My Micah, my fiance

wow it's weird to type fiance. its even weirder to say it out loud. and it's sad to know that he left for the airport and i wont see him for four more months. I'd love to update yall on his time here but i'm not feeling well today. so i'm headed back to bed. I hate being sick in bed today especially since i took the whole week he was here off and really the last thing i want to do is lay in bed today with my thoughts, but there is no helping it, i have a fever, a viscious cough, a persistent headache and generally feel like i have been hit by a truck.
I felt icky the whole time micah was here but i pushed myself. not necescarily the best decision i'm sure, but i do not regret it. poor Micah though, he was starting to cough when he left.
anyway to try and diffuse the sad state of both me and this post and to tide you over till i am up to really filling in the details enjoy a few pictures....

hes baaack

micah is here safely for those of you concerned. we managed to get from Kosice to Presov on Public transportation and his bag only cost 15 cents to get it's own seat on the bus...we watched a jimmy stewart movie took a walk holding hands and played the wahdda you wanna do i dunno whadda you wanna do game.
plans now include pricing tickets to Budapest, and hiking to a castle if the weather gets nice.
if i hadn't forgotten my camera cable in Svarin, i would post some of the pictures of him cuddling the kangaroos last night on my couch. poor boy was too jet lagged and tired to do anyhting about me and my camera....Muwahahaha!!

Oh, I'd Like to Visit the Moon

:) made me smile....i am not going to the moon, but tomorrow morning i am going to the Ranch in Svarin with the MPKaci (YFCers in English) and Tuesday morning i'm going to Kosice from Svarin (BY MYSELF on a bus and THEN switching to, and buying my own ticket for, A TRAIN!!! scary!) I'm going to the airport in Kosice because MICAH IS COMING for my birthday. Best Present EVER!!
....so if you dont hear from Slovakia for a while, it's not because i'm on the moon, it's cause i'm over the moon! (was that corny?)
also, i would look much better in a space helmet!

sweet mix-ups

i post these things so you will laugh with me.

last week when i was feeling down, Kexo looked at me and said "sugar me, baby" Apparently it's a Slovak figure of speach that doesnt translate, he meant tell me something happy. I explained why i was shocked, he explained why i shouldn't be and we had a good laugh over the language barrier.

this afternoon i was trying to decide what kind of cookies to bake this evening. over skype, my mom suggested the kind with hershey's kisses. turns out you can not get Hershey kisses in Slovakia. they have no clue what they are even, that part is sad to me.

the funny part happened when I turned around and asked Kexo and Roman "can you get Hershey Kisses here?"
Roman turned a nice shade of red, and Kexo pointed to his wedding band.

the language barrier strikes again.

i expalined. everyone laughed. jokes were made that next week while micah is here there shouldn't be any shortage of kisses in Slovakia.

:)

new word: cintorin

It means cemetary, this is a seasonal post. Halloween isnt really a big deal here, but All Saints Day (november 1st) is.

Instead of dressing up in costumes and going door to door begging candy, they head to the cemetaries. Most people in Slovakia do not move around as much as people in the US and so people are very likely to live in the same town where their great-grandparents are burried. And so, with arms full of flowers and a bag of candles to place on the graves of relatives and friends who are burried there everyone heads to the cemetary. The result is beautiful, all the graves covered in flowers and candles. I owe Roman and Ander a huge thank you for telling me that i had to go and take my camera. more photos at my flickr site

But it wasn't only beautiful from the visual point of view. It was moving to see how full the cemetary was and the decorated graves of those who were really loved there. The flowers and candles served as almost a measure for how loved and remembered and missed a person was.

I found myself selfishly wanting to know that 30 years after I died people would still be remembering me. On the other hand, I don't want my friends and family to dwell on my being gone, because I will not be in that granite tomb. I will have bigger and better things to concern me than what kind of candles or what color flowers are on my grave.
I will be home in the presence of the King!!

week 30-32

the "weekly" update e-mail :)

Well, Slovakia is still here and even though I may have briefly disappeared from the updating scene, I am still here too.

I have fallen into a rather basic routine around here, with colder weather (there was SNOW in the air this morning) things are slowing down, and I’m not getting out much. The past weeks were spent tweaking the video from CampFest and the music video. They are currently waiting on approval before I can say they are totally done. We’re also waiting on some technical needs before Roman and I can start editing all the stuff from CampFest 2006.

Well, honestly that’s the extent of big news around here but I’ll follow that with some little tidbits from the past few weeks

Marian forbade me to come to the office while Ron & Ruth were here. I got to show them around Presov which I fall a bit more in love with all the time. We went into some shops that I have been a bit intimidated to do on my own. And the second evening, we had a good dinner with Marian and Ludka. I had such a refreshing two days with them.

Things in the office are moving along in a rather jerky manner but they are moving. There have been some problems with the quality and speed of the work being done, but we are trusting Gods timing (or at least trying our best. It’s hard sometimes) The outside is mostly done and the building is blue! Realllly blue!!! On any given day it could be a cross between a construction zone, a domestic dispute(they are just joking), a garage sale, a hip hop concert, and an opera....every now and then it might resemble an office if you use your imagination.... i love it here :)

On the language front, I still don’t study enough but I am improving. I have occasional setbacks to my ego. Some are discouraging like the time I misread the expiration date on my bus pass then when the controller checked the day after it actually expired, I couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying. Or the time that I held up the entire line at Lunch trying to explain that I only had a half-portion to the cashier. But some are funny. Like when I ordered “Empty cheese” instead of “fried Cheese” for lunch and the time I confused words for hiccupping and waiting. Mostly I am able to laugh at myself with everyone else and resolve to study more and listen closer.

I have had some pretty homesick days the past few weeks. A slump around the 6 month mark is normal and I’m pulling through ok. Please do continue to pray.

This past weekend I was asked to video a wedding for a couple who used to work with MPK here. It was a fun experience, and a great chance to see what weddings here are like. At the reception one of the guys I knew from Church taught me how to dance some Slovak dances. I had so much fun with that. I also got very dizzy! I will spend a fair deal of time the next week or so editing that footage together for Mark and Katka.

Thank you for praying, I’ve had some stellar days that are the result of your prayers and some days that I’m certain I survived only because of your prayers. God is faithful.

Please continue to pray:
~ That I will continue to be “all here” on the downhill side of my year
~ For relationships with MPK and churches
~The everpresent need to communicate and my dislike of studying

You are making a difference in Slovakia and we are so thankful!

Stasi!!

IT IS SNOWING!!!!

THERE IS SNOW IN THE AIR!!!
just thought you might like to celebrate my first Slovak snow!!!
I did a little dance, i'll leave your method of celebration to your own discernment!!