It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Refried Dreams Come True

It’s 9:17pm as I am beginning to write this and this is the latest we’ve been up in over a week. Last night we went to bed at 8:30pm and it’s been earlier than that every day since arriving back in Czech. I’m thankful for the progress but still really surprised how long it has taken our family to readjust.

Above is a photo of the Mexican food that I found at the store today. I’m sure I have written about this kind of thing before, but I drove 20 minutes to another town to get these things because, well, that’s what you do when you’re desperate for familiar food items. I actually only intended to buy black beans (yes, I was willing to drive 20 minutes for black beans), but when I got there they had so much more! One thing we have literally never seen here are regular refried beans, hence the four cans I brought home. It’s a refried dream come true (har har)! In the back you’ll also see Mission tortillas. I believe we have found those one other time, but I was able to buy them again today which was fun. Our local store hasn’t had much selection in the area of Mexican food so it was fun to stock up.

Often in Czech you’ll find grocery stores that are inside little malls. That was the case of the store I went today and when me and the kids entered the mall there were these giant, metal art installations (shown below). The first one is of Iron Man, which is all well and good, but the further back we went, the weirder they got. I turned the corner to toward to store and they had more of them and they were honestly very creepy and scary. The kids seemed OK, but it was just one of those things you probably wouldn’t see in any American mall.

Since we weren’t here at the start of January, and because we’ve been jet lagged, we hadn’t opened our January envelope! Tonight we were finally up for it and as always it was fully of fun goodies for the whole family. I laughed as well because Avery said, “Daddy, first we take a picture and then we can open it!” Apparently we’ve done this before! Below are some photos of the fun.

Inside there were note pads, a hand written card, a party hat, sticker books for the kids, crayons, an activity set, a puzzle, and a family favorite iTunes gift card! Thank you, friends, for your kindness to us. These envelopes have been a special blessing to us and come June it’ll be depressing that they’ll be no more.

Here’s a photo of Avery enjoy her box of mostly pink colored crayons.

Lastly, tonight we had some friends over for dinner. We weren’t really sure we would be able to do it considering how tired we have been (and truthfully, we cancelled dinner plans last night with other friends because we just didn’t have the energy). But we had a fun time and enjoyed the company tonight. We yawned a lot around 8pm, but I was able to stay awake through dinner! Our dinner guests are missionaries in Poland and they’re actually heading to the States next week to look at colleges for their oldest daughter. Personally, I’m a little jealous because they’ll be in California where they can enjoy an In-N-Out burger. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll figure out how to teleport In-N-Out back to Czech in the next week! Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?!

January 23, 2015
Work and Parenting

The other morning Titus came up to Bethany and I and showed us something on the iPad. Apparently he saw something in the App Store that looked interesting to him, so he told us that he “wanted to buy it.” We kind of chuckled and said, “Do you have any money?” Quickly Titus replied, “In my piggy bank!” and ran towards his room. When he returned with his blue piggy bank we opened it up and found 14 Czech crowns inside. It’s not enough to buy a $0.99 app, but it’s about halfway. Bethany explained to Titus that he would need to save his money up. I don’t remember the specifics, but he was a little confused. So we explained to him further about earning money and saving it in his bank. Bethany had the idea that he could do jobs around the house and earn more money–extra tasks outside of normal responsibilities. Titus, of course, got really excited and that’s when I knew we had opened up a can of worms.

All day yesterday he couldn’t help but talking about doing “jobs” and making money. At one point I got a call on my phone and it was Titus telling me, “Daddy! I made enough money to buy something!” He was really enthusiastic and it was fun to hear him get excited. Today Bethany let him and Avery take out the recycling which allowed them both to earn a few more crowns each. And apparently in-between jobs Titus is doing a little shopping because he already has his heart set on another purchase.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned in this for Titus, but I feel like I’m the one learning the most. It’s weird as a parent to engage in this kind of discussion because I have this strange fear of teaching Titus something wrong about money. I keep thinking, “I don’t want Titus to think just because he made some money that he can buy whatever he wants.” I also think, “I don’t want Titus to be a consumer and not be wise with his money” and “I want Titus to be a good steward of what God has provided!” We want him to learn how to work and how to save. We want him to be thankful for what God has given him and make good decisions. I know he’s only four but I feel a pressure to not mess these lessons up. That’s probably a good pressure. It’s reminding me that as Titus grows older he will need more and more help in learning to be wise and he’ll need our instruction to guide. That might sound elementary but it’s what I’ve been thinking about today.

Pray for us as we engage our kids. Parenting requires great balance, patience, and wisdom. Even in these little discussions about money there is a lot to be learned and taught and I just really want to do a good job.

January 22, 2015
Banana Bread for Breakfast

“Daddy, we’re having banana bread!” That’s what Avery told me around 4:00am this morning while I was laying in bed. Admittedly, I didn’t get up until about 45 minutes later, but she wasn’t joking. When I stumbled in to the kitchen, Bethany was wide eyed and the oven was baking away a fresh banana bread loaf with Nutella (shown above). She had been awake since 2:30am and finally got out of bed around 3:00 and got straight to work apparently.

As I’m sure you figured out, we’re still jet lagging and we’ve been home for a week now. Even we’re struggling to understand and believe it. But I guess we’re making the most of it. Today we had banana bread at 5am, enjoyed a cup, and even read a devotional. I even had time to read my 10 chapters in my Bible reading program. After all that, Titus and I started working on cleaning the house and he was getting serious with the vacuum (as you can see in the photo above).

Even though it’s been a little cold (mid 30s), the kids have been wanting to go outside and do bubbles. In the above photo you can see them dancing and playing outside after Titus got home from school today. It’s fun to see them enjoying the weather, even when it’s colder.

Titus’ teacher told Bethany that we should speak more Czech to Titus at home. When I took him to school today, I spoke a little with her in Czech and she seemed pretty happy about it. If we could teach Titus more Czech, we would, but since our own understanding is so limited it makes it tough. As I talked with his teacher this morning I can only get so far before I just say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” (in Czech). It’s never easy to feel like you can’t continue a discussion (or even a relationship) because of the language limitation, but it’s just reality for us right now. Bethany and I have come to the conclusion that we’re not going to continue to feel bad about it, but just do our best to plow forward with learning and trust God for the rest of it. It might be a slow process, but eventually we’ll have opportunities to complete sentences and conversations!

January 21, 2015
Trees and Testimonies

You do some crazy things when you’re up early because of jet lag. For us, that meant pushing our dead and dry Christmas tree out the window of our apartment at around 6am this morning. We had already eaten breakfast at that point, and we were ready for some excitement, I guess? And I went with my gut which was thinking that if we left it by the trash cans that the trash truck would take it away and I’m happy to report that my gut was right! Later today the trash truck came and hauled it away which was kind of a load of my mind.

Later today I was a part of a meeting which could lead to some incredible fruit for the Kingdom if it plays out. Basically, Josiah Venture was meeting with an organization that helps do Internet evangelism. They are committed to the Gospel and the local church and I believe the Lord is blessing their efforts. Even hearing from one of their leaders today I was just impressed with his heart for the lost and his passion for this generation. These aren’t just smart guys with computers, but genuine evangelists that know we have been given an incredible tool in the Internet to get the gospel to the lost of the entire world.

In fact, one of the big parts of this online site is a place for people to share their testimonies once they have put their trust in Christ. As we looked at the different pages of lots of people I was reminded just how important it is to hear testimonies of the work of Christ in the lives of people. And it’s those stories that this organization is leveraging in order for more people to hear the Gospel. It’s really incredible just how God is using this unique ministry and I’m looking forward to being part of how Josiah Venture can be involved in using their technology to reach young people in Central and Eastern Europe.

Lastly, back at home, we’ve made a tiny bit of progress with jet lag. The kids slept until a little after 1am which is better than the previous two nights. We’re still really off and we even enjoyed breakfast burritos today at 5:00am. It makes me laugh as I think about it, but then again I’m really tired so just about anything right now could probably make me get the tired giggles.

January 20, 2015
A Short Night’s Sleep

For the most part, I did really good today despite being up since 3:00am. Like yesterday, Bethany took the early shift with the kids which started around midnight and I took the rest of the morning from 3:00 on. Getting up that early does have it’s benefits. First, I get some great time to read my Bible. My energy level is really good because I’m going to bed early, so getting up and reading my Bible in what is normally the middle of the night is nice and pretty quiet. Secondly, I’m getting other reading done, like the book you see below. Around 5:00am I actually finished this book which I started in the States and it was just nice to eat my cereal, drink my coffee, and read. Maybe I should just get up at 3:00am every night? Just kidding.

Technically the photo belwo is from last night, but it’s an example of what has been happening around our house the past few days. Even this afternoon when I came home, I found Avery asleep on the couch and Bethany and Titus in the back bedrooms asleep. It’s just weird, and it leads to Titus leaving the dinner table, getting on the couch and just falling asleep. It happened both last night and tonight. Today made a little more sense because Titus was back in school, so he didn’t nap or anything today until late this afternoon. Poor guy. I feel for him because I feel like I could fall asleep right now while typing this.

I was back at the Josiah Venture office today for the first time since we left for the States last month. It was nice to be back and to be with my team. I really feel like our time in the States gave me a little more clarity on how to lead my team better and in general was just really refreshing. There’s a lot of great things coming in 2015 for my team and I’m excited to lead them and see what God does with our efforts.

We had another hangup with our utilities in Czech, specifically with our power company. They called today telling us they would be shutting our power off tomorrow because we hadn’t paid. The only problem with that was that I had paid. With the help of our Czech friend Martina she was able to call them and explain that we had paid and to kindly ask that they not shut our power off. What’s funny is that they finally did admit we had paid, and they even added that we had a credit on our account! To be honest, this one baffles me, but as I always say, “Welcome to the Czech Republic.”

January 19, 2015