Bird-Watching and Baby Lambs

Last Friday night (a week ago now) Tim went to play basketball and I was at home doing emails, laundry, and Skype calls.  Then last Saturday, we did a little shopping and housework in the morning before meeting our colleague and friend, Peter, to go with him on a bird-watching hike.  He is an amateur ornithologist, so we enjoyed learning from him along the way!  

One item purchased Saturday morning was this bouquet of daffodil buds, which Tim gave me for International Women's Day!   They of course reminded us of dear friend Nancy Linden, who always brought a bouquet just like this to us each March in Ankeny!  And I also have to point out the lovely vase from Holland that was given to us by Kendra Meyer when she visited in January.  The little windmill even turns around.     :-)

We bought a couple of Horalky bars on sale to munch on while we walked to meet Peter.  There are many varieties of this type of snack bars here, but this particular kind just might be the best!  

At the top of the hill behind the railroad tracks, looking towards the High Tatras in the distance, ready to commence our bird-watching hike with Peter. 

Peter came well-equipped, complete with binoculars for observing flying birds and a telescoped for checking out birds sitting in trees.  

We saw over a dozen deer too, and I experimented with taking a photo through the telescope lens.  Of course I missed getting a shot of the four deer that bounded right past us, much closer than these!!   LOL!!  

We had a good view of Liptovská Mara from the top of the hill.  

And this was the view of the village of Bobrovec, where we were heading on Sunday.  

As usual, I scouted around for a hiking stick when we went through some woods.    It was such a fun afternoon observing the critters out on the hillsides with Peter!!   It has been a long time since we've had such beautiful, clear blue skies over the mountains!

Saturday evening we did a LOT of skyping with family back in the U.S.A., which was awesome as always.  Have we mentioned before how thankful we are that technology can keep is in touch with our family and friends??    :-)  

Sunday morning at church there was a 'first' for us --- communion DURING the church service instead of during a second service after regular church.  There are no ushers, and there is certainly no order to the process.  Everyone just comes up whenever they want to, they crowd around behind those communing, and then there's a traffic jam until people get in and out from the railing area between each group.  It's quite an experience!  

After church, we hurried home, changed clothes, and caught a bus to Východná for Sunday lunch with Katarina Joy and her family.  The view of Kriváň out the bus window was spectacular.  

There were new baby lambs out in the barn behind Katarina's house --- they were so cute looking at us.  And their cute little tails were just quivering as they suckled.  

The whole family of "J"s - Juraj Sr., Juraj Jr., Jana, and Katarina Joy!  We had an amazing lunch (I hate to even call it 'lunch' when it was a huge and delicious meal!!)  

Since it was International Women's Day on Saturday, Juraj presented me with this beautiful snow drop bouquet.    :-)    We always have so much fun with this beautiful family!  

Sure signs of spring on the kitchen table  - snow drops and daffodils!!  

Peter placed this small bird-seed packet outside the window in our office, and we've had many hungry visitors.

Sometimes they even announce their presence by singing to us.  The birds are blue tits.  Because of the sunlight angle, the photos don't show their true beauty.  They are yellow with a blue 'cap' and wings. Their song is a warbler-type sound which is very melodious.  

Here is a link to some better pictures that show what our little bird visitors look like.  Thank you Wikipedia!  :-)     
Click here to see :      Eurasian Blue Tit

And finally, here is a picture I took from my office window after school one day.  Tim has a 1/2-hour lesson each week with a 5-year-old nephew of one of our colleagues.  Little Miško is an absolute doll, with so much enthusiasm and eagerness to learn English.  He is always so excited to see Tim and greet him in English!!  Well, this particular afternoon it was really warm and sunny, so Tim took Miško outside for a walk during part of their lesson, identifying objects they saw.  It makes me smile to see them together, and it reminds me of seeing our dear Ankeny neighbor, Curran, outside across the street! 

This Thursday morning we led morning devotions for students for the second time.  The school is trying a new 'delivery system' for morning devos to try to generate more enthusiasm,  Thursdays will now be an English option.  It was really a nice opportunity for us to connect with students who chose to come, and it was great to focus together on God to start the day.  I played guitar and taught them an easy praise song too.  We do pray with our classes during the first and last periods of each day, but this was a little longer time to share our faith journey with our students.  

Then Friday night, we were invited to a church youth group meeting.  It was held at a building which the church owns in Vrbica (the neighborhood of town where the basketball gym is located), and they hold these meetings a couple times a month from what we gather.  Some of our volleyball friends serve as adult leaders, and they had asked a while back if we would come and speak to the kids 'about God' sometime.  That's a pretty broad topic assignment - LOL -  but we did some planning to prepare something for our translator, so she'd have some written material to look at ahead of time.  The students are from several different high schools, others come home from college on the weekends, and some other young adults help with the music, so there are varied levels of English, hence the need for a translator.  

After school we had gotten our bikes out for the first time since autumn, so we took them to the bike shop to have the tires filled.  We had a nice visit with Ján, the shop owner, then headed to Vrbica to see if we could locate the church youth building in the daylight, ahead of trying to find it later!  It was another warm, sunny day, so we really enjoyed being outside and bike-riding again.  

After supper, we took a bus to the meeting around 7:30.  Everyone was gathering, and it was such a blessing to see the group members greeting one other, hugging and welcoming each person into the room with exuberance and joy.  It was evident from the first moments that this fellowship of believers is vibrant, supportive, and strong.  We all sang several praise songs with a guitar, box drum, and ukulele.  Then there was a Bible teaching session, discussing a passage that everyone was assigned to read ahead of time.  Then there was another song, and we were next.  We hope that the things we said resonated with the kids, and that God uses our words in some positive way in their lives.  After that, everyone moved into smaller groups of 5-7 people, the lights were dimmed, and there was quiet prayer time, with each person praying out loud around the circle.  That was quite a blessing too, knowing that these students were praying with adult mentors, sharing their prayer requests, lifting one another up in prayer, and learning the value of prayer in this setting.  The rest of the evening was a social time, with fun, food, games, conversation, etc.  We were told they sometimes stay until 1:30 a.m. or later, but we were 'party poppers' and got home by about 10:30.   :-)  

The other end of the room during the time of singing praise songs.  There were songbooks with lyrics only, and of course all in Slovak, so it was a little tough for us.  But some songs were familiar which helped.  There were about 20-25 students there, and another 8-10 adults and young adults there helping out.  What a super fellowship!!  

We are thrilled that we have been able to meet with young people here in a couple of new venues and situations where we can share fellowship time, study God's word, and praise Him in music.  And that wraps up another week in the life of your friendly neighborhood American lectors here in Liptovský Mikuláš.