Malenovice is an extraordinary place. Well, the village itself is actually pretty average, even most Czechs would have a hard time finding it on a map. But it’s Hotel Malenovice that those of of us who spend time there simply call “Malenovice.” It’s not extraordinary in the sense that it’s odd, or in some way bizarre or weird, but in the sense that it’s remarkable, amazing. The view from the hotel is incredible and the sunset, which shines through all the main windows and into every room, is always stunning. The food is quite good, the rooms are average by American standards, and the staff is always pleasant. But what makes Malenovice the extraodinary place that it is has nothing to do with any of these things.

A handful of times a year, we make the hour and 15 minute drive to attend training events there. And every single time I’ve been there since we came to Slovakia 3.5 years ago I’ve met the Lord there in a new and amazing way. That is what is so extraordinary about Malenovice. Sometimes God uses the people to speak to me, oftentimes it’s the teaching; this fall it was the latter. With the theme of discipleship, we looked into Colossians 1 to find the resources to which we have access when Christ lives in us, the means by which we gain access to those resources, the fruit that results from Christ in us, and four “poisons” that will kill that fruit. It was all very basic stuff, but it had a huge impact on me.

I make ministry and discipleship so complicated. I analyze it. I feel like I’ve got to have things organized and perfect, both internally and externally, to be able to engage others and have an impact on anybody. Do I have all the right knowledge to meet a need? If not, honestely the chances are that the phone call doesn’t get made. The reality is that Christ is in me and the simple goal of discipleship is Christ in others, and in Christ alone are all the necessary resources. Amazing.

I’ve attached links to the mp3 files of the teaching time to the end of this post because it’s absolutely worth sharing. So listen to them online, or download them to your iPod; I promise it’s worth the time. The guy teaching, the director of Josiah Venture, is an amazingly gifted teacher. It’s great stuff. If you really get into it and want the Power Points, let me know…

(The top picture is a shot of all JV staff from 10 different countries, the second one is the Slovakia staff, both are minus many of the wives and all kids)

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

Session 5

So a while back we said that we’d give a few more details about what exactly lead to our decision to stay on through next spring, and we’re now making good on that promise! It’s really nothing earth shattering, but for us it was just a really cool thing that God answered some prayers in the way, and timing, that He did. This might seem like a random bunch of circumstances, but it all makes sense in the end, so bare with me while I paint a quick picture.

Amanda was ready to head back. In her mind and heart, she was on her way back to the States ASAP; but I wasn’t there with her, sharing the same opinion. Not that I was convinced that we needed to stay, but we were absolutely in different places in regards to the decision. So as August was winding down, we just wanted to hear God clearly and we knew that we had to hear Him clearly in order to be in agreement by the 1st of September, our self-imposed decision making date. So we waited.

In a lot of ways, we knew the decision would come down to whether or not I had a job/position that I felt fit me, that fit my giftings, and made sense in the grand scheme of the ministry here. And with the Kompas training center kicking off a lot of new things, it totally felt to me like any job I took would be killing time until things settled down a bit, something I wasn’t willing to do. The choices were a) fit into a role that I didn’t have a passion for or b) be a lone ranger in the job I’ve dreamed about for years. Niether were pleasant options.

So as August was coming to a close, I began catching back up with a Slovak friend of mine, Andrej, who spent the summer in the States. We began talking about what it would look like if he came back and worked at Kompas to help me think through and dream about a new training center. It was totally out of the blue. We’ve worked together on various things since even before we arrived in SK years ago but had, for whatever reason, never really talked about working towards anything together at Kompas. With those conversations, God began renewing dreams that had in a lot of ways been pushed to the side.

At the same time, Mel (a guy who we often go to with life questions… the master at bringing clarity to almost any hopelessly confusing situation) was really pushing me to do a lot of what I knew I needed to do, but didn’t have the emotional strength to think about… to not take a job that didn’t fit my giftings, to not just kill time while Kompas settled down, to not go home if that was simply the default option, etc.

So a couple days before the end of August, Amanda and I just talked through the option, one more time, of staying, working with Andrej, going back for the baby, and moving back next summer, and it absolutely brought us peace. God simply answered our prayers. We were in complete agreement about it, Amanda was really, actually, excited about it, and I have a great friend I can work with for the coming months on a project I’m really passionate about. Andrej is now offically a part of the Josiah Venture team and is in the process of raising support. Together with the rest of the Kompas team, we’re working towards figuring out what it would take to relocate the training center to a place that better fits our needs

We have started asking Jackson this question, and without us ever telling him anything, he started patting (well, hitting, until we showed him how to be ‘gentle’) my tummy!  We were so amazed, wondering how in the world he could grasp that idea (he can point out babies in books).  But then today, I asked him again ‘Where is the baby?’, and he started patting his own tummy!  So we think now that he thinks that the ‘baby’ is just another part of the body, and it’s located on (or around) the tummy.  He knows and can point out most of the rest of his body parts, so now our child most likely thinks that everyone has a ‘baby’ on their tummy.  Ha ha!

It’s hard to believe that Jackson is already 18 months old (officially on Sept 19). He continues to fill our days with laughter and smiles, but is still definitely a challenge at times. He likes things in very particular ways, and gets pretty upset when things aren’t done exactly how he wants them (or when he wants them). So we’ve been navigating those waters of parenthood, but feel that we are finally starting to make progress in a number of areas!

His favorite ‘toy’ for a couple months now has been clothespins. He will play with them for amazing amounts of time, attaching them to things (his fingers included!), pulling them back off, etc. He also had a great time collecting acorns in the woods the other day, and has fun with his new collection. Forget any expensive toys, this kid just needs clothespins and acorns! He also continues to be our fearless daredevil, throwing himself off couches and climbing as high as he possibly can. We are amazed (and very thankful) that we haven’t had any major casualties up to this point.

He still isn’t saying anything, but he certainly understands everything that we say to him. He knows all of his animals, and can always go and get the correct one from his farm (as well as going to fetch his shoes, pants, etc). He babbles a lot in his own language, but just refuses to say anything! We are convinced that it will be like his sign language… for months and months we were teaching him signs, and were almost to the point of giving up. But then all in the span of one day he did every sign that we had ever taught him! So we’re thinking that one day he’ll just blurt out an entire sentence, and shock us all. He definitely has the personality where things have to be ‘just right’.

But we are treasuring these last few months with him before the baby comes, as we know that a lot will change at that point. He likes to pat my tummy, and can point out a baby in a book, but still has no idea what is about to happen.

Lots more pictures of him from this month in the images section, so check them out!

Here I am 25 weeks pregnant. Sometimes I wonder how big I could possibly be 15 weeks from now!

The weather here has been unbeliveable, not at all like typical Slovakia September weather. We’ve been in the low to mid 70s every day, and it’s not changing anytime soon. Usually it’s getting pretty chilly by now. I’m thankful for the warmer weather though, cause most of my maternity clothes are short sleeved!

Ok, we are making our official announcement that we are having a little girl! We actually were pretty sure of the sex at our last doctor visit, but after our visit yesterday we feel confident in sharing our fun news. She was in quite an agreeable position to determine that yes, she is definitely a girl! We are going to keep the name to ourselves again, as we did with Jackson (although we are nowhere near picking one out anyway), so you can ask, but we won’t tell! I can’t believe how big I’m getting - I’ll post a picture later this week, as Gavin is gone at a conference until Saturday.

So I’m especially excited… I had really wanted a girl, but was trying to prepare myself that I would be the mother of all boys, as so many of my friends (especially here in Sk) are. And Gavin and I both have same-sex siblings, so to think of having a family with both a boy and a girl is pretty foreign to us. So, time to look for little girl clothes!

This is a pretty random post, but we both got bikes for the first time since, I think, junior high, so we were pretty excited to get out on them over the weekend and make use of what’s left of the summer. Jackson likes them and, as you can see, can reach my backside when riding… makes for some interesting riding, especially when there’s something of interest in my back pocket. In this pic, he’s actually “asking” for more crackers.

We plan on returning to the US this winter for our furlough and to have the baby. Our return date is November 7th, and we will be there until we can get a passport for the baby (probably late-Jan, early-Feb, depending on the date of birth).

While we are in the US we have some pretty significant needs, so we would like to ask for your prayers and help, if possible, in getting these worked out. Our 2 biggest needs are:

• Housing. We would really love to be able to live in a furnished place, possibly a basement apartment or something similar, preferably in the Roswell/Alpharetta area (GA). If you know of someone who you think would be willing to rent us something for about 3 months (Nov through Jan), please let us know!

• Vehicle. We are not against buying a car, as we will be moving back next summer, but if possible, we would like to save on that expense for now. So if you again know of someone who has an extra vehicle that we could drive for those months (we would provide our own insurance), please let us know.

We will also need to borrow a few baby items as we did last time with Jackson, as all of our things will be staying here in Sk. We still need to come up with a definite list, but we know for now that these items would include a pack and play (preferably with a bassinet and changing table attached), infant bouncy seat, and a bathtub.

If you think you would be able to help out in any way, please let us know. Thanks.

After literally months of agonizing over what our future will hold, with only 2 days left for us to make our decision, God made the answer completely clear for both of us. For a while now we have both been leaning strongly towards moving back to the US, always saying that we were leaving things open for God to do something big to change that decision, with our deadline being the end of August. But around here August is a pretty low-key month… people go on vacation and pretty much just wind down from the busy summer, so not much happens ministry-wise or decision-wise. We were asked to give it a few more months to make our decision, as the chances were slim to none that anything would happen in August to make our decision clear for us. But still, we both personally felt like August was our deadline.

So over the last week some things have unfolded that have made it totally obvious that we are to stay in Slovakia for the next 8 months, helping to get this facility and camping program started. We can’t wait to share all the details with you about how this came about, but as of right now some things are still in the works, and we don’t feel the freedom to share publicly yet. Hopefully we will be able to do that soon, in the next week or so.

So, our decision is as follows: we will stay here in Slovakia until most likely June 2007, continuing with our plans to come to the US this winter for a furlough and to have the baby. Gavin meanwhile is pursuing plans to go back to school next fall. So in June we would move back to the US, have a couple months of debrief and re-entry before settling in wherever he will attend school. He plans to go ahead now and apply for schools so that we can visit during our home furlough this winter, and so that we know where we will be moving to next summer.This will give us time here to really work hard towards this facility over the next few months and to leave next June knowing that we gave things here a chance. We really feel that we would be able to leave here on an extremely positive note, whereas leaving this fall we would be leaving with some disappointment in the way everything turned out.

This decision does put us in a lot of transition over the next year, as we really feel we need to move from our apartment here before we come to the States in Nov, as it is just a one-bedroom with no closeable doors, and would be an extremely tough place to be with 2 kids. And the fact that we have to climb 50 stairs just to get to our door (already a tall task with just Jackson!). We have one back-up option for a place to live, but we are going to keep our eye out for anything that is available that has at least 2 bedrooms, and preferably a yard or place for Jackson to play outside. We also need to reapply for our residence visas, as they expire in February. We will need to do this before we leave in November (current plane tickets reserved for Nov 7).

So, a lot has happened in the last few days, but we both feel completely confident that this is the right decision and plan for us. We will both be very sad to leave Josiah Venture come next summer, but we really feel that this is what the Lord has for us, and we have been given a chance to really finish strong here over the next 8 months. I think the most suprising thing for both of us was how quickly I, personally, felt good about this decision. I had been feeling very strongly that it was time for us to head back, much stronger than Gavin, and I really felt it would take a miracle to really change my mind and give me a peace about staying. But within just a few hours of Gavin sharing his excitement of these plans that are in the works, and a potential plan for the next year, I was no longer thinking along the lines of ‘do I really feel willing to stay for another 8 months’, but my thinking had already shifted to ‘what needs to happen since we are going to stay here through June’. Never in a million years would I have imagined that my mind would be changed so quickly, and I would feel so good about the decision!

So after months of indecision, heavy burdens and a foggy future, we are able to step into this next phase with certainty, clarity, and a genuine excitement for what God is going to do here not only in the next 8 months, but long after we leave. We cannot thank you enough for your prayers and your encouragement to us through all this. We love you!