Sorry.
In January, the Roman Catholic Church San Martin and the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, here in Martin,
had an ecumenical service one Sunday evening. Last year the service was at the Evanjelika church. This year, the service was held in the Church of San Martin, which was built in the thirteenth century. This year the choir from the Evanjelika Church sang and the Pastors from the Evangelical Church spoke. Members from San Martin read the lessons and the priests spoke.
Emily, Jeannine and Brenda are in the front row. Larry is the tallest man in the back. (Gary is behind the camera.)
It did snow once in January. Jeannine went Žilina to get her VISA. This is a picture of the Roman Catholic Church in Žilina.
The statue is representing the Russians who “liberated” Slovakia from Germany. There are not many of these memorandums left in the country. The date on the statue was 30 IV 1945.
Then I caught the train to Martin. Unfortunately, I did not get the message that I needed to change trains at the town of Vrutky. I did not realize this until I was east of Vrutky. So I got off the train at the next stop in a town of Kraľovany. It is a very small village. Here in Slovakia, the small villages are very much alive. The trains and buses stop there. Many people that work in larger towns, like Vrutky and Martin, live and renovate the houses in such villages.
The smoke and steam coming from the houses show that these villages are alive. The turquoise house is built next to a building made of logs. You can see the church and parsonage are well-kept. I did catch the next west-bound train and did get to Martin with no problem. We call these unplanned events “adventures.”
Well-kept church
Everything is so beautiful in the snow. It has not snowed enough to stay on the ground since the January snow, and we miss it now.
There were five young women, students from Augustan University in South Dakota, who came to the Elementary School for experience in teaching English to non-English speaking students. Gary and I invited three of them for dinner one week and the other two the next week. On their last night here, they invited all of the Americans at the Center for Christian Education (CCE) and Adrian and Natália Kacian to a potluck dinner. It was through Adrian and Natália that Hannah came last year. She was the one who brought the other four students with her this year.
Here are Carrie, Christine, Liz, Emily, and Hannah with Emily, a teacher at the elementary school.
Emily, on the right, is from Minnesota and this is her second year in Martin.
Gary was having some discomfort with one of his teeth. So Natalia’s brother, Martin, took him to the dentist. The dentist had just has a cancellation, so Gary got to see the dentist that day! The dentist said Gary’s teeth were in good condition and she cleaned them for him. He made an appointment for Jeannine and the first one available was in the middle of April!
One day this past week, Jeannine found every third grader in costume when she was teaching. When asked about the costumes, I found out that there would be a carnival in the school building that afternoon. I wondered about it, being in the middle of the week, but I forgot about it when I returned to our flat. Then a teacher, that Gary tutors, said something about a carnival at the middle school at which she teaches. That school is in another town. So I asked why there were carnivals today.
We learned about fašiang. It is the time of the year between Epiphany (January 6th) and Ash Wednesday. Another person told us it was from Epiphany to February 28th. This is the time to have fun, before Lent. One person told us this was the time for many weddings. We guess it is similar to Marti Gras. Why so many schools had carnivals this day, I cannot tell you. I am mad that I did not go to the carnival of the Evanjelika Elementary School and take pictures. But Katka Valčova did have us come to the preschool where her five year old daughter attends, the Friday before. The children were all dressed in costumes. We missed their little “program” of singing and dancing. But we did get to see them have the treats and play with bubbles and balloons. So this is their fašiang.
I will end with an “answer to pray” story. In October, Gary and I traveled to Banska Bystitca to spend the weekend with a student Gary taught in 2004. We got to meet Zuzana’s family and we had a great time. We ended the weekend by inviting her and her mother back to Martin to spend the weekend with us some time.
Two weekends ago she came and we had a wonderful time together. The Wednesday before, at our CCE staff breakfast, when we were speaking of prayer requests someone spoke of the need for prayer fir Jozef (the principal of the Elementary School. He had three women who had to stop teaching because of pregnancy. So we prayed about that.
We asked about the grades that Zuzana was teaching. She said she had been teaching first and fourth grade classes. However some of the fourth grade special education students were no longer going to her school. She only had seven or eight first grader students, and next year there would only three first graders. In fact, she did not know if she would have job next year.
We suggested that she apply for the jobs at the Evangelical Elementary School. We got on the web and found the notice for the jobs that had been posted in November. Zuzana applied, was interviewed and got the job! She will be starting March 1st.
Zuzana and Gary in front of the fountain in Banska Bystrica.
