It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Enjoying Spring and Burger King

The kids might be battling sickness, but that didn’t stop Bethany from making sure they got a little sun today. We had a nice warm day today (around 60 degrees) and in the afternoon Bethany and the kids had a little lunch on our driveway. Bethany sent me this photo (above) of Avery relaxing in her chair. Every time I look at it I start laughing. Both the growth of our kids and their personalities is just a joy to watch. Avery especially has been making us laugh a lot this week with the things she’s saying. She has been so talkative and full of questions. I love to watch her explore and figure things out. Below you can see Titus playing on my skateboard. He too has been growing a ton and continues to surprise us as we see his gentle heart come out. He love his little sister, even though he often is way too rough with her. Titus requires a lot more energy right now, but I’m also seeing him mature so much. Please continue to pray for them as they cough and sneeze and hopefully are still able to get some rest tonight.

Speaking of children, I took a silhouette photo of Bethany (below) because today marks the 30 week mark in her pregnancy. While praying with Titus and Avery at bed time tonight Avery reminded me to “Pray for the baby to come, Daddy.” Pray we did and I was thankful for the reminder to ask the Lord to continue to grow this new life inside of Bethany. As the day approaches, I’m getting more excited to meet this little girl and watch her grow and change. This Friday we’ll meeting with another missionary to talk through hospital stuff and birth plan for the Czech hospital. I think we may have found a good place to deliver, but we still need to take a tour and see what we think.

We needed to go to the mall to get a few things tonight, so we decided that after our Czech lessons late this afternoon that we would eat out. Tonight’s speciality was Burger King and the kids loved it. Burger King in Czech is way better than the States and I say this without any hesitation. Maybe you’re thinking “well, that’s not too hard,” but I can say that it genuinely hit the spot tonight and we all enjoyed our food. We’re finding that Czech has absolutely changed both are taste and appetites. The kids really wanted “prince” and “princess” crowns as they called them and during dinner they were telling each other “Hello, prince” or “Hello, princess” and bowed to each other. They were especially happy tonight for some reason, but I’m definitely not complaining. We had a fun time together and I told Bethany when we got home, “I needed tonight.” It was a really fun evening that ended with a great cup of coffee.

Here’s two photos of the kids being silly at dinner.

Until tomorrow…good night.

March 24, 2015
Silly Roads and Broken Computers

It’s another late night so I’m going to keep this one short, but I wanted to point out the photo above which happened today while driving to the Josiah Venture office. You can be going down the road and all of a sudden there’s a huge drop off, the road is all torn up, and then they are literally a few feet away from you adding new asphalt. It’s incredible. I’m actually laughing about it because you would never see anything like that in the States.

Above are photos of our time tonight enjoying some pineapple upside down cake and working on fixing computers. Jenny and Landen Llamas came over and I was helping fix some things on each of their computers, and we just enjoyed some fellowship and hang out time. I’m still finishing up some stuff on Jenny’s computer now, and finishing up this post. Overall it’s been a fun time of laughing and talking and I’m thankful for our friendship with them. It still blows my mind that we get to server with people like the Llamas, who we knew in the States and now live in the same town here in Czech. God is good!

That’s all for tonight. Time for bed!

March 23, 2015
Looking to Easter

I sat by myself up in the second story of church this morning because everyone in the family is sick. With the kids having coughs, sneezing, and runny noses we weren’t about to put them in to their classes and Bethany hasn’t been able to stop coughing all day. It probably doesn’t help that it was rainy and about a high of 35 degrees today, but needless to say the sickness continues. I’ve had a sore throat all week, but today was my best day yet and I really didn’t want to miss church. I did my best to follow along with the message and all I can say is that I heard the word for “now” a lot. I’m not exactly sure what that was all about it, but I’m glad I was there with God’s people.

Back at home, however, Bethany didn’t really want to lose the entire day so she spent some time with the kids decorating for Easter. When I got back they had hung up a big sign that our church in the States made for us which says, “He is risen” in Czech. It was up above our couch and now we get to see it and enjoy it. Also, the kids put up little sticky letters on one of our doors which says, “Happy Easter!” Above is a photo of the big sign and below is a photo of the kids with their door decorations, including the little egg basket above them and the little sticky eggs you can see behind them.

It’s always a joy to look to Easter. Even though we won’t be celebrating the risen Savior in our own language, I’m looking forward to seeing how our Czech church will celebrate. And I had the added joy of listening to Avery today as she talked about how “Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead!” It’s such a simple truth coming from her lips. Jesus did rise from the grave. He has power even over death! It’s those truths that have changed the hearts of many and by His grace will continue to be proclaimed to the nations. I’m really looking forward to Easter Sunday. It’s one of the best days of the year and I’m thankful that my family was helping me prepare my heart for the celebration of remembering our risen Lord.

March 22, 2015
The First Saturday in Spring

Even though the weather people are forecasting rain and snow for tomorrow morning, we had incredible weather today! It really felt like a beautiful spring day so we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the sunshine. You’ll notice in the photo above that our kids are wearing jackets and that’s just because it’s what we’re used to doing, but they probably didn’t need them. We enjoyed the park this morning and Titus and Avery love going down the big red slide together. There were definitely a few more people there than normal because everyone agreed it was the perfect day to be outside.

Our friend Romi and Michal needed some help with a little video they were making. Michal is making a short commercial for a company that makes these stretchable laces for shoes. They are actually really convenient here in Czech because you have to take your shoes off often. In the above photo we actually went back to the park with Titus to get some shots of him wearing the laces on the playground equipment. If you look closely you can see he had special colored ones that he said were like Lightning McQueen (you know, the main character from Disney’s Cars). I also was part of the filming and we re-laced my shoes and I rode down the street on my skateboard. It was a fun little afternoon event and it was great to see our friends, especially on such a beautiful day.

I didn’t take any photos tonight, but I attended our church’s youth group which meets on Saturday night. It was a good night and Landen preached from Ephesians 4 on being part of the body of Christ. His wife Jenny translated for him, but for me it was nice to be able to hear some preaching in English. Afterwards we had a small group time that was a lot more challenging because of the language barrier. It’s always just another reminder to keep pursuing the language as hard as I can. One of the guys in our group translated for us which was nice, but it feels so awkward to talk about spiritual things and have to keep translating and listening that way. But overall it was a great night and I enjoyed being there.

After youth group I went to the store to get some things for tomorrow and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I turned down the dairy aisle and saw Philadelphia cream cheese! We have only heard rumors that it exists here in Czech and today was the first time I had seen it. Bethany says she may have seen it one other time, but I was excited and it was a double blessing because it was on sale. Bethany uses cream cheese in a few Crockpot dishes we like and of course in dessert so I bought a few of them. Sadly, there are no bagels in Czech to spread this creamy goodness on, but maybe we’ll have to dig up a recipe and start making our own?

I still can’t believe I’m writing this, but we continue to battle sickness in our house. This entire week both Bethany and I have struggling with sore throats and now the kids are starting to sneeze and have runny noses. Depending on how they are in the morning, we may just take them to the main service with us as opposed to going to their classes. With the weather going up and down, that definitely doesn’t help but we’ll just continue to pray and trust the Lord with these challenges.

March 21, 2015
An Eclipsing Start to Spring

I almost always work from home on Fridays and today was no different. Except at one point I walked to the kitchen to get something to drink and when I looked out the window I was confused at what I was seeing. I’ve probably looked out that window hundreds of times, but today was a bright sunny day and the window looked as if it was tinted. Like most Czech and European windows it swings open so I went to it and opened it and looked outside. Thats when I realized it wasn’t the window, but rather it was the sky that was tinted. We were experiencing a solar eclipse!

I confirmed this with another missionary online and then checked the news and sure enough Europe and parts of West Africa were witnessing a pretty amazing solar eclipse. For us in Czech, we were seeing about 75% of the sun being covered by moon. One of our windows had sun shining through the blinds and the tiny holes were showing the crescent shaped sun spots on the floor and table. Above you can see them in both photos. It was pretty fun and I’m glad we had clear skies today to witness it on this first day of spring.

Titus went to his second full-day of preschool and it was another day where he took the bus to a nearby preschool for the entire day. While he’s gone I’m always curious to watch what Avery does at home. Today she did the USA puzzle we have again and then later she was drawing on the white board in her little blue chair (shown above). It’s actually a little sad to see her search around for things to do because she’s just not used to having Titus out of the house so long during the day. Normally they are inseparable and play together all day, so I think in a small way this is a transition time for her as much as it is for Titus.

When I picked Titus up from the bus this afternoon he was really excited. He had a necklace on with a picture of Donald Duck (it actually read “Kačer Donald” in Czech) and it had a piece of candy stuck to the back. He also had a fruit cup snack and a little treat in his hand which he quickly handed to me to hold for him. I actually tried live streaming the entire thing to Twitter today so Bethany could watch from home and below is the video that I captured. It’s a little choppy, but you can get the gist. In the beginning you can hear me speaking English with the lady that I met on Wednesday. You’ll see how happy he is, but it doesn’t change how strange it is to be picking up my four hear old from the bus!

March 20, 2015