It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Avery’s 3rd Birthday Party

We enjoyed a wonderful celebration today of Avery’s little life and were blessed by many friends joining in the fun. As I wrote yesterday, Avery’s birthday is actually next Saturday but with Thanksgiving and traveling many people weren’t going to make a party the weekend after the holiday. So instead of trying to make that work we decided to move it up a week and enjoy a little party today. Bethany did a great job getting things ready and this morning we put the final touches on our apartment to get it ready (mostly just cleaning) and everyone came over around 3pm.

Before I begin with all the photos and stories, it’s fair to note that today actually started very early when Papa and Nana video chatted with Avery and she opened their gift which was mailed from the States. I was actually asleep while Bethany and the kids did this, but Avery loves her new Elsa Frozen doll. Thanks Papa and Nana!

Here are the photos and story from the party with captions below each.

Here the kids are gathered around Avery while she’s opening gifts. The “Czech way” (as we’re told) is to open the present right as you receive it which is basically what we did as people arrived (as opposed to having a large gift opening time during the party). The kids of course were really excited about each present and I think when I captured this photo there was a line of people waiting for theirs to be opened.

Here is Avery opening some new gloves she got from Josiah Venture’s resident grandma, “Grandma Linda,” as everyone calls her. She’s actually Kristin Yorman’s mom and she moved to Czech to help the Yorman’s with their autistic sons. Thanks for the gloves and tights!

Avery was smiling and excited about all the new toys and gifts. She was very blessed and everyone was so generous.

The three photos above are from the cupcake decorating time we did with the kids. The table almost wasn’t big enough to get all the hands and plates in there, but we made it work. The kids enjoyed adding their own frosting and putting gummy flowers and dinosaurs on top to their liking. Thanks to our friend Greg, you get the rare shot of me standing on the right. He told me, “Now your kids will have at least one photo of you.” It’s the classic tale that dad isn’t in any photos because he’s always behind the camera. Thanks Greg for keeping my memory alive!

Here’s Avery with her completed cupcake creation. I realize she doesn’t look that excited but honestly she was!

Bethany actually had scheduled a little craft for the kids to create some pinwheels. It proved to be a little more difficult for the younger kids so the parents were helping out a lot (like Brian in the first photo). But they all turned out pretty good!

Here’s us with Avery as she was blowing out her three little candles. It took her a few tries, but she finally got them all blown out. I don’t want to dwell too long on this thought, but I’m starting to think that the reason we blow candles out is because that’s how fast it feels like the years go by. Bethany and I actually feel like Avery’s little years have gone at a good pace. We’ve had a busy year this year, but God has been gracious to make the time feel slow and we’ve been able to watch Avery grow. We’re thankful to the Lord for our daughter!

The party actually ended around 5pm and we were supposed to join our church’s youth group for their “American Thanksgiving” party. As we were walking out the door we realized our friends who had driven in from Poland forgot a baby bag, but they had already left. I called and told them we would meet them on the road so they would have it and we drove into Poland and met them at a gas station. I actually thought we would be able to turn around easily but this was not the case. The gas station was just off the highway, and there was no place to turn around and go back towards Czech. This meant we ended up driving (and I’m not joking) another 20 minutes into Poland until we could turn around.

We figured we had missed dinner with the youth group and so we decided to eat at the McDonald’s in Poland and made a poor decision on driving through. Imagine an American family, that now lives in Czech, driving through McDonald’s trying to order in Polish (which we can’t speak a lick of). It took forever for us to order and I ended up having to walk inside to order the things that didn’t get communicated. Finally we got all of our food and headed back to Czech (another 25-30 minute drive). And yes, I got a photo of the McDonald’s.

About 6:45pm we made it to the youth group hangout which was a lot of fun. The kids were full of energy and were running around the room while all the students were talking and hanging out. We enjoyed talking with a couple of the students and staff and just being there.

At the end of the day, I’m thankful for how the Lord works out the details. Some things went as we had planned and some things didn’t (e.g. dinner in Poland), but it all went as God had planned. Awesome.

November 22, 2014
Prepping for a Party

Even though Avery’s birthday is a week away (Nov. 29), we’re having a birthday party for her tomorrow. Bethany has been hard at work today getting things ready or tomorrow’s special day. As I write Bethany is meticulously cutting colorful paper into pinwheels. You know…she’s making the party pretty. That’s why you see the flowery looking cupcakes above that the kids will decorate themselves. Inside they are zebra colored (white and chocolate layered cake), which was Avery’s choice. Below is a photo of the pink frosting. You definitely know it’s a party for a girl!

Since Avery’s birthday falls right around Thanksgiving, and because we’ve been pursuing coming to Czech most of her life, her birthday has always been hard to celebrate. Hard in the sense that we haven’t been able to invite a ton of people to celebrate which we enjoy doing. The past two years we have been traveling a lot, especially last year when we drove from Colorado to Kentucky to spend Thanksgiving with my family after our month long missions training. Of course, it’s great to be with family, but you just have this image in your mind of lots of little kids running around at a birthday party. I guess it’s just nice to be somewhat settled and have friends around to celebrate with us.

Above is a photo from a year ago today. We only had a few days left at MTI (Mission Training International) in Colorado and the snow came in strong. After classes we spent the afternoon playing in the snow with the kids. It’s been one incredible year since then. God is good.

November 21, 2014
Tired, Cold, and Wet

Sleep was limited last night. Not only did I have some kind of insomnia, but Avery coughed for at least an hour from around 2-3am. We were up early and out the door this morning so I think I only got around four hours of sleep. Needless to say I’m just plain old tired right now.

I’ve written for many days now that sickness has just absolutely plagued us. Every day seems like a battle for better health. Today Bethany gave the kids a mid-day bath (photo above) because they were just really congested and the warm water and steam helps give them some temporary relief. Their smiles are proof positive that, for at least a little bit today, they were feeling good.

It was cold and wet today. Gray skies have stuck around for a few days now and I’m left wondering if the bitter cold is approaching. Every day I’m a little surprised that we’re not quite below freezing here yet. We heard the news about Buffalo New York and the massive amount of snow that came in just a couple days, and in my mind I just kind of expect that to happen here. The funny thing is I really have no idea what the weather is like here so I think I’m just planning for the worst weather and anything else is a surprise.

November 20, 2014
Through the Fog

Someone at the Josiah Venture office today asked me how language lessons were going. She is from Czech and I said to he, “Rozumím trochu česky” which translates to, “I understand a little Czech.” Unfortunately, that’s where the conversation ends, but that doesn’t mean I’m not learning. It was only a few months ago that I was forced to memorize, “I don’t speak Czech” in Czech, but now we’ve graduated to some level of understanding. Progress!

Today we had our second Czech lesson with Tamara today and we’re just reworking a lot of the basics. Obviously, since it’s a lot of review things are moving along relatively smoothly, but I assume we’re only a few weeks away from “the fog.” The fog is that time in language learning where things just get, well, foggy. You bein to learn more new things faster than your brain can comprehend it all. Apparently the fog is not uncommon when learning a new language but the further you push the better off you are. Eventually it will all come around and the fog will clear.

Speaking of fog, we woke up this morning and couldn’t see the large church next to our apartment because it was so thick. I should’ve taken a photo and I will probably regret that for a while. It was strange to see the faint outline of the building that’s barely seventy five feet from us. I like the fog. I like the change from the never ending California sun, but like the picture I missed this morning, I’ll probably regret saying that too some day.

November 19, 2014
Learn Me Something

Doing language learning is worse than going back to school for one reason: you can’t read the directions. Both of the books we have used have used to study Czech employ the theory that if they put the directions in Czech we will learn. In reality, all this does is frustrate me because it takes me an extra three minutes per question to type out the Czech in to Google Translate just to figure out what I’m supposed to do!

Tomorrow morning we have our second lessons with our new Czech teacher, Tamara, but it might be interesting because both the kids are sick and right now and will likely be coming with us to her house. Normally, Titus would be in preschool, but he’s coughing and sneezing and all of that so we decided we’re going to keep him away from the other kids for a day and see how it goes. Hopefully we will still be able to focus on lessons with the kids there.

This morning we had our weekly International Team meeting and we spent some time walking through Philippians 2:1-11. I’ve actually memorized a chunk of that passage and I think it may be one of the most amazing and difficult passages in the Bible. Amazing in it’s theology, reach, and Christ’s example, but difficult to apply, especially as we think about being a humble servant. We were challenged this morning to do just what the text says, “…put on the mind of Christ…” in our service and work here and humble ourselves the same way Christ did.

No matter how many times I hear that or read it in my Bible, it’s hard. It’s hard to apply that when I walk in the door to my family. It’s hard to apply it on my ministry team. It’s hard to apply that in line at the grocery store. It’s hard to apply that in the local church. It’s just hard. Serving with humility is hard, mostly because our sinful flesh fights it. At least I know mine does. But no matter the difficultly or the fight, I do hope and pray that I would seek to have the mind of Christ and serve here humbly. Not only does that show the Gospel in my actions, but it gives God the glory and that’s most important.

November 18, 2014