It's All Grace

a journey with the Thomason family

Our First Night Sleeping At Home

You would think after almost three weeks in Czech Republic that we would be sleeping in our own home already, but we’ve actually been jumping around a bit. Tonight is the first night we will actually sleep in our own place. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do that. We’ve basically been nomads for the past few months, going from place to place and sleeping wherever we can find a bed. But as I type the kids are asleep in their new beds and Bethany is reading on ours. Oh, and if you’re wondering about that photo above…it’s the view from our kitchen.

Today was another unpacking day, but we also did a lot of cleaning up. As we unpack we create a lot of cardboard and plastic wrap piles so we’re trying to keep the piles to a minimum. I also worked on our garage a bit today as it was a little disheveled from container day, and now we can park the car in there and have plenty of room to get the kids in and out. We have a really good size garage and I’m super thankful for the space out there. Space is not something you get a lot of in Europe!

Something that has been a bit of a bummer has been the realization that we didn’t do enough homework regarding our electronics. We knew the power situation was different and I knew to check the appliances and electronics to see which ones would work over here and which ones don’t, but we’re find there are still many things that just won’t convert to the different power over here. We need to do more research regarding our transformers, but right now it’s not looking too good for things like our iron, fans, audio speakers, and even our electric hot water kettle. Such is life…you learn as you go.

This is a photo of Avery shoving grapes in her mouth. Don’t be confused by that beautiful living room and Titus in the background. This is our friend’s house, not our apartment. They were kind enough to let us stay there the past few days as we get unpacked and get settled.

This photo is from our new apartment. Bethany decided to make Jello today as we were unpacking some of our pantry items. I don’t know if the kids have ever seen Jello before, but they were excited about it. You may notice Titus’ right eye has a dark spot beneath it. He was jumping on his new bed yesterday and hit the side rail. He woke up with a little black eye today…poor guy. No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

I don’t know why I took this photo of the grass today, but right when I shot it I was reminded of some verses we had to memorize in high school:

The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
(Isaiah 40:7-8)

Tomorrow we will attend our church here in Czech for the third time since we arrived. My prayer is that God’s Word will be proclaimed! The grass will wither, but God’s Word will stand forever and that’s a wonderful promise.

July 12, 2014
Unpacking Our Lives

Today we unpacked. That’s it. End transmission. OK…there was a little more to it.

The day started off with some nice dolphin toast… wait, never mind that! Move along…

We unpacled a lot today. I can’t say I have photos of it all because we were moving along in a hurry, but I do have some. Today I built 2 desks, a bookshelf, and a small kitchen cart thing (all things we had from IKEA already). The kids loved getting their toys back. Above is a photo of Avery putting a bib on one of her “babies” all by herself. She said, “Daddy, baby’s hungry.”

Our Bible study in California did something awesome and put together these monthly envelopes that we get to open. We were pumped to get the box we had of all the envelopes. In our haste to open them we accidentally opened the last one which was meant for June 2015. As soon as we started reading the card that went with the envelope we said, “Oh no, this is for a year from now!” Then it hit me that they had actually told us that when we got the envelopes but our brains are fried and we felt bad. However, it was actually a blessing in disguise because the June envelope had tons of kids stuff and they were great for our kids to have today while Bethany and I unpacked. So either way it’s a God thing and we’re thankful to our friends for putting the energy in to all the fun things we got to open today.

Here’s a few shots of stuff just waiting to be unpacked.

I am so amazed how well our stuff traveled. We unpacked a ton of fragile items (glasses, cups, vases, etc.) and not a single thing is broken or cracked. It’s a testament to our friend Cathy who helped us pack and of course it’s God’s amazing grace.

While I was writing this post tonight I got to talk with my dad for the first time since we’ve been here. It was hard trying to figure out how to call them without paying a ridiculous amount of money, but thankfully there’s apps out there on the iPhone that allow us to talk over the Internet for free. We talked for 45 minutes and it was just nice to get his take on some things like our washer and dryer not fitting and what to do about the power conversion stuff. It was good to hear his voice.

It’s time for bed. I’ve enjoyed writing daily and rethinking our days and just remembering how God has worked in all of this. God is so kind to allow us to be here and now to have time to unpack all of things He’s provided for us. It doesn’t get old saying this: it’s a joy to serve the King.

July 11, 2014
Special Delivery

It’s here! It didn’t fall into the Atlantic and amazingly everything was just the way we packed it when it left the United States. Our container arrived today!

As our friend Rachael said, “Getting your container is like Christmas, only better because you already know you like the stuff.” She’s right. It was like Christmas and it’s really fun to see all that stuff you painstakingly loaded into the container 48 days ago. What’s hard to believe is just how far our stuff had to travel from Long Beach down through the Panama Canal and up to the German port. Then it was trucked over to Czech where just this morning we signed the customs documents and they brought our container to our new apartment.

We were overwhelmed by the support of the local church here and our friends and teammates from Josiah Venture. I’m especially grateful to Mel Ellenwood who helped us translate for an hour and a half at the customs office and even Connie Patty who took the photos you will see below. So without further delay, here’s the story in photos (captions below each photo).

Connie actually caught this picture of the container about 20 minutes before it arrived. This is just down the road from our place. He couldn’t fit under the little train bridge so ended up having to drive the container around some tiny streets just to get it to our place.

Bethany was taking care of making sure we had food and refreshments so she was only actually there for the truck’s arrival and departure. There was a sale on boxed milk at the grocery store and the lines were crazy. Bethany said people had multiple carts full of this special milk and so she missed the unloading. Welcome to Czech, I guess!

Here’s what the container looked like right when it was opened. It’s almost identical to what it looked like almost 50 days and thousands of miles before so I was already amazed.

Our container had 3 sections which we separated by walls that our friend Justin built when we loaded it. The first section went pretty quick because it wasn’t packed as tightly. This photo is all of us unloading the first wall.

Titus’ tricycle was in the first section and he was so excited to ride it around our little driveway.

Here’s Rachael and Mel carrying boxes in.

This is Amy muscling a box to the apartment. Everything was color coordinated which hopefully made it easier for people to know where stuff went!

The whole unloading took about an hour, and I was on the truck the entire time. It was incredibly fast and we couldn’t have done it without all the help. This photo is of me helping unload the final box.

Here’s me signing over the final container paperwork.

Pizza for everyone! The local pizza shop couldn’t believe we were ordering 10 pizzas.

Also, if you’re wondering, George Clooney apparently makes all the pizzas here in Czech. When he’s not making movies, he’s making thin crust goodness!

Back in the apartment we had people building the kids new IKEA beds. Such a blessing.

And finally a little shot of all of us after we were done unloading.

What a great day! The only thing we don’t have photos of is inside our new place and that’s mainly because we didn’t really spend a ton of time unpacking today. The kids were tired and so were we so we made it a shorter day and we’ll head back tomorrow for some serious unpacking of boxes.

Finally, this evening we had the joy of having Zach and Kara Zegan over for dessert. They only live about 20 minutes away and we haven’t had time to really catch up with them yet. It was really fun have them and their little dog Hobbes over and just catch up and say hi. It’s really special to serve the Lord alongside your friends. They have been serving at camp all last week and will leave tomorrow for another 11 days of camp. This week is a special week for Josiah Venture as the 1000th camp begins on Saturday. You can see this short video below which gives a piece of the story. Even while we have big, life changing days in our lives with the arrival of our container, God is doing things in the lives of young people in this part of the world. What a joy to serve the King. To Him be the glory!

Our 1000th Camp from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.

July 11, 2014
Say It Right, Broken Flight, And A Little Too Tight

Today was a bit of a rest day. We had a full day yesterday traveling from Bratislava and we spent the evening cleaning and packing as we made a small move from the place we’ve been staying to another missionaries house just down the road. Our container is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! We believe we have at least a dozen people coming over to help us move our stuff in, so that’s a huge answer to prayer. I’m sure it will be like Christmas getting all of our stuff and moving things in.

We didn’t have a super full day (which was a nice break), but we did have our first Czech lesson in Czech! We’ve done lessons in the States, but today Jitka got us going on some vocabulary and common greetings. Above is a photo of some commons places we were learning. We were saying things like “I am at work” (far left) and “she is at home” (or “doma”). Czech is definitely not an easy language and some words are quite difficult for our English trained tongues, but I thought we both did pretty well today and we’re looking forward to continuing this language learning journey.

This little bird (above) flew right into a closed second-story window at the house we’re staying in. I heard the thump, saw feathers flying, but never saw a bird. Assuming it had just flown away I didn’t think much of it until about ten minutes later when I went outside and found him sitting on the ground like this. He sat there for a bit and let me get very close. Eventually he flew away, but I thought it was worth sharing.

The last thing on our agenda today was to receive the appliances we purchased the other day. They called and said they would be arriving between 5-7pm at our new apartment so I decided to go over alone because there’s just nothing in our new place for the kids. The delivery guys showed up just a little after 5 and even though I couldn’t speak much to them I tried out some new Czech I just learned. I said, “Tady” meaning “here” for the washer and dryer. To be honest I thought was saying “there” but it still worked! Well, sort of…the washer and dryer didn’t fit.

Apparently not all doors are made the same. The door for the wash room just wasn’t wide enough for our machines. There was probably about a half-inch of overhang and they just weren’t going to make it through the door. It’s actually going to work out just fine because the previous missionaries had the exact same problem and the hoses and hook ups have already been moved to other side of the wall. Now they will sit on the other side of the kitchen in a small hallway type area and it’ll be fine (shown below). We’re just thankful to have them! They also brought in our fridge which we didn’t have any issues fitting. It’s really fun to see our little home coming together.

July 9, 2014
Applying For Visas and Paying for a Ticket in the Middle of the Freeway

We actually had a great day. Some friends of ours offered to get us a hotel in Bratislava because we had a very early appointment at the Czech embassy and the embassy is about 4 hours from where we live in Czech. So we got great rest last night and the hotel provided breakfast so things were going good.

Bratislava is a beautiful city, especially in the downtown area. There are a few embassies right in the center of town (including the USA!) and we trekked our way by some incredible buildings. We got to the embassy on time and we had all of our paperwork in order so it went smoothly. Of course we had our good friend Jitka who could help us translate just in case. The lady at the embassy was actually very familiar with Josiah Venture missionaries, so it made the whole process roll along just fine. Start to finish it was about an hour of time and we were on way to make the 4 hour drive home. It’s a lot of work for such a short amount of actual work time, but visas are vital to our ability to work, live, and do ministry here so you really don’t think about the trouble to make it happen.

We lingered around the town square for a little while after the embassy because there was a small playground for kids and even a McDonald’s where were grabbed something to drink. It was fun to people watch because there were a number of tour groups for all parts of the world making their way through the square. I even caught a picture of a man laying down and praying just outside of McDonald’s (photo below).

Shortly after Bethany took the photo below of the beautiful sunflower fields, we got pulled to the side of the road by the Slovakian police. Everyone was actually getting stopped. It was kind of like a police check point that they built on the highway today to make sure everyone had the right licenses, permits, and things like that. I had no idea we would actually be stopped and then pulled to the side of the road. I thought we would be waved through just like most of the other cars, but then the police man said something to men in Slovak which I just stared at him blankly and that’s when Jitka started talking to him from the back seat (Slovak and Czech are very similar languages, so they can speak to each other pretty well).

Basically what happened was we didn’t have a Slovak driving sticker for our car and we were driving in Slovakia. We really had no clue that we needed that thing and were really nervous. Jitka talk to the guy for a while and finally we had to drive to the next town, get Euros out of the ATM, then drive back to the freeway check point and literally (and I’m serious here) walk onto the freeway and pay the police in the middle of the highway. If you can imagine walking on the 5 freeway and paying for a ticket–that’s what it was like. He lowered the ticket price for us, which was a blessing, but we definitely learned a lesson: get the right permits when you drive to another country. Lesson learned.

Our little law breaking moment made us hungry so we opted for a little taste of America: KFC. By God’s grace the rest of our trip was pretty uneventful and for that we’re thankful. Our new car did great, the kids did well, and now we’ll just wait to hear back about our visas. Tomorrow our appliances we will be delivered, and if all goes well our shipping container should be here Thursday. Lots going on this week, but God gives us enough grace for every day…even when we break the law by accident.

July 8, 2014