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.

So I started a blog...

As you can see, I have started a blog for all you people out there who are dying to know about my life here in Slovakia. Before I wasn't sure if I would venture into such a project, but the demand for one has been high. That's right, I've had AT LEAST 4 people ask me if I had one. So, here you have it. Enjoy.