God Weaves Us Together

This last eight days has been incredible in the ways God has brought people in our lives to help us.

Thursday night, 19 August, Gary and Jeannine decide to go somewhere on the train (in Slovakia), get reservations for a pension (hotel) and return. We select Poprad, a town east of here by 1 ½ hours by car, just under 2 hours by train. We get to the train station in time to buy our tickets. Buying the tickets was relatively easy because we had printed out the train schedule and just showed which one we wanted.

As we wait for the train, Jeannine notices a student of hers from last year, Helena. We begin talking and it turns out that she is going to Prague, in the Czech Republic, to visit her daughter. So we get on the train with her and get off to change trains after a 7 minute ride. We changed trains; the train from went onto Prague with no changes.

In Vrutky we change trains and find a very nice car with tables between the seats. When the person who checks the tickets comes by, she points to our tickets and says, “Nie, nie, nie.” Oh dear, are we on the wrong train? She finally gets us to understand that we are on the correct train, just the wrong car. She keeps pointing to the number 2 on our ticket. So we go looking for car #2. The next is numbered 2, but it’s a dining car. We are directed to keep going in the same direction. We finally found a car with seats for us, and discovered that the 2 was for second class.

We are asked if we are Americans by a woman in the cabin with us. She is a naturalized American citizen with a little four year old boy who was born in the states. We have only a short time to visit with her because she is getting off at the next stop.

Another passenger in the same cabin begins to speak with us. He lives in Bratislava, and is a philosophy professor at the university in Bratislava. We chat with him until we get to Poprod. He is on his way back to the home village of his family for a wedding. He will get off at the stop after Poprod and ride his bike to that village. Before we depart, He gives us his phone number and invites us to his place in Bratislava and perhaps he will take us to Italy.

We saw many wonderful things in and around Poprod which I will describe on another blog. We did want to go to a rather large castle at the town of Spissky. It costs us less than five Euros for both of us to ride the bus to Spissky. We are watching the map and road signs naming the villages as we pass through, so we will know when to get off. After we get through the last town before Spissky, the bus stops and lets someone out. Jeannine panics and asks if this is the stop to get to the Hrad (castle). She is assured that this is not the stop.

When we get to Spissky, we are told to get off and a couple of people insist that we follow them. They are going to show us the way to the castle. We walked for about a ½ mile as they show us where to go to get to the path towards the castle. These people went out of their way to keep us from getting lost.


Back in Martin, Jeannine received a letter that says the work on her VISA is being delayed until the background clearance comes, but there is less than 60 days to get everything done. (For those who do not know, Jeannine’s fingerprints have been taken twice and rejected twice as not having characteristics with the necessary quality as determined by the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System.) She cannot get somebody to speak to on the phone numbers given, just recordings. Yet she does see on the FBI’s Website that she can send in more than one set of prints at a time (w/$18 per set.)

Lubos has helped Gary and Jeannine every step of the process. He calls up early today (7:30 AM) and says he can take her to the local police station. A father of a student at the Elementary School works on the police department and has arranged for their fingerprint expert will do this for us. Lubos explains the problem and that expert spends a good forty minutes taking my fingerprints. One of the things that is different is that after the hands are washed, she is given grease out of a tube to rub on them for several minutes before she wipes them off. Those were the best prints taken. The question now is, “How can we get them to the FBI in WV the fastest way.

They get back to the Bible School to see a small group from Pennsylvania, packing the car to go to Vienna before they fly home on Sunday. We ask if they would take the prints and put them in the mail when they get home. Sally says she will do that. Yes, we believe they were here this week for this reason (besides painting the two classrooms.)

We keep being amazed at the angels that God puts along our walk in this beautiful country.


Tomorrow Gary and Jeannine will board the train to Prague, that they know about from their encounter with Helena. Bohdon’s uncle lives outside Prague and has invited them to spend some time in that beautiful city. I suspect that will be another story.

Sutovy Waterfalls

Sutovy Waterfalls

After two days of tremendous rains, we decided to make the walk to some waterfalls just outside a small town, Sutovy. We took a bus to this little town l.30 € for each of us. It was about forty minute to Sutovy. We stopped at several towns along the way.

At Sutovy, we start walking in the direction of the sign pointing the way. We leave the town, pass some beautiful green hills, and come to another sign that points to a paved road into the woods. At a parking lot, we read a sign about this being on of the Slovak National Parks.

So now we start our walk, which is not too strenuous, but should take us 1 ½ hours to get to the falls. It takes Gary and Jeannine about 2 ½ hours to get there. About two thirds the way there, the path is not paved. Furthermore, the ground is saturated and the path is running water. Not too bad, but definitely wet and we try to walk out of the water. I think that is one of the reasons that we are so slow. However, many people pass us and they have children with them.


We do make it to the falls and they are well worth the walk. After some pictures we decide that we better head down to Sutovy to make the last bus of the day back to Martin. All day it has been cloud and sometimes threatened to rain. Yet we never got more than a few drops.

We made it in time to get a drink buy some water, and just barely caught the bus. As we’re counting our change, to pay for the ride home, the bus driver must turn on the windshield wipers, because it is now raining.

We had a day full of happenings and blessings.

Getting Settled

The team left 8 days ago. We have one more week before the teachers of the elementary school begin work for the upcoming school year. So what have Gary and Jeannine been doing?

Mainly we’ve been settling down in our third story flat. We had to buy comforter covers and pillow cases, towels, stock our kitchen and find places for everything that we brought. Most of the Center for Christian Education staff is away from the school, either on holiday trips or working on their houses.

We are not alone. Monday morning Larry and Brenda Fast knocked on our door and wanted to know if we wanted to go to Tesco with them. We grabbed our list, our shopping bags and the backpack and were on our way. It is roughly a 3 mile round trip walking to Tesco.



Larry and Brenda have volunteered for two years and came in October 2009. They taught conversational and beginning English to the workers of the City of Martin. This coming they will be teaching workers of the Water Company for Martin. They invited us to their flat that evening for a delicious dinner of cornbread, beans and rice. The next day, Larry took us to the train station to get a senior rail pass, which will save us 50% on train tickets.

All total, we made 4 trips to Tesco, two trips to the Martin center and one to the farmers’ market. It has been interesting to shop with little or no language shared, but people are very patient with us and try their best to figure out what we’re shopping for. This is a definite reason for learning more Slovak.

For us, today’s weather was unbelievable. Last night there was so much lightning that Gary could see clear across the room. This morning the rain came in a deluge, the lightning still flashed and the thunder was quite loud on the top floor. Good thing the front door to the church is just steps away. We keep remembering the beautiful countryside that God is watering.

Except for the restaurants and cafes, the town closes between 17:30 and 18:00 on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays. With our internet services down a good deal of the time, sometimes it feels as if there is nothing to do, yet God knows what we need, even if we don’t. After two and a half months of a hectic move out of our house and packing, we
are enjoying this time.

Having trouble putting more than one picture at a time so we'll end here.

Gary and Jeannine Jenks

Viewing Slovak Houses and Dances

After we said good-bye to most of the team, Ivan & Estella, Leon & Joann, Larry & Brenda and Gary and Jeannine decided to go to the outdoor museum. As we passed on the town square, we saw some people in dressed in native Slovak clothes and remembered that there would be some dances this evening. We stayed to watch a couple of dances on the square.

Ivan and Estella decided to go to the Slovak Culture Museum while the rest of us decided on the outdoor museum. First, we had to find the bus that would get us the closest to the Outdoor Museum. After that, we had about three quarters of a mile walk up a hill with a gradual incline. This museum has many different types of houses that have been built in this area.



We saw so many interesting things in the exhibits, but we wanted to be back to Martin by 16:00 so we could see the dancing, so we left before we had seen everything.






When we arrived at the outdoor auditorium, the sun was hot and all of the vacant seats of the auditorium, were in the sun, so we decided to sit in the shade. Ivan and Estella found us within five minutes of us settling down. We were listening to an orchestra, and viewing a hawk which was being held quite near us.


We waited and waited. The program began at four as scheduled, but it was a politician speaking, then some singing, then another polotician....for an hour. Leon & Joann decided return to the dorm, and Larry & Brenda went with them. We decided to get closer to the stage, which was now mostly in the shade. As we were moving, the Slovak National Anthem was played. After that, the hawk was let loose to fly above the audience. Then the dances began. It was quite evident that this was a professional group and the dances were great.

Saying Goodbye

Saturday, 7 August 2010 most of the CA Team got on the bus, their mission accomplished. They will be sharing how the LORD has blessed them during these last two weeks. Many people showed up to say goodbye. Bohdan, Michal & Katka, Adrian, three girls from the kitchen,
KJ from MN as well as the 2 year missionaries from WA, Larry & Brenda.


Marsha, I so enjoyed working with you.





The six members of the team who are staying, Leon & Joann, Ivan & Estella, and Gary & Jeannine are there to wave farewell, also.

Getting Settled

Katka surprised us with news that we could get into our apartment as everyone else moved into their dorm rooms.

The rooms are much bigger than we expected. The bedroom has enough beds for five or six people. Gary and I are only going to use the double bed.

There are not many drawers, but does have a three section closet. The other room has an area with a large couch, a little space that has a desk and wiring for a computer, and a small kitchen area with a small table with four chairs for meals. The best part of the apartment is its brightness. We have seven roof-top windows which makes the whole apartment full of light.

Krakow

The next day we went by bus to Krakow, Poland. It took about 6 hours to get there. We had a wonderful two and a half days there. The city was beautiful and so was the weather.

On Saturday, Katka arrived with a full-sized bus. It took four and a half hours to get to Martin.