It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Working From Home

We had a pretty normal day today, with the exception that I worked from home today for about half the day. My team is working on a 150 page training manual for young leaders that will be launched in a few weeks at our fall conference. Our short-term intern and editor, Amy, and I had to work through a lot of edits and instead of heading to the office we worked at our apartment. Titus kept coming to my desk telling me about his drawings on the magnetic drawing pad we have. The first one was “of you, dad!” and I think even got my hair right. This is probably the best person drawing we have seen him do.

While I was making edits on my computer I could hear Avery giggling over at her little table. Bethany was painting the bottom of Avery’s toes. A friend on our Facebook had posted about a little craft where you make a leaf etching, paint the kids toes, and make little caterpillars. Below you’ll find photos of both the kids giggling away and the final result.

I’m a little tired tonight as today was pretty full at the JV offices. There is a ton of ministry items to prepare for, especially with the upcoming conference. I have to constantly remind myself that the little things we might be working on day to day are a big part of what we do as a ministry and will eventually have, Lord willing, a great impact on the leaders and missionaries in many countries. I guess we’ll just rest in October!

September 3, 2014
Reflecting and Lots to Pray About

For the past two days I have found myself saying, “I can’t believe it’s September.” On this date last year I was starting my last two weeks of work at Paul Mitchell and our family was stepping into a new adventure called full-time support raising. I can’t believe that was a year ago and I can’t believe I’m sitting here in Czech Republic writing about it. No doubt God’s hand has been in this process with our family and has brought us many miles physically and brought us further in our faith. Praise the Lord for His goodness and faithfulness to us in this journey.

Maybe I’m just reflecting more tonight, but I’m amazed at the growth in my kids. Titus and Avery both seem to be making big strides in all areas of their little lives. Avery is still have accidents, but she’s consistently using the potty and telling us so we can take her. Titus is building more complicated things with his legos (photo above). He’s helping more around the house and he’s just talking a lot more. Every day he comes to the door when I get home and says, “So dad, how was your day?” I’m so thankful for their growth and for the work that Bethany puts in with them. Praise the Lord for His grace and kindness to us with our kids.

Tonight we had dinner with our new friend Soňa (pronounced “Sown-yuh”) over for dinner. You may remember that Bethany met her at a little preschool in our town. We don’t believe she knows Christ, but she told us tonight her family is Catholic. In fact, her mom texted her while she was at our house asking her to pray about the situation with Putin and Russia as she heard reports that things are escalating. Like all Czechs she brought us a little gift and even thought of our kids (photo below).

Soňa is a very busy girl with multiple jobs and she’ll be starting university (like college) later this month. She has offered to babysit for us but we wanted to spend more time with her. We see an opportunity to minister to her and see what God does. Pray for us as we seek to make wise decisions in this area. Soňa also told us about the new English teacher at the preschool who is from New Zealand. Bethany is going to try and contact her as well and see if we can help her with her visas stuff. We feel like we need to push into some of these relationships and see what God has. It’s a reminder to pray.

After Soňa left Bethany got a phone call from the lady who runs the preschool. They continue asking Bethany to come and speak/teach English. Right now they are asking her to commit for a fews day a week and we’re just not sure about it. The woman that called insisted we go to her house to discuss it and now we’re scheduled for lunch on Saturday so we’ll see what this might entail. Obviously, we’re not her to hold jobs like that nor are we legally allowed to. We would have to work out some kind barter, but we just need to pray and have wisdom. Again, I don’t believe these are accidents, but we need the wisdom that comes from above. Just another reminder to pray.

September 2, 2014
A New Month and a New Store

Tonight we had our monthly time of opening an envelope from our Bible study in the States. Until June of next year we have envelopes for every month which they have put together with gifts and fun things inside. The September envelope brought lots of fun things so here’s some photos of our kids unwrapping it all (captions below each photo).

Titus found a light up yo-yo which also wanted to take with him to bed. Avery found a rounded object that she began to unwrap.

Avery found a princess wand and finally unwrapped a great candle. She went around the house saying, “Sprinkle sprinkle, do your thing” with her wand. No clue where that came from or what exactly it means.

Titus found a Cars sticker book which he loved.

Oh… Avery found Daddy’s favorite, an iTunes gift card! She also found a book called “Lone Survivor” which is the background for the recent movie of the same name.

The kids found a letter from our friends, the Shanks family. It was written from their kids and had some great questions about our life here in Czech. Here are the questions with some answers:

Q: Do you play basketball in your new house?
A: Yes! But not in the house. We have a basketball hoop that we keep in the garage and when it’s not raining we roll it out and play in our driveway.

Q: Have you made lots of new friends?
A: Definitely! There are so many fun friends here and we’re having a blast getting to know lots of new people.

Q: Do you like your new church? What is your church called?
A: Yes. We love it. It’s called “Církve Bratrské” which means, Church of the Brethren.

In other news, we had a little hiccup at the Josiah Venture offices today which required me and my teammate, Brian, to go to Ostrava for a few things. We needed to get a couple new computer hard drives from the store because of some issues with someone else’s computer. The mall in Ostrava is actually where Bethany and I went on our second date in Czech and it’s just an amazing place. In the photo above you can see Brian using a giant touch screen display to find out where the computer store was. When he picked the location it showed us where we were and how to get to the floor above where the store was. I have never see anything like it in the States. We walked up stairs and got exactly what we needed.

Since we had already made the thirty minute drive, Brian called his wife to see if they needed anything from the mall. She said they needed brown sugar from this British store called “Marks and Spencer” which Brian knew of but I had never heard about. I couldn’t believe my eyes when we got inside. Chocolate chip cookies, English language packaging, sauces, salsa, and even brow sugar (which is apparently hard to find around here). The store was amazing considering this is the Czech Republic and I ended up calling Bethany to tell her while I was in there. I only bought two things but I think we’ll heading back at some point. Here’s the photos I showed to Bethany when I got home.

Funny thing is you have to walk through a department store to get to where this store is located. It’s all part of Marks and Spencer, but I was still confused by it.

These are the little bags of brown sugar. They cost a little less than $3.00 (US).

On the left is lots of coffee and on the right is lots of ice cream toppings. The ice cream stuff is probably splurge items, for sure, but it’s amazing that they have that kind of stuff.

Last but not least, jalapeños. I don’t know if these are hard to come by but seeing anything spicy which is even related to Mexican food makes my heart happy. You’d be surprised how these little things make you feel when you haven’t seen them a while.

September 1, 2014
The Sunday Dichotomy: When The Church Service Goes Long

When was the last time you were at church and the guy announcing an outreach ministry begins with a story about someone attempting suicide? That’s what happened this morning at our church in Czech. The man sharing was introducing a ministry called “Alpha” which, from what I could I gain through our translator, is designed to help people share their faith with those in their workplaces and neighborhoods. The story he was sharing was from his own work where a mom asked to leave work early because her son was trying to commit suicide. He continued that people at his work know he’s a Christian and are willing to share things with him. As well, he shared that in the case of the woman he asked her if he could pray for her son before she left and she said “OK.” This man encouraged the body to continue to tell others about Christ and the gospel, and invited them to “Alpha” where they can gain training and tools to aid in their own evangelism.

Watching the nationals in our church is so encouraging and spurs our own missionary family on towards gospel ministry in this place. Lord willing, more people will come to Christ because of that ministry, our church here, and the faithful witnesses of Christ.

Church today went almost three hours long. Our kids did exceptional, but we ended up going outside around the two hour, fifteen minute mark. There was a lot going on, including an entire group of students that recently came back from camp who shared about their experience and sang a few songs (video above of one part of one song). We also had a guest speaker, communion, and an extended prayer time. School will start here tomorrow (Sept. 1) and the pastors wanted to pray for all the kids in the church so they asked them to come forward and the pastors and elders prayed individually for students, teachers, and families. The place was very full today so the lines for prayer went all the way to the back and we watched as the pastors would place hands on the families and students and pray (photo below).

Bethany and I talked during lunch about how to respond to a longer service. We feel the burden of living in two worlds now: World #1 (the more American view): Being on time is right and good. It honors God to be on time–church services should end on time. World #2 (maybe a more Czech view?): Spending time with your church family is right and good. If the service goes long, it’s just extra time for prayer and fellowshipping with other believers which is a joy and encouragement–it’s OK if the service goes long. It’s a Sunday dichotomy. Both feel right and good, but you can’t have both at the same time.

I like what one friend told me in the States. On the possibility that the service might go long on a particular Sunday he told me, “Hey, you really don’t hear people complaining when the football game goes into over time.” I think he’s right. Often we (Americans) make exceptions in our minds for sports and entertainment, but not so much for church. I know I do this and am guilty of complaining when church doesn’t end when I think it should. Maybe I do need look at the other side and learn from my Czech brothers and sisters that spending a little more time at church might just be a joy and not a burden. It’s like what our Czech pastor said today about the service running long, “We love our children and our teachers. This is the wisest thing for us to do.” Amen, brother.

Above is a photo of Titus with his hands in his pockets just watching the service. We like that kid.

Towards the end of the service there were a lot of kids outside. The boys turned the grass area into a scene from Braveheart, each boy for himself with a stick for a sword. We had no clue where the other parents were.

Finally, our two little ones which seem to betting bigger every day. Thanks to Bethany they always look so nice when we go to church.

August 31, 2014
Laboring on Labor Day Weekend

For the United States it’s a nice long weekend. Everyone will celebrate Labor Day on Monday and most likely take the day off. Many are probably already at the lake, on the road, or heading out someplace for a little rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, we’re not in the United States so instead of taking a break we were hard at work today on our apartment trying to get things unpacked (yes, still…) and getting our storage room organized. We shared before we have very limited space so we’re trying to make decisions on what things will stay inside and what we can put in the garage. After filling about six or seven plastic tubs we called it quits. We definitely gained some space in each room and we keep chipping away at the boxes.

Titus and I (Shay) went to Tesco (store) and did a little shopping this afternoon. Bethany stayed home to work on the house and and do laundry. If I’m going to the store I like to take my time and really just take in everything that’s available. Things change constantly and I am on the hunt for a few items, namely a good vacuum and an iron. Our iron from the States is too high of wattage for the power transformers we have and even though our vacuum works here it has to go through a transformer which really isn’t convenient and not the most efficient when it comes to energy consumption. As we were slowly making our way through the aisles I saw this board game (photo below) on learning English. It’s funny how learning English is associated with England. In my American mind I want stars and stripes on the front of this box.

This evening we had a chance to Skype with Bethany’s sister, husband and their two year old son Jude. It was nice to connect with them for the first time since we’ve been here. There’s no doubt that technology like video chatting is just such a blessing to foreign missionaries. I realize not all missionaries are able to connect back to family the way we can, but we praise God for means to do so.

More and more Bethany is having to make things from scratch in the kitchen. I think it’s great how she has jumped right into it. I’ve said before she’s braver than me and I can tell you she is doing it with a willing attitude and never complaining. We can’t just go to the store and get a familiar pasta sauce so tonight she made her own from scratch. The only down side is dinner takes a little longer some nights but I usually end of taking the kids outside if the weather allows. Tonight I took them in our backyard and put Avery’s new streamers on her tricycle (Nana and Papa sent them to us in the “box o’ fun”). She had a huge smile on her face as she made her way around the driveway and that’s always a joy for me to see.

As we were laying the kids down tonight we heard some big “booms!” coming from outside. Bethany and I ran to the open kitchen window to find fireworks coming from down the street. We’re not sure if they were happing on the Poland/Czech border and we’re honestly not sure what the celebration was, but it was fun. Bethany said, “I’m gonna get the kids!” and ran back and we all watched the big sparkles in the sky for a few minutes together. Oh fireworks, you really don’t get old and I’m not too old for you. Here’s a little video I took accompanied by a song by Sleeping At Last that I enjoy.

August 30, 2014