I cannot seem to stay caught up on the blog. Here’s a little bit about what I’ve been doing the past few weeks.
My team spent the weekend before last in the capital city of Slovakia at a planning/training conference with the CCC team in Bratislava. It was so good to unite with the team there and hear a little about how their ministry is going. We talked a lot about discipleship and the importance of building relationships as the starting point of sharing the gospel with Slovak students. Viktor, on staff in Bratislava, shared his testimony on how he came to be a believer through his relationship with a STINTer several years ago. One thing he said really hit me: A lot of times people won’t trust Christ until they trust you. Sharing the gospel here is really going to take sharing my whole life with students: not just what I say, what I do.
Students finally started school last week so things really got busy for our team. I am working at Presov, a university about 45 minutes (by train) from where I live (Kosice). We continued doing surveys about students’ interests, and for filling out a survey, students were entered to win a free iPod. We also did Soularium surveys, an awesome new tool for getting into spiritual conversations with students. It consists of 50 pictures, and students pick pictures to describe their lives, what they wish were true of their lives, what they feel describes God, what they’ve experienced spiritually, and what they wish were true of their spiritual journey. It is especially effective here in Slovakia, as English speakers trying to communicate with Slovak speakers, as pictures have no language barrier.
Last weekend I enjoyed some much needed downtime. The next few weeks are going to be crazy. You can be praying for the English Club starting in Presov on October 7th. We will be promoting it this week, so pray we’ll be able to meet a lot of people interested in practicing their english, and that all our plans will come together well. Going through the surveys from Presov, we found lots of students were interested in discussion groups and practicing their english. We’ll have topics such as culture and values, university life, American and pop culture, art, and food. While topics aren’t necessarily gospel focused (though we will have some spiritually focused questions during discussion), the purpose of this club is to begin building relationships with students through things they are interested in, to create an avenue for sharing our faith with them.
I’ll end the post with a picture.
This is Dara, Amber, Stephanie, me, and Biba. Biba and Dara are on staff with Crusade in Slovakia. They have been a huge help in getting us settled and helping us figure out the city. I’m so thankful for them!
To most of you, this door probably looks pretty sketchy. Peeling paint, cracked glass, and no light at night…however, we’ve been told the door stays like this for a reason. It’s our security system. A potential burglar approaches the building, sees the dilapidated state of the door, and assumes the inside of the building is as run-down as the outside appears. It works for us. We do feel really safe here!
