on for a good while longer.

I'm kind of sorry that I didn't take my camera with me, but I don't really know how I would have taken any pictures of all the excitement if I'd had it. Maybe I just need to get some kind of a helmet with a video camera in it..... Anyway, that was my New Years weekend, plus a couple of things thrown in to make some memories.

That's it! We're now back to the brown and green colors of our unusual winter, and back to the kinds of things that make up most usual days. And yes, I'm going to make it a goal to get some more pictures!

Before

I've been thinking that maybe I need to post something pre-Christmas just in case I forget to post something about/for Christmas. Right now everything is looking like Christmas here: shops with holiday displays; booths out on the square; the smell of hot, spiced wine (which doesn't really make me think of Christmas); the cold air. But there's still one thing that's missing: SNOW! I guess this year we'll be having a green/brown Christmas, even in the mountains. This is a really unusual winter so far, being warm and cold and still no snow (OK, so we did have a little bit on my birthday). I met a boy today who said he was going out to buy some new ski pants with his mom, but laughed when he said that he didn't know if he would get to use them this year. I guess we always have the chance of snow coming in January or February, but Christmas just doesn't seem right without a little of the white stuff. O well!

On a side note: I know some of you will probably be expecting me to post some pictures of Christmas here, but alas, I might not have a camera! I've got it advertised for sale right now, and I there's a guy who said he's really interested in buying everything I've got. This means that I might not have a camera to take any pictures with. Horror of horrors!!! But don't be frightened, I'm not giving up photography, just my old workhorse. (I added the above picture to give this post some "holiday warmth", but also to try and make up for the possible lack of Christmas pictures).

I guess this will be it for now, but if I don't get another post up before Monday......... Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year! (Or something along those lines)

Come and gone

Yes, I know. Once again I haven't gotten the "hot news" posted until after things have cooled down (or are cold).

I went to the school on Friday, prepared and not so prepared. I was pretty much ready and willing to face the sixth grade class, but I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with the eighth and ninth grade classes. The sixth grade class was first with an hour break after it, and then I headed back up to the remaining two classes. To make two hours of class time shorter than they actually were, I'll just say that, although both of these older classes were a little harder, I still survived. The ninth grade was the hardest, mainly because most of the students just listened and didn't try and speak, although they know the most out of all the students I had previously "conversed" with. My conversation was mainly with just a couple of the students, and all the rest seemed to be content with just listening. I knew that this was probably what I was going to be faced with, but still I was a little surprised. Yesterday I went for the last time this year, and everything went just as well as last Tuesday.

Speaking of yesterday... Most of you probably have guessed that I drive my car to Trencin when I go there. Yesterday was no exception, but I also took my bike. After I got done at the school I went to Jozef A.'s house for lunch and then went with him to the church to help move some shelving. I drove my car to the church and once I parked (in an illegal place!) I found out that my battery was completely dead; I had been running on the alternator. We, Jozef and I, pushed my car to a better parking place and then tried to think of why the battery would be dead. I couldn't figure it out since I had just bought a new battery, plus I had replaced some burnt cables that go out of the alternator. (There is a break in the time frame here because I went riding, but it picks up later in the afternoon) We push-started the car and I drove it back to Jozef's house. I spent the night there with the plan to go with him to a couple of shops in the morning to try and figure out either what the problem was or if I could just buy an alternator (and fix the problem by elimination [which is sometimes what has to be done with an old car]). This morning we went and were told by a mechanic (who said he wouldn't do any work on the car because he had piles of other work) that it wasn't the alternator (he checked it) but that the belt was too slack. This was kind of embarrassing for me because I hadn't thought about checking the belt. I had tightened it a few weeks ago (when the battery first started charging right [hmmm!]) but it was already so loose that the idler pulley could be turned without trouble. So... we went to the other shop and got a belt (which the guy gave us because it was "old") and then went back to the house. After changing into the work clothes that I had in my trunk (for such a time as this), I went out to do the first "real" work on my car. Actually, the whole job was pretty easy and didn't take me more than an hour to do (even in the cold!). OK, so that's not the whole truth. The belt that the guy gave us was the wrong one (it was for the first model year which had a generator) which meant that we had to go back and get the right one (which we had to pay for). In all, the work wasn't all that much work. The outcome is that my battery now charges and I'm not so worried about throwing the timing belt (because I looked at it while I had things apart and decided that it had probably been replaced already). How boring it would be to own a new (new) car!

Yea, OK, so that last paragraph was longer than the first (but it seemed like a better story!), and I still haven't mentioned the bike riding. I'll make that...

Up the hill and down the hill. That's where we rode our bikes. Sorry, I forgot to tell you that I went riding with Lukas T. (who is a boy from one of the families that belongs to the church in Trencin). First we went into the woods that are above Trencin and rode some really crazy-steep drops/rises (I don't really know what to call them). This was pretty exhilarating, but soon we headed down through the city and on to the next place he wanted to show me. Then to the next place... then the next. And then, because it was getting dark and cold(er), we headed back to where my car was parked at the church.

No pictures. I didn't have my camera with me for any of the excitement. (I'm going to have to get another small camera so I won't have to lug around my big one) It's a pretty lame excuse for me, someone who likes taking pictures, to not have any new pictures to go with this post, but O well...

Roof-rack: 1.0

I am happy to announce that I finally got my roof-rack finished. The paint that I applied dried smoother than I thought it would, and hopefully it will last under the treatment/abuse it will go through on the roof of my car. I also attached the bike mount and drove "home" (a couple miles away) and back again without any trouble. If the weather is still (unusually) warm next Tuesday, I'll be taking my bike with me to Trencin; this will be the real test.

I'll get some pictures of it sometime, but I'm not going to promise when that sometime will be!

Teacher/Lecturer

Last week I was asked by Jozef A. if I was interested in speaking in some classes in a school. I told him that I was willing to consider it, his reply being that he wanted me to go with him to talk to the principle at a primary school in Trencin (the same school which his sons attend). I went and we talked, the outcome being that I will be going to the school every Tuesday and Friday morning for the English classes held on those days. I would be given some topics to choose from and then I would speak from which ever I chose. In a sense, I was supposed to somehow hold a conversation with the whole class. I knew it wouldn't be very easy, but I was willing to give it a try.

Yesterday I went for the first time. The first class I had was one of the 7th grade classes, and turned out to go quite smoothly. I tried my best to get the students to talk back to me (since talking from both sides is what conversation is about) but without my having to push them to do it. Most of their teachers are already quite "pushy" and do a good job of ruining the fun of learning, so I wanted to try my best to make the class time I had with them a little more enjoyable. After this first class I had an hour break and then I would go on to the next class, which would be sixth graders. This class was a little more fun to teach, maybe having to do with the fact that I was a little warmed up, but also to do with the difference in ages (you could almost read that "egos").

Friday will probably be the hardest set of classes, being the other 7th grade class, plus the 8th and 9th grades. I can see already that my "teaching" style will have to change a little from class to class, but it is nice that I'm allowed to keep the same topic for each of the classes. The whole idea of "teaching" a class is kind of new for me, but then again learning is always part of teaching, right?

I'll be sure to post updates on the outcome of Friday, and in general keep you informed of how this new "job" goes.

Project: Roof-rack 0.3

On Thursday (or Wednesday, I can't remember) I finished up the welding on all the pieces of my roof-rack. I also helped build (I prepared and ground, Daniel welded) some stands/poles to hold up a sheet for our Christmas "shadow play". On Saturday I got some of the bare metal pieces primed.

Just this morning I got the first coat of paint on everything, the roof-rack and the stands/poles. Everything is now a nice shade of gloss black. It's something new for me, but I'm having to paint everything (metal) with a brush instead of the spray can I'm used to using. Needless to say, the finished products will also have a slightly textured look to them thanks to the brush strokes.

Hopefully in a short while I'll have everything bolted together and put on the car. When I test-fitted the runners on the car everything worked out better than I expected; hopefully nothing has changed (although I don't really know how it could). The next pictures will be with the rack on the car. This is like getting an early Christmas present!

Something more...on topic?

I can guess that a lot of you are sometimes wondering what I'm doing over here, especially when you read posts like the last couple that I put up. I know that they lack any report on what's happening here "spiritually"; that it may seem like I'm doing the same kinds of things that I would do if I were back in the States, but I've got a question. How many of us, whether here or anywhere, have something spiritual to "report" on every day? I don't mean to try and pass any blame, and I'm not trying to get myself "off the hook"; I really mean it as a serious question. I know that it would be nice if I could give a report every day on the spiritual progress here. It would be nice to have a story to share or better yet, have the opportunity to see someone's life change. There's just one problem: I'm not a reporter.

Reporting is something that I can do, and I will try and do, but only when the chance comes for me to see something. I'm not going to go digging for a story so I'll have something to put here on my blog every day. I don't see it as my job/duty to go out and take a slice out of someone else's life. This blog is about "a slice of my life", not someone else's.

I'm a witness; someone who gets cross examined and studied, someone who saw/sees something that those who are watching me didn't/haven't seen. It's my duty to tell them what I know and live my life in a way that won't misguide them. If anyone has the opportunity to be the reporter, it's these people. They see me as I am; they look for all my slip-ups and mistakes; they're the ones who could probably give the truest report on the spiritual condition here.

So what's the point of me writing here? Is it just to let you all know what I do on an everyday basis? Yes, and no. Things that stand out to me I'll most likely report on. Things that I might be doing every day I might report on sometimes. When I get the chance to see fruit coming from someone's life, then I think I should let it be known; both for the encouragement of this person and for the encouragement of everyone else. Fruit comes in its season; it's never planted one day with the expectation that it will pop up the next day, much less bear fruit. The speed at which fruit ripens differs from plant to plant, but for some reason the speed at which we sometimes expect it to come isn't taking this into account.


Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and see a small part of what I'm able to do here. Sometimes there seems to be a big gap between seasons, but I'm glad to have the chance to see and experience every season as it comes. In His time...right?

Project: Roof-rack 0.2

I just wanted to put up a quick update. Yesterday evening (in my "off" hours) I started working on the second runner (I'm not sure that they're called this, but that's what I'm going to call them!). At first things seemed to be going a lot faster than on Saturday, but then everything started falling apart. I had found some smaller welding rods and was using them thinking that they would be easier to use (since the metal I'm welding isn't very thick), but they ended up, in the end, working against me. They didn't seem to penetrate the metal as well as the bigger rods, meaning that after I had everything tacked together and started checking measurements, all my welds started coming undone. Yes, things went faster, but I had to keep doing them over again.

I finally figured out that the slightly larger rods worked better, even though they seemed too big for the thickness of metal I was working with. By the end of the night I kind of got the hang of stick welding again, and figured out what I had been doing wrong. MIG welding is different, and since that's the only kind of welding I've done for a long time, I pretty much forgot how much it differs from using a stick welder. Anyway, short story long, I got the second "runner" finished and looking better (to my eyes) than the first one. Now all I've got to do is make the mounting brackets for it, paint everything a nice shade of black, mount it all on the car, and take it for a spin!

Side note: A stick welder works great(!) for doing fill welds, but MIG will always rule when it comes to welding 11mm nuts onto anything (and that's a fact!).

Project: Roof-rack 0.1

This week, well actually Saturday, I started work on a roof-rack for my car. The main purpose of it will be to carry my bike, but that doesn't mean it can't be useful for hauling other stuff! It's taking me a little longer than I thought it would, but that's mainly to do with the fact that I'm using an ancient stick welder. Boy, it sure is easy to get spoiled using a MIG welder!

I fumbled around a lot with while trying to weld the small pieces, but after going through a number of welding rods and a process of weld/cut/grind I finally started getting something that I was halfway pleased with. Trying to measure rain-gutters on a car is always pretty hard and this time was no different. It's a good thing that the back of the car is a few millimeters narrower than the front. I tweaked everything out as much as I could and it just fit. Now I've got to do the one for the front, but I've got a kind of guide to run off of now.

The whole mounting part of the rack was the hardest to get right, but I think it will be worth it. After I went out and tried it out on the car, I noticed that the design works as a kind of anti-theft system. This will be great and will keep me from worrying about someone just walking off with my new rack.

Hopefully I'll get the rack done sometime soon. I've been invited to go riding in Trencin, which I'd like to do, but right now I don't have a way to get my bike there (without riding it). I'll make an update once I get the other part of the rack finished, and then, to top it off, I'll get some pictures of it on the car and in use (of course not while I'm driving!).

I've also been working on a few other things, just trying to get ready for when we start work in the building here. The largest part of this is moving things that will be in the way, and the biggest problem is finding a place to put the things. Here's where learning how to pack the bays in a Greyhound comes into practice!

This week (and it's lack of pictures)

Yea, I know. I haven't written in a while and I guess I don't really have any "good" excuse. Every day has pretty much been "normal" since the end of the conference. I did have the chance to go and see/listen to the Slovak Philharmonic which was neat, especially considering that some of the best musicians in Slovakia play in it. I didn't take any pictures; it wasn't allowed.

On Friday a small group of young people from the church here went to Berea to help out with things there. The girls ended up raking leaves (which covered somewhere around an acre of ground/yard) and the boys got to move rocks (with the help of some wheelbarrows). Here again, no pictures (I was there to work!)

I'm happy to report that my car is finally taken care of, title and license wise that is. I went by myself (because I had really no other choice) to take the title back to the owner so he could sign it over (which has to be done at the police station), and since he couldn't do it that evening I had to drive home without the title (which by law you're supposed to have in the car whenever it's driven). I got back just fine, but I decided I wasn't going back in my car without the papers. Lukas went with me the next evening to pick up the title, but for some reason (something happened in someone's communication somewhere) our effort was in vain since the title was not back yet. The next evening, which was Tuesday, we went yet again(after receiving a call) and successfully got the title. Yesterday Kocko and I drove (in my car) to Bratislava and got all the insurance/license/title stuff done. License bureaus seem to be the same way the world over: long lines; tired, waiting people; and unhappy, tired (grumpy) looking people behind the windows. I'm really glad this is all done because now I feel a lot better about driving the car (since, if I were to be stopped, I would have less to try and explain). And can you guess what? Yup, that's right, no pictures to go along with all this either!

Modra 06'

I know it's been quite a while since I last posted, but that's mainly because I've been gone all weekend. I was at the missions conference held once a year in a small town about an hours drive away (although for me it took a little longer). My car and I served as taxi this weekend and I am happy to say that my car did it's part just fine. I'm really happy I got new tires before we went (otherwise I wouldn't have gone) because the car now tracks strait and doesn't get the "swervies" anymore. Note: if your car starts acting like it's driving itself and fights with you on the highway (over 50mph), then I would suggest you have a look at the tires and make sure they aren't what's giving you the trouble. My car, when I took it to have the new tires put on, had tubes in the two rear tires. This is most likely because those tires had holes in them and the easy fix was just to put tubes in instead of replacing the whole tire. Although this works for tractors and other offroad machines, when you drive at highway speeds it makes for an interesting ride!

Ok, now back to the letter I started. First off I have to say that this conference seemed to go by really fast for me, and the only reason I can come up for this is because I could understand more of what was said than ever before. Sitting on hard benches/chairs (they're really like the two put together) all day can get boring/painful pretty fast, but this year it didn't seem to me to be so bad.

This year we had four speakers: one from Romania, one from Holland (who has come every year that I've attended), and two from our neighbor in the Czech Republic. The man from Romania had a lot of interesting things to say about the work in his country and I think everyone at the conference learned something from his reports. To me (the outsider) it made me realize the differences between Slovakia and Romania, even though they are only separated by a distance comparable to a drive from Missouri to Tennessee. Missions over here is quite a bit different from the way it is in the States. Here a new country is only a few hours drive away, unlike the states where you can drive for a whole day and never reach the border.

The other three speakers I am a little familiar with, and they spoke mainly about missions in general. They mentioned the work in their countries within the talks they gave, but they're main points all had to do with widening the view of the listeners. A lot of what is said at these conferences has to do with getting the people who are listening to see what they can do in their own country, while also seeing what's being done in others.

I would like to add, as a sort of ending, that this report is based solely on my view of the conference. This view of mine, I have come to see, is different than what the people here see (but not always), and I have to keep that in mind when we are listening to the same thing. Anyway, this is what has kept me busy this weekend.

And now...

...cold and slushy. It's been raining almost non stop since the other day when it quit snowing. I didn't know it had started to rain until I went to investigate what sounded like a very leaky (I was thinking broken) water pipe somewhere in the building. It ended up being water shooting down the gutter's downspout. So much for the snow! (It did make a nice birthday present) Now that everyone is made aware that we are into the winter months, it has begun to just be dreary outside. Wet and cold.

About the only new news (and about time) is that we FINALLY have the permit to work on the church building! Now we (myself and Daniel) are waiting to hear when we are finally going to go to work. I guess it will take a little time to get up to speed since it's been three (!) years since we got put on hold. It will be nice to finally get to see the benefits of what we started working on when I was here that first time. It sure is funny how slowly time can fly!