a good read

just one of those articles i liked so much i wanted to post on facebook and here. challenging and thoughtful. and readers' comments are interesting as well. gotta love Relevant.

všetko v poriadku

So a bunch of folks have asked about my trip to Central Europe, especially the last week when I was traveling alone. Before I get to the good stuff, here's a basic outline of how I spent my time.

From May 18 through June 3, I was assistant staff for the 2009 Big Sky Expeditions missions team. Our group was made up of 7 college students, team leader Scott and his wife Anna, and me. We spent 8 days in Slovakia, and then another 8 in Poland. My itinerary from there: Krakow, Poland to Banovce nad Bebravou, Slovakia (June 4); Banovce nad Bebravou to Bratislava, Slovakia (June 5); Bratislava to Vienna, Austria (June 6); Vienna to Brno, Czech Republic (June 8); Brno to Prague, Czech Republic (June 9); fly out of Prague (June11). A canceled flight left me in Salt Lake city for an extra day, and I got back to Missoula on June 13, tired and sick with a cold, but happy.

And now, some highlights:

• Seeing Wagner's Die Walkurie at the Vienna State Opera. Watching from the very top step of the top standing area in the hall, I was enthralled from the first notes in the cellos and basses. While I still can't condone the plot (yikes!), it is very fine art. I never thought I'd like Wagner.
  
• Seeing the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein, also with a cheap standing area ticket. Music there was pretty good, too. :)
  
• Meeting people from all over the world. At the international church in Vienna I met Americans, South Africans, a Kenyan, a Romanian, a German, a Pole and even a few Austrians. After lunch at a Mongolian grill, most of us went out for coffee at McCafe. Totally sacrilegious, I think, to get lattes in Vienna at McDonalds, but that's what they wanted to do! And it was there that I discovered that one of the aforementioned Americans recently met someone in Minnesota that I know from Boston. Small world.
  
• While I mostly traveled alone, I was met at bus and train stations by old and new friends at every stop along the way. Yes, all that email correspondence paid off! "Hello. Are you Sylvia? I'm..."
• A few of these friends were able to show me around their cities - my own personal tour guides. Sweet.
  
• Waking up and wondering, "Where am I?" Between the time I left the Big Sky Expeditions team in Krakow on June 4, and when I slept in my own bed again June 13, I slept in 5 different apartments, 5 buses, 3 train cabins, 4 planes and on 1 basement couch. This morning, somewhere between waking and sleeping, it happened again. I woke up just enough to remember, smile, and roll back over.
• Watching the beautiful Central European countryside pass me by on buses and trains: green and hilly, accented by the red roofs of villages, a few kilometers apart, and the occasional castle.
• There were a few moments when things got interesting - for example, the first day of my solo trip when I traveled alone into central Slovakia, far from the tourist path. On my second train of the day, I asked the young lady sharing my cabin if she spoke English. She shook her head sheepishly. With gestures and a few words of Slovak from the phrasebook I had bought, I asked her when the train got to Banovce nad Bebravou. Our attempts at understanding each other were not very successful. I couldn't tell if she couldn't understand me, or if she didn't know the answer to my question, or both. A little while later, I was thinking about trying to find the train conductor. Then I overheard my cabinmate say "Banovce nad Bebravou" to someone on her cell phone. The next thing I knew, she was handing me her phone.

"Hello?" I said.
"Hello," I heard a woman say to me in halting English. "This bus... no go... Banovce nad Bebravou."
"Oh, thank you! Thank you very much."
Smiling, I returned the cell phone. My cabinmate said to me "Trenčín," and I knew she meant that it was the stop at which I should get off. I replied "Ďakujem veľmi pekne!" [Thank you very much], a phrase I repeated a few more times before we parted ways.
Things like this happened a couple of times, people helping me out in moments when I really needed it - the lady at the airport on Vienna who told me where to find free internet for a few minutes, the train conductor in Trenčín who pointed out my bus, the family in Salt Lake City that took me in for a night and a day. I felt surrounded by angels...

• Meeting and chatting with missionaries and ministry leaders in Brno and Vienna - just getting a taste of the reality of these places and what God is up to there. Exciting, challenging, raw.
• A few God encounters, particularly in Krakow and in Brno, when He felt very near and I felt a hairsbreadth away from knowing what He has been leading me in to. So close, but not there yet. Still, the experience made me think I'm on the right track. Some things I know: I really like it there, I know I'll go back, and I'm sure I'll live somewhere in Europe at some point. Probably Central or Eastern Europe... but who knows. And the exact date I may be arriving? No idea. Sigh. Guess God will let me know just in time. That seems to be His way with these things. :)
  

A new Slovak phrase: "všetko v poriadku"
From what I understand (which is very little!), this phrase means something like "Everything is okay." It's what you tell your mom when she calls to ask you if you made it somewhere safe. I think in English I would say, "I'm good." I felt this was an appropriate phrase to end this post since, despite all my stress and worry over this trip (before and during!), everything was... good. And some parts were very good. And I arrived back in Missoula safe and sound enough to set even my mother at ease!

Update (June 30): to see pictures from my trip, visit my Central Europe '09 set on my flickr photostream. Enjoy!

všetko

what am i doing? why am i here?
trust and faith
uncertainty and fear

the first day driving from Vienna to Nove Mesto nad Vahom, through little Austrian towns, hearing Hillsong United song in Jan's CD player, suddenly feeling moved, and the words "I am called" - or was it "You are called" - suddenly in my head.
a day later, not one email from all the folks (missionaries, pastors, friends of friends) i contacted. no email about the summer opera. no relief from the thoughts in my head... discouraged.

in the park after prayer, sharing time in a circle with church folk, a UM student shares "everyone on this team is here for a reason... He will show you..."
a rollercoaster of emotions
what am i doing? why am i here?
"I will show you."

i like them, i am scared they don't like me
as much as i don't feel at home in the States at times, and i just want to GO, there are little things - cultural understandings - that i miss. i just don't know what they think of me and this absolutely terrifies me. in the States i am shy and reserved, here i feel comparatively pushy and annoying. not more so than other Americans, but... i think the others on the team don't want it as much, don't care as much - no, one other is aggressive in her questions, her hunger to learn. but i am not sure they appreciate this in us. i don't know if i am being obnoxious or intimiadating. or if they are just thinking, "Those Americans always need reassurance" looking in the eye all the time...

and no courage it seems, even to ask for help finding a watch...
i can't do this, dear God, it is all too much.

just now, email from Czech missionaries - they want me to work with them for a few days even! and a place to stay near Brno, maybe in the city if i don't mind staying with folks who don't speak English. hm. and the email about the opera! both of them actually. thanks! so... up we go again.

"všetko"
My new favorite Slovak word, meaning "that is all."
That is all for today.

moment of faith

So I had this interesting experience last night. I was driving from teaching a violin lesson to Walmart, just running some errands. I turned the radio on and heard “more than fine/more than bent on getting by/more than fine/more than just okay.” Immediately I had this image in my mind of me, shoulder deep in a pit of muck and junk, an accumulation of my fears and worries piling up all around me. Then I saw myself lifting up my arms to Jesus and crying, “Pull me out!” I realized at that moment that it had been awhile since I’d asked God to do that for me, pull me above my circumstances, and that in that time I had been slowly sinking deeper into something like quicksand, or maybe “slowsand.” If anyone were to ask me how I was doing I’d say “I’m fine. Okay. There are hard things and struggles but I’m getting by.” But I really want more than that. I really believe God has called me to more than that. “Getting by” is not the abundant life Jesus promised.
I’m not on a first name basis with Jon Foreman and am not entirely sure what the song “More Than Fine” meant to him when he wrote it, but to me it is a reminder of John 10:10, where Jesus said “I have come that they [that is, you, me, us humans] may have life and have it to the full.” In the Message paraphrase of the passage, Jesus says, “I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself…”
I believe that I am living a full life, an adventure, one that’s going to extend into eternity. It’s just that I forget. I let the worries pile up and dull the joy God has given me. But in His awesome mercy and grace, God keeps pursuing me, asking “Don’t you want to get above that?” Sometimes, I finally get a clue and ask Him to help me. And every once in a while, He blesses me with a moment of clarity, a moment of seeing His reality in front of me, and all around me. My circumstances are no different in that moment. Everything is the same, but I’m not. I recognize Jesus as the Gate and the Good Shepherd whom I can trust, and I have a little more faith, a little more hope, and I really feel – at least for a moment - God’s joy in me.

driving lessons

Check out this hilarious highly opinionated take on drivers in various parts of the US. Note: I think it's only available til early August, so... look it up now!

wordle!

I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but I'm in love with wordle! I'm playing with it lots in preparation for the first Bible study of the summer tomorrow night. Here is what I've come up with so far... More to come I'm sure.

attention all word nerds

I just stumbled on an awesome little podcast the other day from PRI's "The World." It's a new weekly called The World in Words. The thing that pulled me in was the title on Monday's podcast: "Russian names, Putinisms and a diplomatic mistranslation." So I gave a listen and then backed up to hear last week's podcast, featuring national anthems and IKEA-speak. It's a nice, mid-length podcast, 15-20 minutes, and has reporters visiting and interviewing all around the world. Finally, it has the added distinction of coming from the public radio station in Boston. So what else is there to say? It's amazing.