Looking Ahead to Next Year

When we first applied for our mission teaching positions, we knew the commitment was for one year, with a possibility of continuing for an additional year or more.  In February, we received an official email from the Global Missions office in Chicago informing us that our school would like to invite us to stay and teach next year.  We had discussed the possibility with Paul, Alana, Beth and Lute when they were here over Christmas.  After much conversation, consideration, and prayer, we have decided to return for another year of teaching in Liptovsky Mikuláš.  We really feel that our call to serve here has remained strong.  God has blessed us in so many ways through the people here – our colleagues, friends, and students are really wonderful - and we pray that we have been, and will continue to be, used in God’s service here in Slovakia. 

To be honest, we have enjoyed our experiences greatly, but the learning curve at school has been steep.  There was so much to discover about how things work here, processes, expectations, routines, and many other differences in the basic way they ‘do school’ here!  We now understand how difficult it must be for our Slovak colleagues to ‘break in’ new American lectors at first, and we feel that our productivity and effectiveness will be greatly improved during a second school year.  We realize how much of an investment people at school make in terms of time, energy, and money for us to be issued work visas and to learn the ropes.  They have done everything so graciously, and we have been made to feel incredibly appreciated.  Of course, we certainly aren’t experts at this point – we are still learning many things as the school year progresses and new experiences are encoutered – but next year should hold far fewer surprises! 

So, in some ways, this was an easy decision, since everything here has been so positive, meaningful, exciting and new, but in other ways it was very difficult to know we will be missing out on so much back home for another year.  The bottom line is, we feel that God is calling us to this mission for now, and we know that in His loving care, all will be well both here and at home.  Our lives are in God’s hands at all times and in all places, at home and abroad, and we are incredibly thankful!!  Please continue to keep our mission in your prayers, that we may be used for God’s work here in Slovakia.  The love, support, and prayers from home mean so much to us.  THANK YOU!!  

We have made arrangements to fly home for a very short trip over Memorial Day weekend to share in Beth's graduation ceremonies as she receives her P.A. degree from Des Moines University.  Our school continues here through the end of June, and after that, we will do some traveling for a couple weeks before flying back to Iowa for the summer, on July 24.  The school year begins again the first week of September, so we'll pack as much as possible into our time at home, spending time with family and friends!  Then, we hope to be in the U.S.A. for Christmas next year as well.  So, that's the plan anyway, just so everyone knows.   :-)  

And now for the update on recent days in our life in Slovakia --- in pictures!   

Sunday afternoon, Marian (Tim's student) and Susan invited us to their flat.  They are such a delightful couple, and we enjoyed several hours of conversation and delicious bruschetta and wine, and pudding/dessert and tea.  Their flat in Podbreziny has beautiful views of the mountains and surrounding area.  

50th birthday parties are a big deal here, and Elenka, one of our colleagues (in the red shirt, black & white scarf in the middle of the group) brought a huge spread of food to celebrate her 'big 5-0' at school.  This is some of the group who gathered to wish her all the best in the coming year!  We started singing "Happy Birthday", and everyone in the room joined in!  

The food table for Elenka's party - like she said, she brought some of everything - sweet, salty, and neutral flavors - and it was all scrumptious!!    

This is kind of random, but interesting.  In the winter time, even if the snow doesn't get shoveled off the sidewalks, fine black gravel gets spread on it, helping greatly with traction for walkers.  (It reminds us of stamp sand in the U.P.!)  Well, now that the snow has melted, there is gravel all over the sidewalks, of course.  So the past few mornings, workers have been sweeping it off into the streets systematically.  And today, trucks came around and swept up/picked up all the rock, presumably to be reused next year.  It's a good system, and our boots don't get those ugly white salt stains like at home!  

More random things about school......  the doors are always locked on all the rooms: workrooms, offices, chapel, computer labs, meeting rooms, auditorium, etc.  So the keys are kept on boards in a secretary's office and in the teacher cloak room for teachers to use when necessary.  (We each have our own key to our workroom as well as to the copier/mailbox/class-book room.

The top half of these shelves are our individual teacher mailboxes, where we receive letters sent to the school.  The bottom half holds all of the official Class Books.  These are really important!!  There is one for each class section of students - remember, the students all stay together in their room for all their years at the school and have all their classes together as one group (or divided in half for science labs and for our conversation classes.)

This is one of the class books.  We have one class each in the 8-year program, two classes each in the 5-year program (except only one class of V's), and now we are beginning a new business-oriented 4-year program with one class.  That makes 17 class books, and each class has somewhere around 25 students.  

The front portion of each book is a daily attendance register.  The name of each student who is absent for a day, or for a class, is recorded by hand, with the marks in the grid for each class period, and a column for each teacher to sign off on each period, whether or not any students were absent in your class.
Every class, every day!  

The back half of the class book has pages for each particular subject being taught.  Each teacher is responsible for writing down the topics covered, activities, or what was done in each class period, then signing at the right.
Every class period.  Every day!!   :-)  
Usually, teachers try to pick up the class book before going into their class every period, but sometimes we end up catching up on filling out class books at the end of the day.  

Janka Posorová teaches science (and also bakes delicious treats), and she is Slovakia's answer to "Mr. Wizard" --- she came over and showed us some science tricks that are really cool.  Speaking minimal English, (mostly charades) she asked us to balance 6 nails on top of the one nail which was nailed into the board.  She then showed us how to do it!  Very cool!!  

Next in her "bag of science tricks", Janka pulled out a plastic pop bottle filled  with dry grains of rice.  She put a long skewer stick in, and it slipped right in and out easily.  But then when she stuck in a thicker chopstick and tried to pull it out, the whole bottle came up with it like the chopstick was glued in it.  The pressure on the greater surface area of the thick chopstick was enough to hold up the weight of the bottle and rice.
Also very cool!     :-)  

Well, that's it for today.  God bless!!  :-)