It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

New Creations

One of the joys of working with young people is seeing God change their lives. Whether it’s watching God transform their hearts in to new creations at salvation or watching them on the path of discipleship as they become more and more like Christ, it’s always a joy. The video below is a sampling of some of the ways God has worked in the lives of young people this summer. Even though I only had minimal involvement in the creation of this video, my team was responsible for creating this content at this year’s fall conference. What I love about this video is how these young people, many of which are brand new believers, respond when they are asked about Jesus. The freshness of their faith is real, exciting, and even a little contagious. It’s a joy to think about Jesus and I think this video will remind of you of that.

Tonight we had another “family night” dinner with our friends that live near us here in town. Kristin (who’s house we were at) made homemade chili and cornbread and Bethany brought a salad. It was a delicious meal, but more than anything, it was a great time together with the Yorman family and our mutual friend Rachael. The Yorman’s boys and our kids love to play together and that’s always fun to see them enjoy their friends. I was really thankful that they took the time to pray for our family and Kristin even shared that if we’re ever just in need of prayer that we shouldn’t hesitate to call or text. Isn’t that just a really practical way to minister to someone? I know Kristin read’s this blog and I just want to say thank you for your heart to serve our family in that way. We are blessed to call you friends.

Last night at the store we found a wooden sled for $5 and bought it. It was in the clearance section for 75% off. Why something for winter would be on sale right now is still a little strange to me, but I was just as excited as the kids were to buy it. Titus said, let’s go play with it and Avery (age 2) quickly replied to him, “It’s not snowing outside!” She’s right, and even though we’ve been enjoying nice weather of late, I’m sure the cold will be upon us sooner than we think. To be honest, I’m a tiny bit concerned about how cold it gets here but I guess we’ll just have to trust that to the Lord as well.

October 8, 2014
Another First: Drying on the Line

Tuesdays are just slightly nicer than the other days of the week. That’s mainly because we have our international team meetings on Tuesdays which aren’t really meetings where we work, but just spend time in God’s Word and prayer. Like the previous weeks, Dave Patty led the study this morning, and today it was out of Mark 6. The focus today was on looking at how Christ responded to a busy day of ministry. It was a helpful discussion and look at Jesus with his disciples and a welcome realignment for my own heart.

Bethany took Titus and Avery to the park today because the weather was so nice. The photo above is of Titus throwing leaves in the air and in the background you can see his new pre-school which he should be starting on Monday if all goes well. We’re not sure what to expect at this point but we’re trusting the Lord with the whole process of starting school.

Below is a photo of Titus today, playing outside with me. I’ve never really seen him climb and hang on something like this but here he is on the garage door. We got a monkey on our hands.

As I drove in today I saw our laundry hanging on the clothes line outside. This was strange to me because, well, we have a dryer inside. I came inside and asked Bethany about it and she said it was so nice and sunny she decided to hang the clothes today. Well, alright then. Later this evening as it was getting dark she asked me to go and get them off the line which I think may be the first time in my life I have done that. I remember growing up that I had a friend whose mom would do that, but I don’t ever remember my own clothes on a line. There’s a first time for everything…especially when you’re in Czech.

October 7, 2014
Sick Cycle Carousel

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the kids and Bethany are fully sick yet again. This time the kids have fevers and Bethany has actually had some significant stomach pain today. I’m starting to think our bodies are genuinely adjusting to this new locale and different weather patterns, but I’m not a scientist or very smart really, so take that with a grain of salt (also, that idiom is kind of weird…”with a grain of salt?”). So far I am free of the sickness that’s ailing my entire family, but I have a feeling that won’t last long. I’m really not trying to be pessimistic, I just look at the history and that’s usually what happens (I’m sure our family is not alone on this sick cycle carousel going round and round).

I was able to have lunch today with my friend Zach. He and I go WAY back and have been friends since the fourth grade and he was the first person to invite me to youth group at church when we were like 10 or something. He is definitely like a brother to me and it’s always encouraging to spend time with him. Sadly, he and his wife will be moving to Prague (about 4 hours from where we live) soon and we won’t be as close to be able to grab lunch, but I am genuinely excited for what the ministry God has for them there. It’s seriously so cool to do ministry with your friends.

That’s all from me tonight. I’m off to read my Bible and go to bed.

October 6, 2014
Sunday (Literally) or What We Miss Sometimes

I think Tuesday was the last time we saw the sun shine. It was on our drive home from Vienna and it wasn’t for very long, but I do remember the sun coming out. That was five days ago.

Bethany and I talked today about the sun, or the lack of it. We never really thought we would miss it, but when you don’t see it for five days you really appreciate it and notice it when it does. Things are really gray here when the sun isn’t shining. Mostly, I think it’s because it gets really foggy and the clouds hang low. In California, even if it got foggy, it burned off by noon and you had clear skies. Not so much here. But today the sun poked through a few times during church this morning and then finally stayed out around 3:00 or 4:00 for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written this before, but someone told us once that “when the sun’s out, the Czechs are out.” That was us today. We spent as much time outside as we could. We walked through town (as you see in the top photo) and we played in the backyard (shown directly above and some below). Bethany said, “I didn’t realize how much I love blue skies.” I totally agree. We had so many blue sky days in California you have the opposite problem–you want cloudy days! So we’ve flipped now and I would say we’re still adjusting.

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot about language learning the past week or so. We’re still looking for a new tutor and we’re going to start having a young girl from church come do some mini-lessons with us this week. Today at church was yet another reminder for me how bad I want to learn Czech. I know it’s hard. I know it will take time, but I’m feeling the pinch right now. Our prayer is for God to provide someone soon who can focus with us and be flexible with our family. We’ll see what the Lord does.

Like the sun, we’ve been missing other things lately too. Skyping with our friends yesterday reminded us how much we miss them. Oh, we pray and trust that the Lord will bring new friends and close relationships here, but we left so many behind. I found myself missing the pumpkin patch today. I saw a photo on Instagram of another friend at our favorite place in California with their kid, and that was one of our traditions. Traditions here are unknown right now. I don’t even know at this moment if they have a pumpkin patch for us to take our kids to. Maybe that’s something we left behind as well? Yet the one thing we haven’t left behind, or rather, He hasn’t left us behind, is God. He is constant and unchanging and that is a wonderful reminder.

Last night as we were video chatting with friends in the States they said, “From reading your blog, it doesn’t seem like you miss anything here.” Well, if I’ve communicated that then I’ve probably missed something on the blog! Those big picture things are hard to communicate on a daily basis, but today as the sun came shining through it was a real and physical reminder of what we have been missing. We’re thankful God has brought us to this needy place and by His grace we will continue to do whatever we can to show His love to others. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have moments where we remember what we left, or better said, who we left.

October 5, 2014
A Sleepy Saturday

Why is Avery walking around with an American flag in her mouth? Honestly, I have no idea, but I took the photo below today and was just laughing at her. She was running around with a little flag she has and kept wanting us to do the pledge of allegiance. I’m realizing now that there was a moment today where Bethany and I had our hands on our hearts and we were reciting the pledge of allegiance while both of our kids were holding little American flags. That’s funny to me, but it’s probably because I’m so tired.

I’m feeling the effects of a 3am night last night. No, nothing bad happened. No, I’m not sick or suffering from insomnia. I’ve just become that guy. You know the one. The guy who has to watch his baseball team no matter the cost. The Dodgers were playing their first postseason game and I just got hooked and couldn’t stop. Looking back, it was a terrible decision. The game started at 12:30am (our time) and I was able to watch it through our AppleTV. By 3:00am the Dodgers were leading the game 6-2 and I felt confident I could go to bed around the end of the sixth inning with that lead. But like clockwork the kids were in our room early this morning and I tried to stay in bed. Bethany let me sleep in a bit, and when I did get up to check the score all was not well with the Dodgers. The game was close, but they lost the lead shortly after I went to bed. I told Bethany I won’t do it again. No sports team is worth that kind of lack of sleep…well, unless we go all the way to the World Series. If that happens I’m pulling an all-nighter.

For the most part we stayed inside today. We had some cleaning to do and I just felt like we were catching up on life. It was colder out today (high around 55), but Titus and I did play a little tennis in the yard while Avery napped. When she woke up we did some puzzles inside and played with their toys. Avery has gotten really good at puzzles. I love it when she says, “Hhmm…where this one go?” Above is her putting together the big Curious George puzzle we have.

Tonight I went to youth group at church and Titus came with me. Bethany, Titus, and Avery have all had yet another round of sickness. It’s kind of unbelievable to be honest. Even though Titus had a runny nose and was coughing, he really wanted to come with me so I let him. Youth group was great and the youth pastor introduced me to everyone (it was only my second time being there). The pastor and his wife shared about relationships tonight and were just trying to have some open discussion about dating and marriage. Our friend Misa translated for me so I felt like I got the gist of the content. Titus and I had to leave around 7:20pm (it starts at 5pm) so we could get back for a few Skype sessions with friends and family. I was a little bummed we had to leave because they were about to start so open questions from the students and I would’ve loved to get to know them better.

When we got home we Skyped with some good friends of ours in California. It never gets old seeing familiar faces, especially those of close friends. It was a sweet time together even if it’s over video. Right after hanging up with them we spent some time Skyping with Bethany’s parents. Our kids were just full of energy during both video chats so that wasn’t always fun, but we still had a great time with them too.

It’s getting late and church is tomorrow. You know what they say, “Sunday morning starts on Saturday night” so it’s off to bed for me. Goodnight.

October 4, 2014