I should be sleeping, not writing...

I'm exhausted and about to fall asleep as I type this, so bear with me if it sounds like a five year old composed my thoughts....

On Sunday morning, Mark took the interns to a Czech-speaking Protestant church. He calls it "the Prague megachurch," which translates to roughly 200 congregants on a good day. Considering that it was Jan Hus Day, a national Czech holiday, about half the congregation was gone from the hotel conference room where the church meets. It was amazing to hear worship songs sung in Czech, and to listen to an entire sermon in another language. We were blessed to have two translators who sat behind us and whispered the sermon to us in English. After attending an English-speaking, predominately expatriate church body for the past few weeks, it was wonderful to visit a thriving church that is filled with Czechs.

Sunday afternoon, back at Faith Community Church, we suddenly found ourselves scrambling to find room for people to sit when our small sanctuary became packed with a visiting group of 41 American high school girls. This might not sound like a large number, but in our tiny building, this meant that people were sitting on the stairs to the entrance and standing along the sides of the room. The regular pastor and his family just left for the United States, so Zach was preaching his first sermon of the summer, and as God's sense of humor would have it, 41 girls came in on the day he had to preach on 1 Corinthians 14 (which includes touchy topics such as prophecy, tongues, and of course, women being silent in the church). I thought this was pretty hilarious divine timing.

Monday, we had our last Czech lesson with our wonderful teacher Lenka. This lesson also included some delicious dessert....about a week ago, Jeremy and Lenka made a bet on a soccer game, and Jeremy lost, so he gave Lenka a homemade apple pie! We have all enjoyed these lessons so much, and I know we will miss them immensely. Even just the knowledge of basic phrases has enhanced my time here so greatly, and I wish I knew much more. If God chooses to lead me back here, I know that I absolutely want to learn the language if I have the oportunity.

After language lessons, Joanna took us to do one of the things she loves in Prague...pottery class! Lindsay, Hannah, Will and I tried our hand at pottery, all with varying degrees of success. Joanna kindly referred to my mishapen clay box as "cool and funky," but I think this was possibly a tactful way of saying "the ugliest creation ever formed by human hands." Despite my utter lack of talent, I did have a great time. The lumpy blob of a box you see in the picture is what I painstakingly made in an hour and a half, while the lovely flower candle holder is what Joanna whipped out in about fifteen minutes....sad, I know.

Monday ended with dinner and Vacation Bible School preperations at the Syvertsons (have I mentioned that Chris Syvertson runs the Czech Inn, which is rated as one of the top hostels in Europe?) The Syvertsons have this incredible view from their terrace, which happens to overlook the gigantic Prague "baby tower" (it has these odd, sculpted metal babies crawling up the side of it), so I decided it was a good photo opportunity. What you might not be able to see is the dangerous, gigantic drop-off into space behind the fence I was sitting on....ahh, the price of fun pictures.

Please pray for our health over here, as sickness seems to be striking us once again....at the moment, I think Mark, Jason, Lindsay, Hannah, Jeremy, Mike and I are all sick, and we would like this to be as short-lived as possible!