So this is the obligatory Christmas update one month late. If you did not know I spent my Christmas in the Czech Republic, and though I was away from family I had a wonderful time. Starting with Christmas eve where Jez and I went round our friends for a Czech Christmas dinner, fried salmon and potato salad (almost Czech as it is normally fried carp), this was a relaxing night with much conversation and a late night walk up the River Vtlava back to our apartment.

Then day 2 was time for a british Christmas with the classic Christmas roast, cooked by our team leaders wife which we know is a guaranteed quality meal, another great day so relaxing that there was a time when al 4 of us were each sitting on a sofa and reading our own books.

Christmas was rounded off with a trip to Usti nad Labem to see our one Czech staff member Tom Uher who gave us yet another good meal and took us to the top of a mountain near his home where, standing in snow, we could see Dresden in germany behind us and Czech towns in the valley in front.

God really is good, 3 years ago I met Keri and Marketa in Texas and now I was here having Christmas dinner in prague with them, and then both our team leader and the boss of UKH took the time to have us round and spend time with us. Following all this I spent new year with the Church youth group (here that includes 25/26 year olds) and it was a great night as i started to get to know some of the youth and I came out alive. Imagine fireworks night where teenagers have access to fireworks and are setting them off everywhere, and we are standing on a bridge watching it all and having them go off around us, it was a little scary, an experience to say the least.

Well that was all, sorry for the lateness

Last week was the last week of term for most universities here in the Czech Republic, they don’t get any where near as much holiday as we do in the UK at university, they only get 2 weeks where most of us get 4. So obviously all the groups wanted to do Christmas events of varying sorts, in Usti they did an evangelistic games night, in Suchdol an Evangelistic British Christmas themed night, sadly Ostrava’s music night was cancelled but the two I was involved with was The Pardubice UKH groups Christmas meeting and Ceske Budejovice music night.

In Pardubice, where probably the bulk of my 121’s and work is happening, I spoke at the meeting about the coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus, and how Gods people had looked forward to this day coming for a long long time, and hopefully encouraged them to not hide this Great day behind presents, family, and food, and also to share it with those that do not know the Creator of the Universe. Overall it was a good event, and God has obiously been at work in this group as previous workers have not been so easily accepted into the group and the desire to have the Bible at the center of the meetings seems to be increasing little by little.

Then in Ceske Budejovice Jez and I got together and played our set (with the new addition of Silent night) for 4th or even 5th time this term, it was an evangelistic event where several people came who are not a part of the group and it seems that God was at work in at least one persons heart.

So now, the first term/semester is over. It is time to rest, and catch up on study and celebrate the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Well for your enjoyment, or not, we have uploaded a video and some mp3s from the event. Two of the tracks I am sure you will recognise but two are original based on guitar riffs written by Jez.

Ain’t no sunshine <—- Click to listen

Down the River

I just called to say I love you

On tuesday we had the Chocolate and Music Party at the Agricultural University in Suchdol.The rather trendy poster to the left, is the result of my roomate/teamate’s graphic design talent, including the Orange of the UT Longhorns football team.

This event was the first significant thing to happen this term in actually working with students, we initially went to the campus and helped a couple of Czech students (who will be leading the group) to hand out flyers, do questionnaires and of course hand out free chocolate. Normally I find this kind of first contact scary and this time was no exception until we got going and realised people are never as scary to talk to than you think.

Possibly the scarier part of it all was that Jez and I were performing with a saxophone guitar combo, a first time for both of us, and my first time performing in a looong time. It went well though sadly not many got involved with the Open mic part of the night but we did have our jaws drop when an unsuspecting girl sang beautiful classical music.

Overall it was a good event, we have both Christians and non-christians interested in joining the group for the weekly bible studies, and both Czech ad international students. So I guess prayers here will be that the group sticks and doesn’t fade back to nothing as students get busier.

I thought I would give you a summary of the high points and low points so far, so here goes.

Hi-Points :

• I am living in the middle of Prague, in a basic yet cool apartment
• The beautiful and non touristy park/church of Vyšehrad is on our doorstep
• How welcoming everyone was in the church we can see from our window, though it was obviously hard work they spoke to us in English
• 10kg of potatoes for £1 !
• 2 weeks of apples £1 !
• Swing dancing for free

Lo-Points :

• Not having enough Czech language to make casual conversation (You don’t realise how much small talk you have until you can’t have it)
• Not so much the lack of internet as the lack of skype in the apartment
• The 4 hours in search for a toilet plunger
• We live on the 4 floor with no lift
• No naan bread especially Peshwari naan (this was expected though)
• The ongoing search for academic diaries, plastic sleeves, and cheap non designer lined notebooks

Until next time, Cau!

Well I am finally in Prague, I flew in about a week ago. It has been an amazing couple of weeks, God has been so gracious in provision of the material things we need, I mean not only in the apartment itself, but the washing machine, microwave, toaster and other appliances that we got for free, even now we are soon to collect 8 chairs and a couple of desks.

It is weird how the last 7 days feel like 2 or even 3 weeks but we have barely arrived, we are just doing so much and getting quite tired. The language struggles are starting to become more real, it is the lack of being able to have a simple social conversation, something so essential to making friends, that is hard.

But God has been immensely gracious, not only in the material, as it has all gone so smoothly. We have phones, shopping is straightforward, we even have internet of the very slow kind and most recently we have our 3 month public transport passes. So I am learning how incredibly good our God is even when he does not have to be gracious to me.

Well I since my last post I have been to IFES orientation and Greenbelt festival but I will leave the latter for another post. Well just another training conference? Maybe, but dare I say it, I enjoyed it more than the Relay conferences (and they were amazing).  As always great teaching, but this conference had a different feel, much more chilled and families with 19 kids running around.

Well as a result of the conference I am definitely expecting this year to be hard, but equally I feel a lot more prepared for going, apparently I will need an extra hours sleep whilst language learning (that will be so hard for me), more likely to get ill, and just general communication frustrations. Yet I feel so more motivated by the Gospel for doing this, the last night we took communion and I was just in awe seeing how God uses 70+ very different and very broken people to reach the students of diverse countries and cities across europe.

Since I returned from the Czech Republic I have just been staying at home in Essex with my family. Most of the time has been spent writing letters and sending emails and then selling off most of my junk that fills up my parents loft, but being back home is always restful. I was so excited to see my 1 and half year old nephew, Leo, again he is such a cheeky lad at the moment and always causing mischief as he learns and understands the world around him, and even more exciting I now have a niece who is a month old, lydia, this is one of the sad things about moving away again is that I don’t see them very much as they grow up.

Any way I must get back to packing.

2 days ago I got back from my first ever trip to the Czech Republic, exciting I know. As the title to this post reveals I was at an English camp, which is basically a camp for Czech students to learn English. So after arriving in Prague and the International Team having a meal we set off for the mountains near the Polish border, these were good times as I got to know the general Secretary of UKH (the IFES movement in the Czech Rep.).

Well the camp basically consisted of mornings teaching English, and this was my first time ever teaching English so I had been stressing about this for the week before the camp. It turned out to be ok in the end, I got moved to teach intermediates and used some elses material, but only English was allowed in the classes and everyone seemed to enjoy it so I think it all went well in the end. Nothing to worry about after all that stressing.

The afternoons were taken up with seminars, workshops, sports and games. I mainly played sports in the afternoons ranging from Ultimate frisbee (or more sensibly known as just frisbee in the Czech Republic) to tennis in post Wimbledon enthusiasm, volley ball seemed to be the most popular sport amongst the Czechs and after getting over how useless I was for my team it was good fun. On the day of the walks I uncharacteristically went on the shortest for a number of reasons/excuses, but it did result in the first real coffee of the camp and some Czech delicacies such as Spa wafers which are giant circular wafers that have a small amount of flavoured goodness sandwiched between them.

lastly the evenings consisted of singing, skits and talks explaining the christian message before going on to crazy Czech games. I was playing guitar and so loved doing the music playing everything from christian songs to Beatles and Bob Dylan but the most exciting thing has to be that as a result of hearing the Gospel one student became a Christian, and nothing is more exciting than seeing some one realise that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Saviour. And then the crazy games, one of which happened in the woods at night, I think chair chair name is my favourite, a fast paced game where the smallest error means you lose.

Well either side of the camp I had a couple of days to explore Prague, and get some practical stuff sorted. So firstly and most excitingly the day before the camp I viewed a potential apartment which is now going to be the apartment that Jez and I stay in, and it is a fantastic location and cheap, this has been such a weight of my mind and I can now focus on getting the money to pay the rent. So with that sorted Linda and I just did some of the touristy things you have to do in Prague and you can see my photos of both the camp and prague here.

So since my last post I have seen many people for possibly the last time, last Friday was the last CU of the Term, last Saturday was the end of year beach trip which is the last time I will see many of Northumbria CU. It was a great day though, with non-sandy burgers and lots of frisbee, me playing rounders terribly, and jumping in the freezing cold North Sea.

Last saturday was probably the last swing dancing social and so at 1am I had my last swing dance in Newcastle of the year, but it was also one of the best socials of the year with more than 8 people and I thought the music selection was the best yet.

It was the last apologetics discussion group and we talked about living consistently with the truth that we defend. Now I am gettiing ready for another 5 days at the Quinta centre in Shropshire, which will be exciting as all the other relays will be there, yet also sad as it might be the last time I see some people. Any way back to packing for tomorrow…