There is no one like our God

Back last February when we were making our decision on whether or not to return to Slovakia for another year of teaching, the lyrics to this Chris Tomlin song kept rolling through my brain.  It's the song that Tim and I sang with the students at the opening of the school ball last January, and even at that time it sounded prophetic for us.  And now, as we begin our second year of teaching at EGJT here in Liptovsky Mikuláš, I hear the song in my mind often again.  Any time we've started a new teaching job, the second year has been infinitely more productive after learning lots the first year, and we hope that will happen again here.  Also, we feel very called to our new responsibilities as 'lead teachers / coordinating teachers' for the Central Europe program, and we pray that we can make a difference for the new American teachers as well.  

God of this City
You're the God of this City 
You're the King of these people 
You're the Lord of this nation 
You are 

You're the Light in this darkness 
You're the Hope to the hopeless 
You're the Peace to the restless 
You are 

There is no one like our God 
There is no one like our God 

For greater things have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done in this City 
Greater thing have yet to come 
And greater things are still to be done in this City 

(If you don't know this song, here is a link to it on YouTube - awesome song!!)

Chris Tomlin: "God of This City"

Thursday was a school holiday, so we hopped on an early train to Košice to visit Jacob, one of the new American teachers, who is the only one of the new group placed there.  It was great to see his smiling face in the train station when we arrived!  

With Jacob in front of St. Elizabeth's cathedral - the biggest gothic structure in Slovakia.  He hadn't been inside yet, so we took a peek in it as well as another big, beautiful church on the square in Košice.  

A neat scene on our walk around town - the little kid on the bicycle has a red balloon!  

We walked around his beautiful city a little, then stopped for tea and breakfast.  Then we headed to Jacob's flat on the Lutheran school grounds, and we spent a long time talking about school stuff.  He hasn't received much concrete information or direction yet, so we brainstormed some ideas for starting the school year, and I put a bunch of documents on his computer that I'd brought along on a flash drive.  It was very productive!  We went out to a late lunch after that and had a terrific time just spending time with Jacob!   

The sign on Jacob's school is in both Slovak AND English   -    Nice!!!   :-)  

This picture is especially taken for Lute, our Ultimate player!!    Jacob has been there only a week, and he's already playing for a team entered in the qualifying tournament for the Slovak Nationals!  His team is Ke Fear, which is a play on words for an arabic sour milk drink called 'kefir'.  (Full of probiotics I guess!)     GO JACOB!!!   :-) ≈

Jacob had an Ultimate practice at 5:30, so we got back on the train and headed west again.  We rode on our first FREE WIFI train!!  O.K., the connection was pretty spotty, but at times we could actually check emails on the way home!!  LOL!!  

Friday was another busy day at school, but there's still a lot left to do with the year plans.  We won't be teaching any classes until Wednesday, so we'll be ready to go by then!  (Monday will just be church for the students, and Tuesday they'll be with their class teachers all day.)  We had another nice lunch out with our 'Slovak daughters', Janka and Katarina too.  :-)   Friday night was mostly just skyping with family at home, which was awesome getting caught up on news from Iowa!  

Saturday was another morning train trip, this time to visit Matt, another new teacher alone in his new school in Martin.  This school has been an elementary / middle school for 10 years, but this will be the opening of the secondary school, with only one first-year class of about 50 students.  Matt was waiting at the station when we pulled in, and it was so fun spending the day with him exploring his beautiful city!!  We had tea / coffee / blueberry muffins in a really nice, modern coffee shop, which Matt says caters to the 200 or so Norwegian students at the medical university in Martin.  

Matt has a juicer back home and had found one already here, so we went along with him to purchase it as well as visit the local farmers' market for some fresh fruits and veggies!  

Tim and Matt in front of the beautiful Lutheran church in the school complex area.

Peeking in through the back doors of the church.   So pretty!!  

Matt said as he entered the church his first Sunday for worship, a woman greeted him by saying, "Wait right here!"  (Not even "good morning!" - just wait!)  Evidently he had "NEW AMERICAN LECTOR" written all over him - HA!  And he had an interpreter of his own, since he was the only English speaker that day.  But otherwise, they use headsets for the English speakers, and an interpreter speaks to them all!   Sweet!

This sculpture commemorates a significant treaty signed by the Hungarian rulers and the Catholics and Lutherans, back in the 1800's, allowing some new religious freedoms.  The treaty was signed right there on the church grounds in Martin, and it was a big deal!  

 After the short walk down the square to his apartment in the school/church complex, we got to work on school stuff, just like with Jacob.  There are always so many questions and uncertainties, so it helped to talk about what Matt's schedule, classes and duties will be.  Matt is a community college music teacher on sabbatical, and he gets to teach some music classes - cool!!  My trusty flash drive was handy again to download materials which might be helpful.  Later, we went out for lunch, then on an exploratory trip to find Kaufland (like a small version of Wal-Mart, but with a bigger variety of stuff than where Matt had been shopping before.)  We figured out the local buses with the help of some other bus riders, and it all went smoothly.  

Matt has a really new, nice apartment with lots of skylights.  We really liked it!!  (It's right next to the bell tower of the church, so he hears them pealing every 15 minutes ---
24 hours a day!!)  

Well, just like Jacob did, Matt had other commitments later in the day, so we headed back to the train station when Matt went to a band rehearsal for church tomorrow.  It's so cool that both of these guys are already getting connected with locals in the community in such a short time.  They will both do great in getting adjusted and as awesome American lectors in their schools.  And we really enjoyed getting to hang out with each of them for a day and get to know them better - they are both neat people who will be a blessing to their new students in Slovakia this year!!

As we were leaving Matt's, the church bells were pealing, and this beautiful bride was preparing to walk down the aisle.  It was fun to walk by and take in the last moments before the wedding.   :-)  

This made us chuckle, because it reminded us of a similar sign in Taiwan that also had a typo for the word 'fire'.  Here it's 'fir', and in Taiwan it was 'flire' --- a little dejá vu moment!  

This was the sunset over the mountains as seen from our flat window on Saturday night!  

This morning we were delighted to see Ján at church - he's back from Africa, so he came up to the balcony and translated for us during the service, which was great!  He and a group of young people, including some of our students, also sang a couple of familiar American contemporary Christian songs with guitar during the service - in Slovak though!  After church we stayed for the Holy Communion service that occurs once a month or so.  Ján helped us out by showing us where the liturgy was in our hymnbooks, so we were able to better follow along this time.  

We had planned to take the bus to Vychodna today after church for Sunday dinner and an afternoon with Katarina's family, but she called early and told us her mother wasn't feeling well, so we'll do it another time.  So instead, we listened to a sermon online over hot chai tea, then had soup and dinner here, Slovak style.  :-)  It will be nice to rest and relax before our school year starts tomorrow.  We are looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us this year, and we are eager to begin year #2 of our Slovakia Service Stories!!