Today I received a text message from my old Slovak tutor in Zilina. It read:

Hi, I just wanted to tell you that there was a research of almost 8000 languages in Berlin. The easiest was Spanish and the most difficult Slovak.

You can imagine my joy/despair from reading this! I felt joy because of the validation it gave me: "I'm not crazy, this language is freaking hard!!!" But I also felt despair: "Great. I'm trying to learn the hardest language ever. Yeah. That's going to happen."

Anyways, upon further research I found this:

On September 27th a linguistic consortium in Paris has come up with following results:

the easiest languages to learn:

10. mongolese

09. aramaic

08. greek

07. norwegian

06. italian

05. romanian

04. croatian

03. bulgarian

02. english

01. the easiest language in the world spoken by more than 300 million people is spanish

the most difficult languages: (linguists examined complexity of grammar, syntax, historical development, pronunciation, orthography, letter styles, signs, etc.)

10. german

09. french

08. chinese

07. japanese

06. korean

05. persian

04. arabic

03. finnish

02. hungarian

01. the most difficult language is Slovak

The most difficult is grammar structure. Slovak language is the only one with seven grammar cases (nominativ, genitiv, dativ, accusativ, local, instrumental, vocativ), exquisite words, soft and hard "i", declension of adjectives and verbs, in other words almost each and every word in this language is being declinated. There are many other characteristics which are not found in other world languages. It is said, or estimated, that it takes about 12 years to learn it completely, but the linguists say, that there is no one on this earth who can speak this language perfectly knowing all the grammar rules.

So, this new nugget of information comes to me at the perfect time. Today I start studying Slovak again. I've been on a break for the past few weeks due to moving, but tonight it all begins again.

Bring.
It.
On.

My first JV Thanksgiving

Why, you ask, do I have a photo of the Pirate's of the Caribbean in my Thanksgiving post? Well, I'll tell you. Our annual JV Thanksgiving conference is our most relaxed conference all year. It's mostly about fellowship and food and "family," with a few sessions of Biblical teaching mixed in. One of the activities we all take part in during this conference is the "Family Frenzy" time. This is an allotted time when there are lots of different games, sports and activities for us to sign up for and enjoy. Well, Katka (Yes, the same one who helped me move, and who is in the senior photo shoot. I know, we spend a lot of time together.) and I decided we wanted to find something low key so we could just chill during that time, and, sure enough, there was a puzzle to work on. Perfect. Or so we thought.

Above is the puzzle we took on with our bare hands that fateful day of the 23rd of November 2007. I'll tell you what. All that green mess = impossible. I became slightly obsessed once we began the project and found that it stole many minutes of my life away from me this past week. And I say stole because, you guessed it, it was never finished. NEVER FINISHED!!! You might as well tell me my dog died, because an unfinished puzzle sucks just as bad. Okay, maybe not just as bad, but it's not fun.

Besides the unfinished puzzle, the retreat was great. And so was the FOOD! Before we started eating on Thanksgiving day I started to get a little sad, not just because I was missing family, but also because I was missing good Southern cooking. You see, in JV, Southerners are a minority. In fact, besides my friend Brittany who is heading to Ukraine, I think Slovakia is the only JV country that has any Southerners! Such a shame! So as I sat there preparing myself for the feast, I started to miss 2 things that I know I would have gotten at home: sweet tea and cornbread dressing. Well, the sweet tea was unavailable, but my amazing teammate, Kim (from Arkansas), filled my need for cornbread dressing. She had made one and it just wasn't out on the table yet. And it was glorious. I don't know if many of you know the joys of a good cornbread dressing, but I know my brother does, and I hope he is delighted when reading this.

The Move

Clearly lots of things have happened since I last wrote on here, but I will simplify it greatly for two reasons:

1) I don’t want to bore you with tons of details.
2) I don’t want to bore myself with having to write those details.

So, here we go. Most of my October was spent trying to find a place to live in Bratislava, and, after finding one, the beginning of November was spent trying to find a way to move my junk there. And this past Saturday it finally happened! I moved my butt to Bratislava!

Here’s a little recap of how the day went:

6:00 am – Woke up to a bunch of snow in Zilina. Great. Snow + Moving = Gross
9:00 am – A few friends came over to help move stuff out.
10:30 am – We are already done, and (by the grace of God!) all my junk fit in the Kompas van and Mike’s car. Woot woot!
11:30 am – On the road to BA.
1:30 pm – Arrive in BA and begin moving my stuff up 4 floors, with no elevator. And what really sucks is that the building has an elevator, but you have to have a special key for it to work. Well, we don’t have a key, and it seems all of my neighbors decided to leave town the day I arrive with 2 car loads of heavy stuff. Thanks for the warm welcome guys.
3:00 pm – Finished moving in!!
3:30 pm – Katka comes up with the amazing idea to hit up Ikea since we have the van until the next morning, and there are lots of things my roommate and I need get soon.
4:30 pm – Arrive at Ikea. I could spend days there.
7:00 pm – Arrive back at my place with 6 heavy boxes and no guys to help us carry it up. However, after circling the block for 20 minutes, we have to stop in the middle of the road (with 3 cars waiting behind us) and “quickly” remove all boxes from the van and onto the side walk.
7:30 pm – Katka and I stare at what we have to carry up 4 flights and wonder what the heck we were thinking.
7:35 pm – All of my neighbors are still mysteriously missing/ignoring our knocking on their doors, so, yet again, no elevator for us. Curses!
8:00 pm – After 3 boxes I literally think I’m going to pass out. This is when a single girl wishes she had a husband to take care of the heavy lifting. We decide to open up the rest of the 3 boxes and carry the pieces up individually.
8:30 pm – With one box left I try to persuade Katka to just leave it down there and we will get it in the morning. Thankfully she smacks some sense into me. It wouldn’t be fun to only have half the pieces to my new bureau.
8:45 pm – We are finally done. We quickly get into our pj’s and reward ourselves for this impressively productive day with last week’s Grey’s Anatomy.

8:00 am – We both wake up feeling every muscle in our body ache.



Here are some pics from the day:

What I woke up to:


Friends that came to help. I was pretty excited everything fit in two cars.


All my stuff.




The four flights of stairs.


My new building. I promise I wasn't lying about being on the fourth floor, you just can't see it here.


The park across the street from my place.


A view from inside the park.


Ok, well I hope this was a sufficient update on my move. On another note, I haven't had internet at home for 5 weeks now, which is extremely inconvenient. I'm kind of going crazy. That's another reason for my lack of posts lately. Yep, I'm still giving you excuses, but this one is pretty valid. I'm hoping it'll get set up here on Friday. We'll see.

A real one is coming soon...

Ok, so I promise a new blog is coming soon! I just moved to Bratislava, so things have been a little crazy and I don't have internet yet, but I'll get one ready this week. I PROMISE!!! (don't hate me for sucking at this!)

Fall Conference Pics

I don't really feel like writing today, but I feel obligated to give you some sort of treat since it has been a while since my last post. So, here are some pictures taken while at our JV Fall conference a couple of weeks ago:

This is a picture of the team I work with in Slovakia. The back row is (from L to R): Peto M., Zac, Peto H., and Kenric. The front row is: Draho, Paige, Me, and Miska.



Here is our team photo shoot gone awkward. Um, Kenric, you're a little too close for comfort.




Now these next set of photos could quite possibly blow your mind. They, in fact, are nothing short of AMAZING.

And to clarify, yes, we were going for the "cheezy-senior year-BFF" photo shoot. But I guess instead it should be considered the "cheezy-JV Fall Conference-BFF" photo shoot. The models other than myself are Brittney Boatman (soon to be serving in Ukraine) and Katka Vlnova (serving in Czech). They are my some of my favies.

Who knew I had the secret power to turn into a bunny?


This one actually turned out kinda cute, minus Brittney's "am I really doing this right now?" face.


My personal fave. Seriously, Katka's outstretched "look at me, I'm flying!" arms make me laugh EVERY time.


Oh the beautiful scenery. And the mountains are kinda pretty too. A wink!


NOTE: I realize I seriously overused quotation marks in this post. Please forgive me. But some things just can't be summed up in one word.

Is there such a thing as Autumn Fever?

Seriously, this is a problem.

Autumn is my favorite time of year, and it is in full effect here in SK. Really, it's quite lovely. But with it being so lovely comes the issue of me losing all motivation to be productive. As I was sitting in language today I just looked at my tutor and said, "I don't want to learn anymore." Thankfully, she assumed I was joking and just laughed, but sadly I wasn't joking.

Ugh. I need help.

Wait... This isn't Disney World?

While Steph was here visiting, we had the chance to visit a castle here in Bojnice. There are tons of castles throughout Slovakia, but most of them are just ruins. This one has been restored, so I was pretty excited to check it out. We didn't have a ton of time to hang out there, due to the fact we had caught a ride with Paige who had business there. Initially we thought we'd just walk around the grounds and appreciate the beauty from there, but we soon changed our mind when we saw people coming from inside the castle. We thought, we're here, so we might as well check it out.

So, we quickly go up to the ticket window, get ourselves 2 tickets, and start heading inside. Until we look around and see there isn't a clear entrance. I go back up to the window to ask where the tickets permit us to go, when I find out its actually for a tour. "Ok, great!" I say, turn around to go tell Steph, and then I realize it. The tour will be in Slovak of course.

Now, I don't know exactly what I was thinking when I bought those tickets. As if we could just skip around this huge castle, or that the tour would be in English. I think that part of me forgot I was in Slovakia since Steph was with me. And it probably didn't help that Steph kept saying at random points (and especially when we were in Prague), "I feel like this place isn't real, like we are in the international part of Disney World or something!" That made me laugh every time.

So, I go back to the window and ask if they have any English material to go with the tour. Thankfully they did. I go back and tell Steph the news, we share a good laugh, and then we head with the rest of the people for the tour.

Now, what happened next is a good picture of what life is like for me here most of the time.

As we head into the first room of the castle, Steph and I try to hug the back of the group in hopes that we won't stand out, since we'll be reading a little brochure instead of listening to the tour. So, as the tour guide starts talking, Steph and I start reading about the room. Well, after a few moments I look up to see that everyone else in the room has turned around to look at something right above our heads... while we are still just standing there reading our little handout. I try to slowly, and hopefully somewhat inconspicuously, turn around as if I knew what was going on, but it was too late. We had already been outed as foreigners, and I couldn't stop laughing at how absurd we looked.

And such is everyday life for me here in SK. I try so hard to just blend in, but then something happens which everyone else understands, and I'm stuck looking in the wrong direction. I can't do anything but laugh when this happens. Sometimes I cry, but, thankfully, most times I just laugh.

My First Visitor...

One of the many reasons I have not posted anything in these past few weeks is due to a visit from my friend Steph. Steph and I have been friends since my freshman year at USC, and lived together our junior and senior years with a few other amazing women. Needless to say, she is one of my closest and dearest friends, and I was thrilled to have her visit.

Another reason I was so excited to have her visit was that I was ready for my two worlds to collide. Over the past couple years, and even more so in the past 6 months, I have come to feel like I live 2 different lives. There is my American life and my Slovak life. And it is so difficult to describe in words to people from home what my Slovak life is like. So, unfortunately, more often than not, I don't even try. But with Steph coming, I was going to be able to let someone experience it with me, and that was something that I was really looking forward to.

Steph came to Slovakia after spending 6 weeks in Africa with Young Life. (NOTE: When she arrived at the airport in Vienna, we recreated the cliché airport scene from any classic cheesy movie. I was running late, so I rushed into the waiting area searching for her. I hear her call my name, run up to her, and we collapse in each other's arms crying. Yep. We were totally those girls. I'm getting more embarrassed as I write this. Moving on.) Over the next 10 days we did some fun traveling, a little shopping, and enjoyed some really great meals. However, all of it paled in comparison to the endless conversations we had about what our lives should look like as Christians, how to live a simpler life, and what it means to be fully surrendered to God. Steph had learned and experienced so much during her time in Africa and I was blessed to be able to debrief that time with her. If nothing else comes from her trip, she should at least know that I am changed for the better.

Here is a pic of Steph and I pretending to be normal:


This is more like it:


And here is a retro pic for kicks… We were attending an “Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.” So, no. That’s not how we normally dressed in college. Come on people, you should know better.

So I lied...

Yeah, so I guess I lied when I promised it wouldn't be another month before my next post. Sorry about that.

Camp Time!

So I realize it has been over a month since my last post, but for goodness sake people, July was just too busy to stop and blog! The first two weeks were filled with helping plan our pre-camp training days for our camp teams, as well as traveling to Bratislava twice. On the 16th the American team from Shandon arrived, and then began the whirlwind of camp! Everyone had training in Zilina for a couple of days, English camp for a week, and, afterwards, a few days of follow up in Bratislava.

Camp this year was so great, but so different from any I had been involved with in the past. Why, you ask? Well, it's because this year a virus managed to pull a sneak attack on our camp site. At first it was just the camp director's son and one other guy, but by the end of the week I'd say almost half of the camp was plagued with some form of it. Including yours truly. That's right, I got myself a nice little virus. And by little, I mean it took me a week to finally get over. Lovely. So, as you can imagine, camp had a bit of a different vibe this year. It was much more laid back than usual. But, amidst all the sickness, God totally moved, and I am really excited to see what comes of the seeds that were planted.

Here are some pictures from camp. I managed to not take a single picture all week, so I stole these from some of the people who came on the Shandon team. I know, I'm a missionary and I shouldn't steal... sorry!

This is me teaching the camp teams our camp dance. Yes. You read correctly. I taught them all a dance. I've got all kinds of tricks up my sleeve that yall don't even know about! And that's Lenka with me. I promise she actually enjoyed doing this with me... even though this picture might seem otherwise.


I helped create a team building activity for American and Slovak camp teams to do together at training. It was something like a picture scavenger hunt around the city. One of the tasks was for their team to all get into some sort of water. They are in a fountain on the lower square in Zilina, and if you can't tell, Mato isn't so shy.


This is Lenka, Jarka, and Liba. Lenka was our camp leader, and she was actually my translator for my very fist camp in Slovakia. All three of these girls rock my face off.


Look at that fierce card playing face. No wonder I always dominate in these games.


Everyone doing the camp dance.


They are giving you their best American smile. Look at all those theeth!


Alright, that's all I got for now. But I promise it won't be another month before my next blog!!

Slovak for Laura...

As you all know, I am trying to learn Slovak. In fact, this is a picture of my Slovak text book. Isn't it all nice and colorful? Yes. I think so too. And, like most textbooks (at least the ones I remember from high school), all the pictures inside are extremely outdated. I don't mind though, because they sometimes provide me with entertainment when I'm supposed to be studying. You've got to love that sweet 90's fashion... tapered jeans for everyone!!!

Anyhow, this language is extremely difficult. Well, at least for me it is. I never thought I had a natural tallent for languages, but then again this is the first language I've REALLY tried to learn (I was a bit of a slacker when it came to Latin and Spanish). And it's quite demoralizing to accept that I sound like a 2 year old most of the time. But, such is life when you move to a different culture.

So, the other day I was having lunch at my friend Zuzka's house. She is married to one of my teammates, Draho, and they have 3 little kids. While I was there I started playing with their oldest son, Oliver. Oli is 4 years old, and he actually attends an English pre-school. So, he and I had a nice little communication thing going on. He understood most of my English, and I understood most of his Slovak (considering he's 4 and uses basic words... but hey, that's something). While we were playing, he decided he wanted me to read to him, and brought me a Slovak children's book. However, this was no See Spot Run. This was like a mini novel. With long paragraphs and what not. I was intimidated. But, the kid wanted me to read, and I didn't want to disappoint. So I started reading... or should I say stumbling... through the first sentence. When I finished trudging through that first line, I turned to look at Oli. He had his hand on his forehead and was shaking his head. That's right, my Slovak totally got judged by a 4 year old. Impressive, huh?

And, no. He didn't have me read any more of the book.

Tour de Slovakia...

This week Paige, Katka (my friend from Czech) and I went on a little excursion around Slovakia. We left Zilina Tuesday morning and drove east to Presov. There we picked up Ryan, our one intern this summer, and then drove to Kosice. We had four reasons for our trip. The two legitimate reasons were to meet up with a group from Paige's home church who was there doing a work project, and to have a meeting with a local youth pastor. The other two reasons were to have a fun road trip, and for me to see Kosice (which is known as the most beautiful city in Slovakia). Thankfully, ALL objectives were accomplished. Here are some pics from Kosice.
Ryan, Katka, and I by the fountain:


Us sitting four deep on a bench while some stranger takes our picture:


The cathedral at night:


Some big bell:


After the night was done, we had to drive BACK to Presov to drop Ryan off, and then us three girls drove another hour or more to Poprad to spend the night. We rolled in right at midnight and crashed. However, the next day we were well rested and able to enjoy the beautiful High Tatra mountains of Slovakia. Yay for nature!

Mystery Neighbor...

This is the view directly across from mine and Zuzka's balcony. Well, actually, that's a lie. You do see see this from our balcony, but this is if you are looking out my bedroom window. I didn't exactly know how to take this picture without looking completely sketchy, so I had to do it all stealth-like from my window. Don't worry, I don't think anyone saw me.

Anyhow, in reality this balcony is directly across from ours. So, you can imagine that we kind of feel like we share our kitchen with these people, considering they can basically see right in. We used to see right into their living room, but then they so cleverly put up that bamboo stuff which provides them with a little more privacy. Maybe one day Zuzka and I will get around to doing something like that, but probably not.

So, let me finally get to the point of this post. And that is that Zuzka and I are completely intrigued by the people that live there. Specifically the man that lives there. We see him the most, because he is ALWAYS on the balcony smoking. And I'm serious when I say always. Its like he never has to go to work. Either that, or he gets paid to smoke on his balcony. The other day I was sitting on our balcony journaling and out he came. It took everything in me not to just yell across the way, "Hey, What's your deal?" But something tells me he probably wouldn't have thought that was as funny as I would. Zuzka and I have finally come to the conclusion that we think he is part of the mafia here in Zilina. I'm serious. Because he also drives a really nice car for someone who never seems to work. And clearly that's the only logical assumption for why.

There you have it. You people thought me moving to Slovakia would be safe... but little did you know I'd be living across the street from the Slovak Sopranos.

I'm exhausted...

So the past 2 weeks I've been running around Slovakia and Czech like a madman... woman... whatever. I was in Bratislava for a few days, then back to Zilina, then to Cesky Tesin, then to Prague, then to Ostrava, back to Cesky Tesin, then to Malenovice for a week, back home to Zilina, off to Bratislava again, and now I am officially home for the next 2 weeks. YAY!!

Besides my time in Bratislava, most of this time has been devoted to the arrival of our JV summer interns. My friends Gavin and Nate created a 2nd annual Amazing Race for the interns, and thankfully this year I was able to help out instead of go through it. Last year my team came in a very distant last place, AND I managed to be the only intern who cried during the race. Yeah, I'm never going to live that one down. But however tiring this time has been, it has all been well worth it. Here are a few things of note that I've done during this time:

1) I rode a bike for the first time in probably over 10 years (I'm not even joking... it's totally been that long). I went with my dear friend Liba when I was in BA 2 weekends ago. It was stinking hillarious. I was riding a guy's bike because the tires were flat in the girl's bike, so not only was I super rusty at riding but the bike was a little too tall for me. Great combo. The majority of the ride I was yelling "I'm gonna die!!" At one point we were going down this narrow path beside a pond and I thought for sure I was going to end up in it. That would have been bad.


2) I visited the bone church in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. The inside of this chapel was decorated with the bones of 40 thousand people by a half blind monk. Depressing and disturbing you say? Yes. But totally worth seeing.

3) I watched 3 turkeys reach the end of their short lived lives. This was one of the stops on the amazing race. The teams had to either kill a turkey (cut its head off) or gut the turkey after its been killed. And these weren't baby turkeys either. They were monster turkeys. When I saw them I thought there was no way anyone would do it... it would be like killing a pet or something. But what was hilarious was that the teams didn't see the turkeys before agreeing to kill them. All they could see were baby turkeys, so when we opened the door to the pen where the real turkeys were being held the reactions were classic. Sorry if this one grosses some of yall out... but I hadn't laughed that hard in while.

4) I met and reconnected with some of the greatest people I know. Seriously, I continue to be amazed at how God provides me with people over here that even though I've only known them for a short time, it feels like I've known them for years. It makes this life so much easier. Here are two of my favorites, Katka and Leah. They both live in Czech.

5) The day I came home from intern training I went to take a nap (and I never take naps) at 3:30 in the afternoon and basically slept until 9 the next morning. I've never slept like that in my life. I was pretty impressed.

So, there you have it. 5 nuggets from my past 2 weeks. Hope you enjoyed! If not, well, go read someone else's blog.

My 3 Month Battle...

Every Tuesday at 9:00 we start our weekly staff meetings. This past Tuesday we spent the first hour sharing what God was doing in our lives. As I sat listening to everyone else, I was secretly praying that I would make it through the hour without having to share. I was hoping that if I was quiet and looked really engaged, that nobody would notice I hadn't shared. I looked down at my phone and saw it was 9:45. "Yes, we are almost through, " I thought, "I'm going to make it...." But then my boss, Peto, turned right toward me and asked if I had anything to share.

Dang it.

With everybody's eyes on me I immediately started crying. And it wasn't that sweet cry that you can still talk through, it was the ugly cry. The one where your face makes this weird contortion you never knew it could, and you've lost all hope of forming coherent sentences. And once I started, I had no idea how to make it stop. I managed to stumble through the basic ideas of "I really miss home" and "I'm having a hard time right now," but after that Paige had to start communicating for me.

Once I gained some composure, I excused myself and went to the bathroom in hopes of splashing some cold water on my face. But instead the ugly cry reared its head again. For 30 minutes I stood there. Just crying. Aching to go home, to be with friends and family that really knew me. Where I could go shopping and actually be able to confidently ask for help if I couldn't find something. Where I can walk down the street and smile at a stranger, and actually get a smile in return. Where church is more than just a language lesson. Where I am comfortable.

Everyone says around 3 months is the hardest time - in the area of home sickness and culture shock - and they were so right. Each day seems to be a battle. A battle between staying in bed, or rising to face the day ahead of me. Between running away and hiding, or pushing through the tears with the hope that this will pass. Each day I have to remind myself that God hasn't called me to live a life of comfort. That God has called me to a life in Slovakia. And that my God wants nothing but good things for me. So even though right now this is painful, it is good. And that is what is getting me through this battle right now.

My apologies...

When starting this blog, I had really hoped to update it often... at least once a week. But then life gets going, and I find myself prefering to do something mindless in my free time than this. So I apologize for my failure to keep you properly updated.

Our Mountain Top Experience...

The other weekend Paige, Stani, and I decided to take a little day trip. The weather had started to get really warm here, so we figured we would head to the top of a nearby mountain before all the snow melted. So we put on our hiking boots, filled up our nalgenes, and headed out the door. Just kidding. We actually just hopped in the car, drove about 30 minutes, and then took the enclosed ski lift up to the top.



Man was it beautiful. It was extremely beautiful... but it was also still extremely covered with snow and skiers. I mean, it was packed. And there we were in our tennis shoes, light jackets, and with 2 dogs (that's right, we brought both of Paige's dogs, Windsor and India, up to the top of a mountain with us). We stuck out like soar thumbs. So, we awkwardly stood there for a few moments until we noticed a small patch of ground that wasn't covered in snow, trudged over to it, and looked up to see this amazing view.



Well, after a few minutes of taking in the beautiful sight, we started to realize how ridiculously cold it was. And, let me remind you, we were only in light jackets and tennis shoes. But who gets all the way to the top of a mountain just to turn around and go back down? Well, we do. We stayed up there for about 20 minutes trying to enjoy our mountain top experience, but finally had to accept the reality that we were just not enjoying ourselves. So, what we thought was going to be a day trip, ended up being about a 2 hour trip. Oh well.

Here is a pic showing how spring has sprung here. This is about 20 steps from the door of my apartment building. Yay for pretty flowers! They make all the gray communistic buildings not look so bad.

More KPM Pics...

Here are some pictures from the actual conference. You can see part of the fabulous fruit display I did in the middle picture. I'm so humble.

KPM

Two weekends ago my team hosted KPM here in Zilina. KPM is an annual conference held for all the youth workers across Slovakia, and this year close to 600 people attended. I had little involvement with the production of this conference (In fact, all I really did was arrange a fruit display on the stage, but it was the most compelling fruit display anyone has ever seen!! Or at least that's what I keep telling myself...) so instead I was able to attend and enjoy all the hard work my team had done.

In fact, there was a whole group of us that attended the conference together: me, Paige, Amy, Bekah, Zuzka (my roommate), Stani (Paige's roommate), and a couple other girls that Paige had taught at the university. We also had two girls from Arkansas, Laura and Hannah, who flew in to experience KPM and have a chance to spend time with Paige's university girls. From the Thursday that KPM began, until the Monday after it ended, we all spent every meal and evening together. We had a great time attending the sessions, playing games, cooking meals... all in fellowship with one another. It was a good time.

Here is a picture of some of us from that weekend.


Top row, left to right: Laura, me, Janka, Evka, Paige, Stani. Bottom row, left to right: Hannah, Amy, Zuzka

Who knew TROUTMAN would be so hard to understand...

In Slovakia it is custom to put -ova at the end of a woman's last name. For example, Mr. Smith's wife would be Mrs. Smithova. Except that you would never, ever meet a Smith over here... that is unless they were American of course.

Well, anyhow, in the month that I have been here - that's right, it's been a month - I have learned that my last name causes some problems over here. And by problems, I mean that most people don't spell it right. I don't mind you putting -ova at the end of my name. I completely understand that. I don't want people thinking I'm a dude either, especially since there are so many male Laura's out there. All I ask is that when I am spelling out my name for you, you pay attention and write it down correctly. Is that too much to ask? I think not.

And the adventures begin...

Last weekend my friend Bekah and I decided to take a little trip to Bratislava to check out the IKEA there. We took a train from Zilina that morning, then once arriving in BA we hopped a bus to IKEA. All smooth sailing. No bumps along the way. We were totally in control of our destiny.

After a couple hours of perusing, we got our stuff together and headed back to the bus stop. Our bus, bus #64, was scheduled to arrive at 2:45, so we got there at 2:30 just to be sure we didn't miss it. Well, 20 minutes went by and there was no bus. We start to stress. You see, our train was leaving at 3:32, and we still needed to buy a ticket, so time was precious at this moment. Finally, we see bus #64 crossing over the bridge and coming right for us. We gathered our stuff together and are ready to get on...

But the bus sped right past us.

You've got to be kidding me. This is where I start to freak out inside. As many of you know, I am quite high strung when it comes to traveling. I like to be totally aware of what is going on, where I am going, what I need to do to get there... Well, you get the picture. And, yeah, I know. I probably shouldn't have moved to a foreign country if I wanted to avoid such stress. Get off me.
Well, at 3:10 our bus shows up. If I knew any Slovak I might have had a few words for our driver, but since I don't I just had sit down and pout. And at this point we had bigger issues. We were about to miss our train. The whole ride Bekah and I can't decide if we are going to make a run for it or not, but at 3:30 we arrived at the station and had to make the decision. So we run for it.
We got to the ticket counter, bought our ticket quickly, sprinted to the right platform, and jumped on our train. VICTORY!! We made it!! Yay!! The train pulls away seconds after we got on, and then reality hit us...

We got on the wrong train.

Well, at least we were pretty sure it was the wrong one. But, we figured we would just ask someone else on the train where they were going and see....



There was no one else on the train. Not one.

Crap. Crap, crap, crap. Where the heck are we going and WHY ARE WE THE ONLY PEOPLE ON THIS TRAIN??? After about 10 minutes of traveling the train stops. Thank goodness! We'll just get off, go into the station, get a new ticket, and be on our way to Zilina. Easy as that...

There was no station.

That's right. No station. We were stuck at the maintenance yard. Just me, Bekah, and about 15 middle-aged Slovak men wearing bright orange overalls. What have we gotten ourselves into? Well, we jumped off the train and started looking for someone to talk to. You'd probably think that these men would be curious as to why these 2 American girls are wandering around their workplace, but they acted as if it was the norm. I mean, come on. Give us a break.
Well, Bekah finally found someone to talk to, and with what Slovak she knows she explained what had happened to us. Of course I had no idea what was being said, so I just stood there like some kind of mute. Finally, once their exchange was over, she turned to me to share the information she has just learned...

We have to walk down the tracks to get back to the station.

But don't worry, its only a 25 minute walk. Right. Just 25 minutes of dodging trains while trying to avoid a sprained ankle from the oh-so-even terrain. Is this some joke? At this point I'm waiting for candid camera to jump out of the bushes. But no, its not a joke, so we started walking. Just after we made it up this little hill and passed by some creeptacular vagabond (that's right, I said vagabond. But we're talking about walking down train tracks people, when else would you use that word??), one of the men in orange jumpsuits came running after us.
After yet another exchange with this man, Bekah tells me we don't have to walk. He said if we sit on this train (motions left) in about 2 hours it will be going to the station, so we can just ride it back. Well, at this point we didn't know what option was better, walking down sketchy train tracks for 25 minutes or sitting at the sketchy maintenance station for 2 hours. Hmm, decisions. So, we finally decided to call my roommate Zuzka for a little help. After a brief explanation of what we had gotten ourselves into, Bekah set out to find another orange overall man that Zuzka can talk to. Who knows why we didn't do this earlier?
In the end, we ended up riding back to the station - FIRST CLASS BABY- on a different train, which left in 30 minutes instead of 2 hours. Thankfully, we made it in time to catch a 5:12 train, and at 7:40 we arrived safely in Zilina... quite exhausted and scarred from traveling on trains, but safe none-the-less. Oh the adventures of living in a foreign country. Bring it on, Slovakia, bring it on.

When in Rome...

Of all the places in the world, Rome was the one place I knew I had to visit before I died. It probably has something to do with my love of art history, or the fact that I just wanted to be able to say, "when in Rome..., " but whatever the reason, I have been eager to get there for many years. Last week this dream came true.

As many of you know, I moved to Slovakia just a couple weeks ago. And, conveniently enough, I managed to arrive just 5 days before Josiah Venture's annual Women's Conference, which was... you guessed it... held in ROME this year!! (the above photo is a good example of my excitement about this) The timing of my arrival in Slovakia could not have been better. Not only would I be able to see Rome, but I had a chance to meet and spend time with 30 of JV's women, all who serve in Eastern Europe.

Our time there was fabulous, as I'm sure you can imagine, but the most memorable moment of the whole trip was the time we spent at the Colosseum. Andrea, one of the JV ladies from Czech, had encouraged us to join her there for a time of communion. She felt this would be a way to honor all the Christian martyrs who had lost their lives in that very stadium.

Now all of you reading this right now are probably thinking how special that experience could be, but I have to admit I was not thinking anything like that. I was actually trying to think of a way to avoid it all together. That's right. I'm a Christian, and a missionary, and I was trying to avoid having communion. However, I was not alone in this. My dear teammate Paige was with me (sorry to have outted you, Paige, but I can't be the only one getting judged right now). She and I could not imagine finding a place inside of the Colosseum that would allow for some privacy; a place that would not make us look like some sort of crazies. But, in the end, we stopped searching for the nearest exit and joined or JV sisters for communion.

After everyone arrived, Andrea shared a few words and then asked us to pair up and spread out around the Colosseum. Once paired up, we read aloud to each other Romans 4 and Hebrews 11. Immediately the Lord humbled me. Hebrews 11:36-40 says:

"Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated--of whom the world was not worthy--wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect."

Here I was in a place where Christians were mutilated for their faith, and all I was thinking about was how we were going to look weird.

After reading those verses, Andrea came over to Paige and I and served us communion. It was such a beautiful and powerful moment. Paige and I were totally in awe of how God so gently showed us how wrong we had been. Thank goodness for His grace.

This is a picture of all the JV ladies outside the Colosseum, post-communion.



This is a photo of all the women on my team in SK. From left to right it is Amanda, ME, Kim, Paige, and Amy. We were attempting to do something of a cheesy sorority picture, but it looks like only me, Paige, and Amy got that memo.