Kalvaria

Dave & I took a walk on Kalvaria in Nitra. It was windy, but nice.

3xTrouble

Gabe and David made a new friend- Brandon from London. He was a slightly older Brit version of Gabie. They had a great few meetings in the Nitra park. Aside from his silliness, the thing I liked about Brandon is that he sounds exactly like Lumpy on the Heffalump movie...you have to have kids to know this one...or click on the 2nd video below. The first vid is of the guys playing soccer...sort of...

Orava Castle

What do Dracula, Hviesdoslav (Slovakia's Shakespeare), Ivetka and 6 fingered Hungarian Lord have in common? Apparently, not much except Orava Castle. One made a movie there, one wrote poetry, one inherited a field below it, and the other stole more then he gave...

Anyways, Orava Castle is a very impressive fortress built on a rocky crag overlooking the Orava river...just 10KM up the flow from Dolny Kubin...where Ivetka is from. Orava castle is truly a sight to see. A few weeks ago I joined the Sano family for a tour of the castle. It was great! Enjoy the pics...

SUNday

As most of you know - we have moved to Bratislava for a specific reason. That is we are here as Christians and we have a desire to see Jesus’ name lifted up in this city & nation. Part of sharing the Good News is to create a faith community where believers and non-believers alike can hear Gods Word, experience His Spirit and rub shoulders with His children. It’s a pretty simple goal - Share Jesus, Meet with Jesus, Share Jesus some more.

It’s been a long journey to get back to Bratislava, but it’s great to see Him, not us, unfolding His plan for a church to be formed here. Yet, God tends to do things His way...which are totally not our way! A few years ago in prayer we realized that we were to move to Bratislava. This was a shock as neither Ivetka nor I had any interest to do so. But, to make the story short- God changed our hearts, inspired us, and moved us on to the big city. The vision was, and still is, very simple - to form a faith community that will serve Slovaks and International people alike. We naturally take this to mean a bilingual church, like many of the other Calvary Chapel’s are in major European cities.

God has a sense of humor. He really does. When we thought bilingual, we assumed it would be Slovak/English, not English/Japanese! But, that is how this whole things is starting. We have now had 2 Sunday services with the Sano family- sweet friends/believers from Tokyo. And to extend the joke, we didn’t even have our first “worship service” in Bratislava, but in the hills outside of Dolny Kubin (Ivetka’s home town...a small little place in Northern Slovakia). Yet, it was great to meet together under sunny blue skies in the vastness of God’s art.

So, please keep us in prayer. God is slowly unfolding His perfect plan here in Bratislava. For sure His ways are best, His timing perfect, and His humor hysterical.

Enjoy the pics....

Back in Blava

Sorry for the blogger-balckout...we have been super busy getting settled in...Bratislava! Yes, we are back and it's been a whirlwind, Spirit breathed experience. Just to keep things short - God is good, God is providing, and God knows how to keep things interesting, and God has great timing. I will fill you in on the details later. For now please just keep us in prayer as we step forward into the good things He has prepared for us!

Hanging around

A few photos just hanging out with David...

LittleBig Country

Slovakia is indeed a beautiful country. Here is a promotional tourism commercial to invite you to this LittleBig country. The mega-dramatic narration is a bit much, but I hope it inspires you to make a visit!

Skool-cool

Back to school time is here! Now David is joining the ranks and Gabie is leading the pack. Both of the guys love their new school. BTW - we are now living in Bratislava, again! I will update more on the move later. Here is a pic of the guys waiting at Novy Most to catch the bus for school...their 1st day & loving it!

Nokia-slava

Just trying out my new Nokia.. which has two 2megapix cameras on it! The USB download feature is great. Finally I have the "new" phone. Usually, when it's time for my service to give me a new one Ivetka gets it. Anyways, here are just a few trial shots from around Bratislava. I still prefer the digital SLR...but this is for sure more compact.

Angels & Devils

I’m so behind in blogging/updating...but so much is going on and right now I don’t have an internet connection at home... Anyways, I wanted to announce that we had our 1st pastoral visit in 8 years a few weeks ago. It was long overdue, but well worth the wait. Pastor Louie from CC Norco and his wife Cheryl, and his two daughters—Lindsay and Kelsey dropped by for a few days. It was so cool to have one of our supporters with us “on the field” to see Slovakia first hand. It was a sweet time of fellowship, much encouragement from them, and tons of insight into doing life God’s way. I loved how sensitive and in-tune to the Spirit this family was. Plus their “God is good & in control” outlook on life is really right on target and inspiring for us.





Pastor Louis also preached at Mozaika church here in Nitra. It was a simple, but straight forward message from the book of Easter about coming boldly to the throne of grace. To simply rely on Jesus and take in all He has for you. To come boldly to our good King.

Aside from the spiritual strengthening, we also had lots of fun. After the service at Mozaika we went over to the Chrenova Jarmok (a sort of local street festival for one part of Nitra). A great Gypsy band called the Gypsy Devils were playing some really lively, but musically superb tunes. The place was packed and very “local.” I’m including here a video of GD studio performance of Jewish music...enjoy!



Pastor Louie & CC Norco runs a missions agency called Go! Ministries, which we serve though (and addition to Shepherd’s Staff). It’s a great resource for anyone interesting in serving as missionaries... especially within the Calvary’s. Check it out HERE.

sea pebbles

God often uses Life to work upon us like the tide on sea pebbles. We see this in the lives that have crossed our path these last few years. The tide of life comes in bringing new people, it goes out and takes them away, but eventually the tide swings back and brings them back with it...but this time its a bit different. The pebbles (and people) can be a bit smoother this time. It's the process of refinement. Of getting worn down, but better.

We recently had a visit from a long time friend Carl M. About 4 years ago Carl joined a CCBCE short-term team to serve here in Nitra. Since that encounter the Spirit has orchestrated in "mysterious ways" that Carl has visited Nitra at "random" but key times to minister to the believers here. Often times these moments of serving were on the heels of personal crisis, but in it all God's grace was covering Carl & his family during these times.

Well, on this visit Carl was in hot pursuit of meeting long lost relatives in Poland in hopes of making a claim to Polish citizenship. All of this is part of a larger desire to return to Europe to serve Jesus here. Please keep Carl & his family in your prayers as they wait patiently for the Spirit to unfold His plans for their lives and ministry.

Yet, in-between running around Poland, God really used Carl to once again speak into the lives of believers here in Nitra. Carl preached/ on the Thursday night study about finding abundant life in Jesus Christ. The teaching was very direct and heartfelt. On this particular Bible study we combined two groups together, so there were quite a few people we where unknown to us. Fortunately God knew everyone there and why they were there. Well, 1/2 way through the teaching a lady gets up and leaves the room, shortly followed by two others. We don’t know them or why they left. At the end of the study they come back and announce that the 1st lady, Maria, just accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord in the other room! Apparently, the conviction of the Word on how before Jesus we are dead in our sins was enough to open her eyes to the need for God. Praise God for this testimony! This was a pleasant surprise for us as this doesn’t usually happen on a typical meeting.

Aside from the good teaching, we had many sweet times of fellowship with Carl during his short stay. It’s great to see what God is working in this guy’s life. Life is sometimes rough, but God is using it to refine. And the results are amazing!

Again, please keep Carl and his family in your prayers as they seek to step out into God’s calling upon their lives.

BTW - the boys had a blast with Carl. They have got this thing for beards. Its a cool novelty for them. I would try it out myself, but Ivetka would kill me!

WonderFULL

Its amazing what excites our guys and what they will think up. What do you get with wads of paper, sticks, a plastic bottle and a Mickey Mouse lunch box? An indoor cowboy campfire, of course... I'm always impressed by how the boys combine seemingly random toys and objects and paste then together with imagination to create wonderful worlds of play. If only we could bottle up these creative juices!