It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Friday Fog Day

The day got off to an early start..at least for Bethany. Around 5:30am she walked Lindsey and Kailey over to the train station just down the street from our place so they could catch their 6:00m train to Prague. It was a very foggy morning and overall a day of gray. It rained on and off, but it was nice to have more cooler air. As I drove to the JV offices this morning I was surprised by just how much fog we had and just how thick it was. The sun never came out once today and as I type I can see the streetlights still reflecting off the low clouds.

Right now we have language lessons on Wednesdays and Fridays and today we were working on possessive pronouns. For the most part we are understanding what to do, but I just feel like Czechs speak so fast it’s hard to believe I’ll ever understand them. Just to answer a simple question in Czech right now is difficult and slow. Jitka (our teacher) instructed us to work hard on our vocabulary so we’ve been putting together flash cards today to start to run through on a regular basis. I think it’s going to give a jolt to our understanding of Czech and hopefully we’ll be able to catch more and more words as we’re engaged in conversation.

Since our language lessons are in our house I usually end up working from home when we’re done which is what I did today. Right now I’m working on a leadership training book that we’re hoping to have done within the next month. It’s like a high level leader training curriculum called “Walk 2:6” which is based on the passage 1 John 2:6 and written by Dave Patty. Mostly I’m working on making the book look and feel right but Lord willing it will be a great resource for our teams on the ground who are training young leaders.

Tonight we enjoyed a relaxing night at home but poor Titus kept asking if we could go outside and play baseball. I guess he doesn’t understand the rain delay quite yet. Bethany and Avery made brownies which we imported from the States via our container and they were delicious. Avery wanted to help so we got the step stool out and she enjoyed mixing and “painting” butter to grease the pan. As they were making the mix Avery had a little taste and said, “These are best brownies ever!” I agree!

August 1, 2014
A Refreshing Day

Today was unexpectedly refreshing. Even though it was a pretty foggy, rainy, and physically darker day, the Lord reminded me of why we’re here.

It’s been a pretty full week at the JV office as we have a lot of new projects rolling and the new created team that I’m part of is just really starting to understand how to work in a new place with new people. I’ve been helping organize different projects, working on some graphic design for the training center/hotel and now I have my hand in a few other things as well. After leaving a meeting this afternoon I returned to the Creative Communications (cTeam) office where our video guys and Dave Patty were sitting, watching interviews of young people from this summer’s camp ministry. Although I had other things I was working on it was impossible to continue to work as I could hear the amazing stories of changed lives in the background. Finally, I stood up and began to watch them myself over the shoulders of the others guys.

My eyes began to tear up as I listened. “All I want to do is tell everyone about Jesus” said one young man. “Jesus changed my life. Now I have a Bible and I’m going to read it” said another student. One after another, story after story, of young people at camps who have come to grips with their sin, repented, and are seeing the Savior for the first time. Then I got a phone call.

Our Czech friend Katka called me because she is helping us with some details regarding our visas and when she was finished asking me a few questions she said, “Do you have a minute? I have to tell you about this guy who got saved at camp last night.” “Sure!” I replied. Katka began to share how she had been praying for this young man for three years but admitted that she thought he was pretty hard hearted and hung out with the wrong crowd. But last night, during the “gospel night” this young man bowed his knee to the Savior. Katka shared that he even woke up this morning and told his cabin leader that “I feel like a new man. I read the Bible you gave me and it talked about the Jesus that saved me!” Wow. “That’s amazing, Katka!” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check on the phone. If that doesn’t refresh your soul, I don’t know what will!

It’s stories like that young man that our team gets to communicate. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to share on the blog some of the amazing video our team captured and for you to see first hand how God is radically moving in this part of the world. Not everything about graphic design, videography, and media work is easy or even fun. But today in the office I think we all had a wonderful reminder of why we’re here and how God is using the ministry of JV alongside local churches to see young people come to Christ!

Tonight we had plans to hang out at a friend’s house but our plans changed late in the day and we ended up throwing together a dinner at home. I believe this was Divine because it gave us the opportunity to spend one more night with Lindsey and Kailey who have been staying with us the past few days. Tomorrow morning they leave on an early train for Prague and then on to Frankfurt to visit their family. They have blessed us greatly the past few days and have been such an encouragement to us. Our kids love “the girls” as we took the above photo tonight before the kids went to bed.

Lindsey has plans to return to Slovakia next year and continue ministry there. Kailey is definitely leaning that direction, but needs to finish college and see what the Lord would have. Please pray for them as they travel the next few days and definitely pray for their future. Our hope and prayer is that God would continue to use them and maybe one day they’ll both be back in this part of the world serving full-time!

July 31, 2014
Our First Date Night

Thanks to the help and kindness of Lindsey and Kailey (our house guests!), we were able to have our first date night here in Czech!

As we walked away from our apartment tonight to head to the restaurant Bethany said something to the effect of, “walking to the restaurant on date night is a first.” Yes, it is. But there’s a great place here in town called “Da Capo” that our friends introduced us to that we just love. No one that works there really speaks English, and even though we’re working on it we don’t speak Czech, but we somehow used what little we know to order our meals, get some water, and even have a little zmrzlina (ice cream) for dessert. You’d be surprise how stressful it can be just to try and order a meal when you don’t speak the language. We always feel bad when they are talking and we have no clue what’s being said, but our waitress tonight was very gracious, spoke slowly for us, and for the most part it was a huge success.

Da Capo serves Italian food and Bethany ordered bruschetta for an appetizer and I ordered the cream of broccoli soup. Here’s a few pics. Check out that sour cream (I think that’s what it is) on my soup!

For the main course we both ordered pizza with meat on top and we topped it all off with some vanilka (vanilla) ice cream. At first we said, “dva vanilka zmrzlina” which is a rough way of saying “2 vanilla ice cream” and when our waitress repeated it back she pointed to each of us and said “dva… dva” as if to say, “two for you and two for you?” Being the good language students we are we quickly figured out that she was going to give us two scoops each but we were able to clear that up and only have one scoop each. Score “one” for language lessons (see what I did there?)!

After dinner we tried to find a coffee place that was open but it looks like the whole town basically closes up around 6pm and we were too late. So we did a casual walk around the town square (photo above) and I’m still amazed and what we get to see. The old buildings and the European feel here are still new enough to amaze me. Finally we took a casual stroll home and walked off a little of that zmrzlina.

It was nice to get away for a bit and we’re so thankful to Lindsey and Kailey for watching our kids. At one point during dinner Bethany said, “Does date night include a nap?” I laughed in agreement. We have been going, going, going for over a month now and even still we have boxes we’re unpacking. It’s a lot of work right now and we definitely need time to rest and just enjoy each other. Lord willing we’ll be able to get some consistency with date night so we both don’t feel like we need a nap!

July 30, 2014
Visitors From Slovakifornia

Slovakifornia is not a real place, but it’s the best way to describe where our wonderful visitors came from today. Kailey and Lindsey Richardson are two young ladies that we have known for a long time from our home church in California. They have been serving in an English camp ministry in Slovakia for the past month and today they took the train to come stay with us! Catching up with them today and hearing their stories was such a blessing. Actually, the Lord has done incredible things in their lives and they are documenting some pretty great stories on their own blog so definitely check it out.

It’s absolutely incredible to me that they are in our place in the Czech Republic right now. They rode on the train for more than 5 hours this morning and although they had a few different connections they made it here without much of a hassle. Bethany literally walked over to the train station to meet them and they all walked back to our apartment.

Tonight at the dinner table it was just a blessing to hear about their ministry in Slovakia and how God has been working in the towns they are serving in. These girls have a passion for Christ and the gospel and I’m sure they will see much fruit from their time there. They may be staying with us a few days and then eventually head over to Germany where their uncle serves as a missionary.

One of the neat things they are doing is reading their late mother’s diary who also did some traveling through Europe thirty years ago with one of her friends. I believe they are trying to visit some of the same places she did when she was young and read her thoughts along the way. They shared that often they laugh at some of the things their mom wrote. Karen (their mom) was a special women who loved Christ and we were blessed to know her. These girls definitely have a lot of their mom’s heart in them and talking with them tonight was such a joy to our own souls. What a joy to have see some familiar faces in a place that still feels so unfamiliar.

July 30, 2014
Rain, the Sandbox, and How to Dad

Lightning struck, thunder rolled, and it rained a lot. They say that in July is the wettest month in this region. I believe it. Today’s storm packed a punch and when the lightning started it didn’t stop for a while. I shot the below video today while at the JV offices. We have those ceiling windows which made it fun to look straight up at the raining pouring down. If you watch closely a white lined appears about 3-4 seconds in and that’s actually a flash of lightning that my iPhone can’t seem to handle.

When it rains we pretty much have to keep the kids inside, especially when it comes down like it did today. But after I got home this evening things had cleared up so I took the kids to the park while Bethany went to the store. We have some visitors coming tomorrow and Bethany wanted to make sure we had enough food while they stay with us. More on that in tomorrow’s blog!

Titus wanted to take some sand toys to the park so we carried (well, Avery carried) the buckets over and we walked down the street to the closest play area. Even though it was a little muddy the kids took their shoes off and began to dig. Titus said, “Just like the beach!” so I just went with it. We packed the buckets as much as we could and started to build a castle fortress. That’s what dad’s do, right? Our job is basically to up the awesome in whatever we’re doing with the kids (sometimes to the chagrin of mom!). So I got down in the sand and we filled up some buckets and built ourselves a castle. I actually had a lot of fun. It was wet, my hands felts weird from the sand, but the kids were laughing and loving it and that made it all worth it.

Later tonight the kids had a little snack at the table and I was finishing up some of my own Bible reading and just happened to be in Proverbs 4. I told the kids, “Let me read to you from my Bible.” In dramatic fashion I was reading to them from that passage which is a chapter written from a dad to his son. When I got to Proverbs 4:7 I said, “Get wisdom!” Bethany then brought me a little book we have called “Get Wisdom!” that is written as a little study for kids and parents so I flipped to the first section on “Listening” and the kids and I worked on their listening skills. Then we flipped to “Orderliness” and we started cleaning up the room and putting all the toys away.

During those moments I was reminded how important it is for dad to be dad, especially when it comes to spiritual things and leading my kids. It’s not that I didn’t know that, but I just had a fresh reminder of it tonight. I need to be able to play with them in the sandbox and practice with them in our house. I need to be able to “Wraskel” (wrestle) with them in our bed and then work with them and help them grow.

That’s probably why I was so impressed today by a commercial that Cheerios released on YouTube this past week. For the first time in a really long time it’s actually in praise of dads. So often in advertising the dad is seen as inferior to mom and kind of an idiot, but in this ad Cheerios actually praises fatherhood. At one point the dad even says, “Dadhood isn’t always easy because when a rule is broken we’re the enforcement…but when a heart is broken we’re the reenforcement.” Now that’s a message I can get behind–that’s how to dad.

July 28, 2014