It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Titus Didn’t Start School But Made Himself a Sandwich

Today was supposed to be the day Titus was going to start preschool. I had hesitated to write about it because I really didn’t want to get my hopes up about it and I had a feeling something would go awry. As suspected we got a phone call a few days ago telling us that the preschool would be taking a field trip today and we would need to have a Czech/English speaker come with Titus. We discussed it, made a few phone calls to see anyone could do that for us, and finally decided we would just wait until Wednesday (10/15) to start him. With everyone not feeling well it just made sense to wait and see if Titus’ cough goes away and hope we can take him on Wednesday. Honestly, I’m trying hard not to be anxious about it because I know this will be a big change for our family. But I also know it’s part of life, and definitely a great tool that God will use to get us in to the community and getting Titus learning the language. I guess we’ll see how it goes on Wednesday.

Above is a photo Bethany sent me today of Titus making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He’s probably seen his mommy make them a thousand times and lately he’s been helping her and today he said, “I can do it myself, mommy.” Bethany said he needed a little help, but that he did a really good job on his own. Watching him grow is such a blessing, but it’s also hard (as I’m sure many parents know). You just want them to stay small. I know it’s the Lord’s plan and growth is part of life, but that doesn’t mean he has to make his own sandwich!

Here’s another photo (below) that Titus said he wanted to send to me. When I showed it to him later on my phone, he said, “That’s the cross.” Thanks for reminding me of the cross, son.

Our friend Tadek came over this evening and brought us our new winter tires for our car. They weren’t cheap, but its’ a Czech law to have those kinds of tires on your car by November 1. Tadek, who originally help us buy our car, is such a great resource and help to us–I don’t know what I would’ve done without him. So now I’ve got a stack of tires in the car that I’ll have put on in a few weeks. Before he came over I played with the kids outside and got this photo of Avery. This kid is seriously gonna break some hearts…unintentionally, of course.

Tonight Bethany had a ladies hangout at our friend’s house. Normally they would do a Bible study, but the leader is gone right now so they decided just to hang and watch a movie. I’m glad she got to get out of the house and enjoy some fellowship. I had a good time with the kids just finishing up dinner and cleaning the house. They both went to bed very easy tonight so I assume we tuckered them out today. Avery cried just a little bit for mommy so I laid her in our bed and she went right to sleep. And speaking of sleep…it’s about that time for me too.

October 13, 2014
Sunday Grab Bag

On my fifth birthday my mom brought my kindergarten class “grab bags.” They were brown paper bags filled with stuff from a little convenience story, maybe even a dollar store. I remember it being pretty fun to reach in and not know what was in there. Today was a bit like this. It was pretty normal Sunday, but it came with a few surprises.

This morning we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the church here Český Těšín and Dave Patty was asked to preach. Bethany didn’t feel great this morning and the kids still had coughs so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to go or need to stay home and help. I ended up going, but I was a little late and got there while they were singing. Even though we don’t live far, I drove, but that proved to be a poor decision because with so many visitors it took me a while to find a place to park. The same was true when I got inside…no place to sit. It was absolutely packed inside! A nice man spoke to me in Czech, offering me a seat in the front row, but I really didn’t want to be a distraction on such a big day so I just stayed in the foyer area and listened through the speakers. Dave preached in Czech so just like last night, I didn’t really know what was going on and since I wasn’t sitting next to anyone I couldn’t really get the gist so I basically just tried to see if I recognize any of the words. I trust Dave preached a great message and that the body was edified.

After church…we went to the zoo? This is why I say it was a grab bag. We had originally planned on going to the zoo yesterday, but everyone just wasn’t feeling good so we canceled that plan. Bethany asked me today if we could go because she felt like we’re going to run out of good weather like we’ve been having and that made sense to me so we went for it. We have annual passes, so it doesn’t cost us anything and the weather was so nice it really turned out to be a great time outside. Our kids love the zoo here and I’ve mentioned before, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there’s like fifteen parks in it! There was still one thing scheduled tonight so around 3:30pm we left the zoo and headed home.

We’ve been trying for a few weeks now to schedule some time to take photos of our new friends Romi and Pichal, with their new baby Ondra. Today seemed like a great time for that and with the sun shining it’s great light for family photos. I had a great time photographing them. They are such an easy-going family which makes it nice to take photos of them and just enjoy the time together. Here’s a few shots:

It’s fun to open up a grab bag once in a while.

October 12, 2014
Just Down the Street From the Gestapo

On our way to Poland yesterday, we stopped at a McDonald’s to grab lunch. The kids were asleep in the car, and attempting English in the drive thru is pretty much out of the question, so I went inside to order. The nice Polish woman who helped me spoke great English which was a blessing and as I went to pay I realized I didn’t have my debit card in my wallet. This was very strange because it’s pretty much my lifeline here, but I had to pay so I just used a different card. After getting back into the car I searched around and couldn’t find it. The last place I remember seeing it was the night before when I went to the grocery store for Bethany. Either I had left it there or put in my pants pocket that night. I guess this would have to wait until we get back from Poland.

Today I checked all my pants pockets and couldn’t find it so I went to Tesco where I remembered having it last. Since I can’t speak Czech, I used my phone (Google translate) to communicate with the ladies that I thought I had left my bank card there. Amazingly, and thankfully, they had it! I was told to go to “informace” (customer service) and showed them my passport and got it back! Praise God I didn’t lose it because getting a new sent here from the States would’ve been tough. And in the end I thought the whole experience was yet another language learning opportunity.

I took the kids out late this afternoon for a little walk to the park while Bethany started dinner. We live in a pretty historical area, so much so that they have little plaques along the square near our place explaining the different building and their significance. I’ve read a few of them, but today I found a new one over by the park that I hadn’t seen of the building in the above photo. Apparently it was built in the latter part of the 19th century and was an administration building then a secondary school. But in 1939 the Nazis occupied this area and (are you sitting down?) it became the headquarters for the Gestapo! A block from my apartment is where the Gestapo had their base of operations. Crazy! Wait… you don’t believe me? Here’s the plaque (written in Czech, Polish, and English):

Tonight I attend a youth conference at our church where the main speaker was none other than Dave Patty, the president of Josiah Venture. He speaks very good Czech and I watched in awe as he preached from Romans 12:1-2 to a few hundred Czech teenagers. I did my best to listen for words that I knew, but genuinely had no clue what was going on. Had it not been for the person next to who spoke a little English, I wouldn’t even have known we were in Romans. From what I could tell though, Dave had the attention of the students and I’m sure they were blessed. I know I was encouraged, especially from the singing tonight when they did a familiar Phil Wickham song in English! Here’s a short clip of everyone singing “This is amazing grace:”

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This is a room full of young people gathered for a Christian youth conference here in Czech. Such a joy to see this.

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Hearing that song sung by so many young people almost had me in tears. The spiritual climate in Czech is so dry that to see all of these people praising Jesus in a small town in Czech is kind of mind blowing. This is fresh to me because just tonight a friend forwarded me a link on Twitter about just how atheistic the Czech Republic is. It’s yet another reminder of why we’re here but how God continues to move among the youth.

RT: @mattyglesias: Awful lot of atheism in the Czech Republic: http://t.co/QhNccdx26h pic.twitter.com/Fbwp4TFiJ7 (via @jonathanholmes)

— Shay Thomason (@shaycam) October 11, 2014

October 11, 2014
Hanging With the Millers In Poland

The Miller family is a blast. Bethany and I first met Korban and Tanya at Josiah Venture orientation in October 2012 where we spent a week together in Wheaton, IL. There’s a fun connection with them because their senior pastor in Indiana was roommates in college with Scott Ardavanis, our pastor at PBC for many years. They asked if we could drive out to Poland and take some family photos and we were excited about the opportunity. We saw them briefly back on the fourth of July but today we got to spend the afternoon and dinner together which was just a great time to catch up.

Our afternoon started with the photos in the downtown area of where they live. There were some fun brick buildings and the weather was great so we snapped a few shots. The photo above is them walking right through this very long street where many people are walking and trains and busses travel through. You would never see anything really like it in the States, but we made use of it for a nice walking photo. When we finished there the kids all got suckers for doing such a good job. Here’s a little shot of all them.

After the downtown area we headed over to a park just a few blocks away. I don’t know why I didn’t get a picture of the giant tower in the middle. Not joking, I think it was like a 10 story sun dial. The play area had like a twenty foot climbing net that would never be legal in the States. Our kids loved it! But the sunlight was great at that time of day so I grabbed the Millers for a few more shots. Here’s one I really liked.

Behind them is an old fire station and really nice cafe/restaurant area. Bethany walked over there with Avery to use the restroom and she said it really felt like she in Europe and said it was very nice. I’m bummed I didn’t go check it out. We let the kids play a little longer and packed up the vans and headed for the Millers house.

We had a wonderful, American style dinner! Cheeseburgers, homemade mac-n-cheese, and veggies were all part of the spread. It was delicious and I’m not gonna lie, I had two burgers. It was fun to hear from their daughters about their school experience as they have all only been in Poland for about ten months. Language is obviously still hard but their girls are getting along pretty well in school. It’s encouraging to see another family walking through the same kinds of things that we will be experiencing very soon. After dinner we enjoyed some fun desserts: rice crispy treats and frozen bananas with chocolate and nuts! Mmmmm…

Before we left we had a short time of prayer for each of our families which was a blessing. As we were walking out the door, Titus kept saying, “Goodbye! Thanks for everything!” which we had never really heard him say before. It was hilarious and cute. He’s right though. Thanks, Millers, for a great day together and for having us over for dinner. Let’s do it again sometime!

October 10, 2014
Taking A Few Family Photos

All we needed was one. One photo, that is. A supporting church of ours in the States was updating their directory and asked us for a new photo of our family. So late this afternoon we walked over to the center part of town and tried to get a couple shots using my tripod. What you see above is the best we could do. All in all, it’s not bad, although I was hoping for a better smile from Avery. I guess that’s the best you get when you tell her to say “coconut” because for some reason the word “cheese” was off limits.

We went ahead and took a few other photos since the light was great and the kids were playing. Here’s a few more of just the kids…enjoy.

Tomorrow we’re headed into Poland to take some family photos for our friends there and we’re looking forward to visiting them and exploring a new city. Until then…I bid you adieu.

October 9, 2014