festival united

you may remember how a few years ago i was able to go to a hillsong united concert while i was interning in czech for the summer (or you could read about it here)...this week i returned to the same town for a christian music festival and got to experience all the delights of sharing a room with 20 giggling girls and 4 showers with about 200 girls. oh, and the music.

matous on the main stage at the festival

i wrote in that post from four years ago about how cool it would be for czechs to experience HUGE communal worship in a language they understood, and last week i got to take part in that.

there were maybe 1500 people there altogether. i didn't understand much of anything (speakers/worship/concerts), but it was really good because that meant that leaders in czech had stepped up to lead the seminars and concerts.

plus i got to spend time with some pretty cool girls from the pardubice youth group AND see friends from every single other youth group i've worked with! it was a good time of reconnecting and seeing czech leadership.

Pardubice girls: me, Terka, Tessa, Jana, Petra, Johanka

one highlight is that i got to hear "God of this City" performed by Bluetree. this song has been a kind of theme song for Czech. so hearing a bunch of czech people in czech republic singing this song was really sweet.

i also got to experience several other really cool bands in Czech and Slovak. so great seeing how in the past couple years czech christians can now experience new worship songs that weren't just translated from english. (some cool bands: eSPe (this song we sang a lot), BCC Worship)

my friend, matous from pardubice is a rapper. he and his best friend radek were there too, rapping for Jesus in Czech. it's even better to see how czech christian worship has reached so close to home.

matous and radek tearing up the stage

even though i didn't know what was going on most of the time, i was so glad to be part of the festival.

quick thought

this evening i had one of those what-the-crap-was-i-thinking moments - about my decision to be here for a whole year.

sometimes this is absolutely where i want to be or i'm filled with knowing that this is where God has told me to be - without a doubt.

but then it's hard knowing you can't have a hug from your parents when you really want one.  and not just for a week or so, but for a whole year.

but there are worse things in life. just needed a quick "pity me"/sob story moment.

thankful

so thankful for this family...

Babicka, who in this picture had just finished making us fruit dumplings

Dusan, Dana, & Abi

Petr & Dana

Tessa & Zuzka at the cottage

Honza & Babi

when we arrived at the prague airport, we were greeted with big hugs from dana & petr. it's been a month, and they haven't stopped greeting us with hugs and providing for us in huge ways. we can't ever thank them enough. their children, dana jr (& dusan) and petr jr (& martina), dana's sister Aja and her son Honza (& zuzka), and dana's mom Babicka (czech for grandma) have done the same. i'm so grateful for how they've taken us in as family.

and that's not to mention how friends at church have helped us. they've given us furniture and food, helped us move furniture, and just been our friends. very thankful for the body of Christ.

the one where i finally catch you up :)

hopefully i'll be posting more blog entries soon...bare with me as i just attempt to let you know what we've been up to. this post is sure to be less heartfelt than i'd like it to be, purely because i just want to post something to keep everyone updated! we've been without internet for about a week which has made everything that much harder.

here's what's been going on! (since my last blog)

we got to hang out with a good friend - helena, in pardubice. it was great to see her again!

with helena

we made a second trip to Frydlant which was nice. the weather was cold and wet, but i was able to see a lot of old friends and meet some new ones. my friend Jeremy (from Lancaster) spent a couple months living in frydlant, and while we were there they threw a goodbye party for him. the frydlant youth group is such a blast.

svatia & barca - 2 dear friends!

from there we traveled on to prague where we stayed with a fun couple, Tomas and Jitka. we were only there one night, but i got to hang out with a couple friends. jerry had been my team leader during my internship in czech 4 years ago, and he was back this summer with his wife. i spent the afternoon wandering around prague with them, and got to see some fun JV friends too. the next morning i got to hang out with some friends from the school where i student-taught 3 years ago! lots of good catching up.

j, m & i exploring new places

we live on the top left side

then we went on to pardubice and signed for an apartment! PLEASE TAKE NOTE! our address has changed! we decided to move into a different flat, so our new address is:
Ve Lhotkach 1345
530 03 Pardubice
Czech Republic

on tuesday we signed for it and spent the evening cleaning. on wednesday we moved in and cleaned some more.

on thursday we traveled to a small village called sobotin (outside of sumperk) where we spent some time hanging out with the pardubice youth group (mladez) at their week-long camp that they call relax. i really enjoyed my time with them, and i'm thankful that we were able to go so that we could get to know the students and leaders better. the youth group here is flourishing and i'm excited to be part of what's going on here.

on the way

petra & terka

sobotin

matous, radek, & tessa

we came back, really tired, on saturday afternoon, and then got to spend some time resting and hanging out with dana and petr. 




on sunday we came to the church here for the first time (Archa church). Dana made svickova for lunch (i won't detail you with what i eat every day, but it must be known that i ate svickova because it's my favorite - see it here!), and we spent the afternoon relaxing and hanging out at their cottage, which is named Hlina.

bailey at Hlina

monday was spent running around doing errands. a couple guys from the youth group moved some beds into our place, and the afternoon was spent at a water park with some friends from the youth group.

prayer:
-the transition here has been a lot easier than i thought it would be. this is partly because the kotasovi (and their extended family) has been so giving to us. thank God for our Czech family! without them we'd be living under a bridge right now
-because the transition has been easy, there hasn't been much "need" for God. pray that i still want him.
-God's provided pretty much all we've asked for. for sure one of the hardest things right now in making relationships is the language barrier. pray that we'd find someone who can tutor us so that we can grow deeper relationships here

the one where we travel. a lot. but not as much as interns!

monday july 30th

woken up by the alarm in the most calm mood ever. finished up my last-minute packing and headed down to baltimore with mom and dad. took a sweaty walk to the park with the family, and got some seafood (shrimp, of course). cried my goodbyes. made it through security without sobbing (had to take off my belt, shoes, sweatshirt, take out my ipad, keyboard, liquids. got a patdown. lots of "sorry"s as i put everything back together). cheered ourselves up by doing this:

sat next to a really cool german girl on the plane. took a sleeping pill and "slept" for about 5 hours in as many different positions as you can sleep on a plane (sat in the back row and heard every toilet flush). "woke up" and ate plane-food-breakfast (not bad).

tuesday, july 31st

chased down german policemen in the airport to ask if we could leave. they stared at us like we were dumb. (yes, we could. the train was right behind us). tidied ourselves up in the bathroom (much needed toothbrushing!). bought an unneccessary train ticket. made it into frankfurt. my carry-on was heavy (my snow boots were in there, alongside many books), so we sat down at a cafe. ordered a coffee and sandwich (everyone we talked to spoke great english). stared sleepily at everyone passing by.

headed back to the airport on what we thought was the right train. it wasn't. asked the girl sitting across from us. she drove us to the airport. frankfurters are nice. spent more time in an airport and did this:

one hour to prague, grabbed our luggage, tidied ourselves up in the bathroom. walked out and gave dana and petr hugs. quick ride to pardubice and some awesome czech dinner.

not dinner (vcere) - this is a picture of breakfast (snidane). still, a picture of typical kotasovi hospitality!

friday, august 3rd

quick awesome lunch of smazeny syr (fried cheese) with petr jr (dana & petr's children are also dana & petr:)) and martina. quick drive to the train stop. grabbed a pendolina (fast train) to ostrava which got us there in just over 2 hours. pendolinas now have wifi; we skyped with my mom.

tessa on the train to frydlant

thought we could make the 4:17 (16:17) train to frydlant. we didn't. hung out at the station for 30 minutes. snagged a slow (really slow) train to frydlant nad ostravici. got picked up by dusan. hung out in frydlant for a couple days in an american family's apartment.

beautiful frydlant!

fog over the beskydy mountains in frydlant after a storm.

tuesday, august 7th
dusan drove us to olomouc. for about two hours while he had a meeting we wandered around. finally made it to the square, used the bathroom, and turned around. olomouc has one of the nicest squares i've ever seen.

lost in olomouc

the square

cool picture (all the cool ones taken by tessa) at an ancient church we found

headed on a pendolina to pardubice. the most quiet train ride ever. picked up by petr and dana and went home to another nice czech dinner (notice a trend?).

on the way to pardubice from olomouc

more traveling to come (tomorrow).

just as a sidenote: love being in czech.