The Road Goes Ever On

I'm not really sure if anyone is reading this anymore....but perhaps you are. On the slight hope that someone will read this, I want to tell you the end of the story of my summer. Let me begin by offering my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has read this blog. I've been amazed to hear how many people have invested the time to share my summer with me through my words and pictures. Thank you so much!

My last week was wonderful. I savored every sight, every smell, every taste, every laugh, every tear, as each moment was heightened by the awareness of impeding finality. We spent Friday and Saturday debriefing as a team (journaling, reflection, discussion, worship) and now that I am back in America, I am incredibly greatful for those two days. The end seemed brutally sudden, but those days of processing our experience as a whole helped immensely to soften the blow.

The memory of Saturday night is the one I will always cherish and carry with me as my lasting imprint of my time in Prague. The interns were all gathered in Mark and Joanna's living room, ready to hear the final devotion. Mark read the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet, and said a few brief words about service as an act of worship...then told us that he and Joanna wanted to wash our feet. We all looked at each other with a bit of disbelief (a small taste of how I'm sure the disciples must have felt), wondering if they were literally going to wash the grime off our dirty feet from the long hike we took that afternoon. They did, praying with us individually as they washed, giving us a true picture of servant leadership....giving us a true reflection of Jesus. It was incredibly humbling, moving, and beautiful. It wasn't just meaningful because of that one moment, but because it was a tangible reminder of the many ways they continually served us all summer. How thankful I am for their faithful friendship and guidance through those two months.

Our last day, Sunday, felt like a long blur of goodbyes, each one a fresh stab of sadness. The first was precious little Sasha, who sobbed as he walked away from us for the last time. I'm not sure he truly understood the finality of what was happening, but regardless, his cries tore at my heart. After that, each one is still a vivid picture in my mind....hugging Dot, Jason, and the Syvertsons for the last time....then walking away crying from Joanna on a dark street....then rounding the corner until I could no longer see Mark and Lucie at the Prague airport (and subsequently bursting into tears)....then telling the interns goodbye one by one....Michael's final prayer with us, Lindsay driving away with her parents, Hannah stepping off the train, leaving Jeremy at his terminal, and waving to Will as I boarded my plane to Greensboro. When I finally sat down in that plane, alone for the first time, I felt emotionally spent, as though a million bandages were ripped off one after another.

So now I'm back in America, and life feels somewhat surreal. My amazing family and my wonderful friend Sarah met me at the airport with a sign that read, "Welcome Home Kristi" in Czech. I explained that the phrase "vitej doma" was not in my conversational Czech vocabulary, but I could surmise the meaning based on the context! I was incredibly happy to see them, but the whirlwind of sadness and fatigue was still swirling in my mind. The whole night I struggled to surpress tears at random moments that would suddenly remind me of someone or somewhere or something I left behind.

When we all first got back to America, the interns talked about how it all felt like a long dream from which we were suddenly awakened. The whole summer was surreal in my mind...the beauty of epic proportions, the strange quirks of European culture, adventures in city living, being stretched and challanged in ways I could have never imagined. But as I thought and reflected over the next few days, I was thankful for the ways it didn't feel like a dream. The memories and experiences from Prague are vivid and plentiful in my mind and I still feel the ways they are impacting my heart and mind. As the World Harvest Mission Sending Center staff in Philadelphia prayed for the interns this past week, each one of us requested a similar prayer: that this would not be a seperate, compartmentalized, distant chapter in our lives, but that it would be woven in the fabric of our identity and story from this day forward. That is still my prayer today. Prague transformed the way I view the world, myself, and God, and that transformation will continue to evolve as I step back into another realm of life on my college campus. I'm excited to see where the journey will lead from here, as God faithfully continues to gently open my eyes and expand my heart.

Joanna's prayer for me as she washed my feet was that I would go out into the world and continue to get my feet dirty....serving joyfully, loving freely, walking with my King.

So I'm going to keep walking with dirty feet, dancing as a child who is beloved and free.

"The Road goes ever on and on..."

Reasons Why I Will Miss Prague

Amazing architecture and sculpture. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking in a fairy tale....

Delectable espresso (I have multiple shots every day now) and delicious desserts!

Breathtaking views like this:

This friend, who is very dear to my heart. If his current life is any indication of the future, Sasha will grow up to be a famous gourmet chef, a ladies man, and quite a captivating storyteller.

These ladies...that's Hannah, me, Dot, and Lindsay. You girls are precious to me!


These boys: (they're normally not so intense, but they were being models. It's a serious job). That's Will, Michael, and Jeremy.

Eliasova, the street where I live with my two fun, wonderful, beautiful roommates.


Most of all, this whole magnificent crazy crew and this cozy, welcoming living room. I love every single one of you! Thanks for being my family here in Prague....you guys are an enormous blessing and each of you have helped to write the pages of this wonderful chapter in my life.

(that's Mark, Jeremy, Hannah, Me, Bethany, Lindsay, Joanna, Mike, and Will)

Justice and Mercy

We returned from Krakow on Monday afternoon, and I'm just now gathering the energy to write about our trip. I'm sitting in Coffee Heaven in a big comfy chair, sipping my latte and savoring a chocolate muffin as I look out the window at the bustling streets of Prague. Seems like pretty good writing conditions to me.

Poland was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't imagine a better location for a spiritual retreat. After a long seven hour train ride, we finally arrived at our great hostel in Krakow late Wednesday evening. Along with the six interns were the Stewart family, the Hunter family (the WHM missionaries who we stayed with in Vienna), Bethany (who flew over from the States to help lead the teaching during our retreat), and our friends Jason and Dot. In other words, it was a pretty large crew.

Our time was mostly filled with group worship and teaching time, as well as individual discipleship and personal reflection. We skimmed the surface of World Harvest's Sonship program, which is absolutely amazing from the tiny portion of it that I've heard. All of us were challenged to explode the way we apply the actual truth of the Gospel to the way we view ourselves, the way we view others, and the way we view God. The particular areas we tried to unpack were sin, grace, repentance, conflict, and forgiveness. We held our sessions down in the hostel's pub, and by the end of the week, the bar workers asked if we could keep our door open so they could hear us singing hymns.

I love the town square in Krakow. It's a huge open space filled with beautiful sidewalk cafes and a large market of Polish jewelry and pottery. The atmosphere was very different than Prague....so friendly and full of life. I loved walking along the street to the melodic sounds of a waltz played by the violinists at all the restaurants. There were also some really interesting performances in the center square, such as a break dance troupe, a man who moved marionettes to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," men who danced with fire batons to the rhythms of live drumming, and a sequin bedazzled Polish male singer who was accompanied by some rather shady flamenco dancers. All of it just felt marvelously vibrant and European.

On Thursday, we visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. I'm incapable of even beginning to put my experience there into words. I have always had a major interest in the Holocost, but there is a world of difference between reading about it in a history book and actually walking through gas chambers where millions of people were coldly exterminated from existence. When we entered the camp, I felt a heavy weight come on me, and it never left. I felt physically sick and burdened to think about the immense evil perpetrated in that camp of death, and couldn't help crying as we walked through parts of Auschwitz. It's one thing to hear about over a million people dying in that one camp.....it's another to see expansive mountains of their shorn hair. It's easy to dehumanize numbers...not so easy when you walk past piles and piles of shoes, taken from the feet of those who were murdered. To put faces with those shoes...that adorned the feet of smiling children, that an adoring husband gave to his lovely wife....and hardest of all to face, the pairs that looked exactly like shoes I own. I couldn't escape the thought that these people could have so easily been my family and friends. It shocked all of us to hear the exact details of how the entire murderous operation was so precisely planned, so cruelly calculated with cold effeciency by so many people. The utter deception of the whole thing was stunning, too...almost no one who stepped off those trains knew what they were about to face. It makes me sick to think that many bought their own train tickets....tickets to their death. We saw large rooms full of kitchen utensils and suitcases....these people simply believed they were being relocated, and packed up their entire lives.

More staggering and heartbreaking than the thought that I could be one of these victims was the realization that I could also have been one of the perpetrators. The deep evil that took place in Auschwitz lingers in my own heart. It was good to go to the concentration camp directly before talking about sin, to recognize the full capacity for evil in the human condition, to recognize the full capacity for the evil in my human flesh. I like to think of the Holocost as a misguided, horrific accident, casued at the hands of a few power hungry lunatics....but the truth is, it took hundreds of people to carefully plan every detail of this mass execution. Normal people, like me. These people were not brutal, ignorant savages....they were wealthy, educated, and civilized. They listened to classical music and appreciated beautiful art. They were not so brainwashed and blind as I would like to think. The human heart is so quick to embrace an ideology of hatred and exclusion. I think of my own prideful desires to be glorified as an integral member of something significant and to be recognized for my intelligence, and I wonder how quickly those desires would have led me to embrace Nazism during that time. I would like to think of myself as Corrie Ten Boom, when I'm often more similar to the Nazi guards. As we walked through the camp, I found myself angry and thirsty for justice. My anger began to turn towards myself as I realized that similar atrocities are happening today, as basic human rights to life are viciously trampled in so many nations around the the world, and I turn a blind eye. The horror of the Holocost began when people were able to dehumanize other people, and that's exactly what I chose to do to suffering people groups today. I hear about the ravaged lives of people in Darfur and the millions dying in the AIDS crisis, and they become mere numbers in my brain, statistics without faces and souls.

My prayer is that my heart would break over injustice, whether its over the starving orphan in Darfur or the hungry homeless woman sleeps five minutes away from my comfortable bed in Greensboro, NC. But even that isn't the end of the story. Micah 6:8..."He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" I cannot only desire justice...I must desire mercy as well. Though I loved the idea of God's righteous wrath being poured out at the end of time on the perpetrators of inhumane cruelty, I struggled to accept that the cross of Christ could also cover those people. I remembered Corrie Ten Boom's story of leading one of her former Nazi concentration camp guards to Christ, and I found myself angry at the thought of that horrible person being shown mercy. Why do I not believe that the blood of Christ is powerful enough to forgive the Nazi guard as well as it cleanses my own dark heart? My pride and self-righteousness were thrown in my face, realizing how much I truly believe I deserve the grace of God. How quick I am to strive to pay for what I get for free, to judge others by a law that I can't keep.

On that note, I will leave you with some words from one of my favorite Derek Webb songs that played continually in my head this past week (go and listen to it yourself):

i repent, i repent of my pursuit of america's dream

i repent, i repent of living like i deserve anything

i am wrong and of these things i repent
i repent, i repent of parading my liberty

i repent. i repent of paying for what i get for free

and for the way i believe that i am living right

by trading sins for others that are easier to hide

i am wrong and of these things i repent
i repent judging by a law that even i can't keep

of wearing righteousness like a disguise

to see through the planks in my own eyes
i repent, i repent of trading truth for false unity

i repent, i repent of confusing peace and idolatry

by caring more of what they think than what i know of what we need

by domesticating you until you look just like me

i am wrong and of these things i repent

The Joys of Jihlava

I'm finally back to blogging! My apologies for my long absence. I've been without a computer for the past week in the village of Jihlava, working with an Athletes in Action sports camp. It's been an incredible week, difficult but rewarding. There's so much I wish I could say about the whole experience, but I'll at least attempt to capture small bits.

Our team was half American, half Dutch....the Americans being myself, Lindsay, Michael, and Will, the Dutch being Annemarie, Kirstie, Joyce, and Chris. We were all instantly thrown into several different types of culture shock:

1) the village of Jihlava. It's utterly different than what we were accustomed to in Prague, just like any small town in the US is different than a big city.

2) the Czech church. The church that hosted us for the week literally had only six members, and very limited ability to communicate with us in English. It was a beautiful experience to sit an a worship service, singing in English, and hearing the same song sung in Dutch and Czech on either side of me. What a taste of the multi-ethnic beauty of heaven.

3) the Czech youth culture. I can't even begin to describe Czech teenagers. Hip-hop culture is very popular in the Czech Republic...so we would have these guys show up to play basketball wearing do-rags and baggy jeans and American jerseys and trying to do crazy street dribbling moves they had seen on MTV. They all love American rap and R&B music. It just made me laugh so hard sometimes....there are virtually no African-Americans here, and these kids have no idea what actual American street culture really is like, yet they all imitate it. When I would tell teenagers that my university is over 50% African American, their mouths would literally drop in shock. They can't even imagine what that's like, but they think it's absolutely amazing.

4) the Czech language. The language barrier was intensified immensely from what it is in Prague. Most Czech children learn English in school, but they are all highly self-conscious and unwilling to practice their English with foreigners. I was so incredibly thankful for my eight brief Czech lessons this past week. I would throw out anything I knew to just try and talk with them, even ridiculous phrases and random words. A lot of the teenagers were very willing to try and work with me, to teach me as I would throw out a verb and start guessing at endings, to teach me new words, to laugh with me when I completely butchered their language, to translate my mixture of sign language and words. They seemed so greatful and excited to even have someone attempt to speak with them, and they were so incredibly complimentary of my limited Czech, even though I know its horrible. I kept telling them their English was much better than my Czech, and they never believed it. I can't tell you how hard it is to want to carry on a conversation with someone and be so completely limited. All we were there to do is build relationships with these kids....and how do you do that when you don't speak the same language?


5) the Dutch. There are no words to even describe the Dutch. All I can say is, I wish I could move to Holland! We absolutely loved our Dutch teammates, and formed a really quick bond across cultural boundaries with them that was such an unexpected blessing. They all had impeccable English, and were so gracious to use it all week with us. Even in one-on-one conversations with each other, they chose to speak in English so that we would never feel isolated. The Americans felt so incredibly humbled by their decision to not use their own language for our sake. Each one of them was so incredibly cheerful and energetic and funny....I think Holland is ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world, and now I understand why! They introduced us to several Dutch desserts (I will never forget the chocolatey goodness of Knoppers) and we introduced the concept of American breakfast to them. We ate a typical Dutch breakfast almost every morning, which consists of bread, butter, cheese, and salami. So to me, it felt strange eating lunch foods in the morning, but they were shocked to hear the sort of things we eat for breakfast in America. After we described typical American breakfast foods like muffins, bacon, eggs, and pancakes, their eyes widened and one of them exclaimed, "Now we know why Americans are so fat!" We explained that we're also an obese nation because we drive our cars everywhere. In Europe, you just walk all the time and use public transportation. The Dutch were also surprised about some other American things....like the fact that we own guns and the fact that we have to pay to go to college.

Another thing I loved about the Dutch was hearing them pray. I never really thought about cultural differences in terms of prayer before. Their prayers almost entirely consisted of questions....it would sound something like this (imagine it in a beautiful Dutch accent): "Lord, do you want to bless us? I want to ask you if you want to give us good weather today? Do you want to help us reach the kids? Lord, I want to ask you if would like to unify our team?" I realized that our American prayers were almost entirely declaratory statements...."Lord, we want you to do this," not "Lord, do you want to do this?" Although there is certainly a place for boldness and authority in prayer, it was refreshing to hear such an attitude of humility in speaking to God.

As for our week....
Things were difficult:

-The Americans spoke very little Czech, and the Dutch spoke none. There were moments when I just got so angry at my inability to communicate the things I wanted to say so desperately.

-Half of our team members got sick and couldn't play sports.

-The weather was cold and rainy most of the week, so it was hard to get kids to come out and "sport with us" (as the Dutch would say). Surprisingly, we got far more teenagers than children.

-Our accomodation was remarkably sketchy. Have you heard of the horror movie "Hostel?" That's basically where we were. We were in a sort of dormitory called an "ubytovna," which we later found out directly translates to "less than a hotel." The first couple of days were nice...we had nice rooms, communal showers and bathrooms, a shared kitchen and living room. Then we got some neighbors. Around Tuesday, a bunch of Slovakian construction workers filled the other rooms on our hall, and that's when things started to get crazy. Apparently in Slovakian construction worker culture, common behaviors include walking around mostly naked, smoking multiple packs and leaving your ashes in other peoples dishes, watching porn in a communal living room, and drinking homemade rum straight from the bottle. It was the weirdest culture shock any of us had ever experienced. There was one night me and my American teammate Michael were fixing some food around midnight in the kitchen, and we see this old Slovakian guy stumble out of his room down the hall, wearing only tight spandex underwear, holding a bottle of rum. He staggers to the bathroom, and proceeds to deliver a drunken sidekick to the bathroom door. All we could do was double over laughing and say, "Where are we?!" Really, it was the most bizzare experience of my life.

Things were also really great:

-I got to lead volleyball. My friends who have seen me play volleyball will understand how hilarious that concept is....but it definitely taught me a lot about humility. The theme of my week was the ability to laugh at myself. I had to make myself comfortable to make the kids feel comfortable around me. I laughed with them at my inability to play sports and my inability to speak Czech, and tried to dive wholeheartedly into both weaknesses.

-I also got to teach street dance. Yes, an English speaking ballet/modern dancer trying to lead non-English speaking teenagers in hip-hop moves. What a ridiculously hilarious experience. Going into the week, I assumed there was going to be a professional street dancer on the team, and I quickly realized that everyone else assumed I was going to be the street dance expert. So my Dutch teammate Joyce and I quickly choreographed an awesome little number to some TobyMac's "No Ordinary Love," and the girls we taught it to seemed to love it. Joyce was so incredibly sweet, and kept telling me that I should star in "Save the Last Dance" (a movie about a ballet dancer who learns all these street moves at an inner city school).

-My heart was broken for Czech young people. I can't even describe how much these kids touched me. They are so unbelievably old at such a young age. There were 12, 13, 14 year olds that would smoke and drink alcohol on the sidelines of the fields as we played with them. A lot of them have this dark, hardened sense about them that you just don't see in mostAmerican teenagers. The girls are incredibly sexualized from a very young age. The first day we were out playing sports, a 12 year old girl showed up with cuts all over her arm. At first I thought they might be accidental, but the closer I looked, I realized the cuts formed a name, and it was obviously self-mutilation. Sometimes I just wanted to break down crying in the middle of a game of vollyball. I realized that our simple gospel presentations through our skits, testimonies, and actions would be the most that many of these kids would ever hear about God's love for them. There's just nothing for them here....there's such hopelessness. I think the concept that Jesus loved them and extended mercy to them was utterly foreign to these teenagers. As the week progressed, the Czech girls with whom I had begun to form friendships would ask me eagerly when we would be performing the drama for the night. I began to realize that some of the teenagers were more excited about seeing our skits than playing sports....some of them would come and sit on the sidelines the whole time, then gather with the other kids to watch our gospel presentation. I could see the longing for hope and truth in their eyes as they carefully watched simple skits that many American teenagers would just laugh at or shrug off. It was beautiful to be able to tell them my testimony through a translator on the last night we were there, speaking words of light into the darkness, proclaiming the love of God in my brokenness against the glorious splendor of the setting sun. I will never forget their faces and my desperate desire to see their lives transformed. We held an outdoor worship service on the Sunday morning after the camp week, and one of the teenagers from the camp who attended asked me if I was coming back next year to their village. I sadly told them that I wasn't, and she said in a sorrowful voice, "I wish you would come back. There is nothing like what you do here. No one tells us the things you have." It made me so sad and angry.....the fields are ripe for the harvest, and who will go? Who will tell that girl again that she is loved and beautiful and precious?

So pray for Jihlava. Pray for the struggling church there. Pray for Jakob, Katka, Tereza, Daniel, Eva, Domenika, Ana, Marketa, Taneka, Libor.....just a few of the kids that touched my heart this week. Pray for all the kids who might never again hear the truth of the gospel.

Alright, my hands and my brain are exhausted from typing. Thanks for allowing me to process my week in words. Now I need to go do some late night packing....yet again. I'm off to Krakow, Poland tomorrow afternoon with my fellow interns for a much-needed spiritual retreat until Monday.

AIA Camp Week

As in Vienna, there are too many pictures....I will try to give you a small taste of my Athletes in Action week before I write about it....there's just too much for words.

Week 5 (and a preview of Weeks 6 and 7)!

This is our Vacation Bible School week, so from 9:00-1:00 every morning, the interns get to lead some very adorable little kids. I don't think I've ever sang "I'm In The Lord's Army" so many times in my life. Apparently, songs that involve saluting, riding horses, marching, and making artillary noises with your hands are very appealing to small children. My hand-motion making skills from camp have suddenly come in handy! I'm also suddenly remembering how tiring it is to entertain and control preschool age kids! We've really had a great time with them, though.

Tuesday night was great....Jeremy loves Christmas, so for his birthday, we threw a surprise Christmas in July party. We decorated a small tree, listened to Christmas carols, and reminisced about our favorite Christmas traditions. Joanna whipped up a full Christmas dinner, with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, gravy, and some sort of yummy corn pudding. To top it all off, we had a homemade coconut birthday cake for dessert...it was the best cake I've ever eaten.

After Christmasing, we raced off to enjoy the Bohemia Jazz Festival for the second night in a row. Monday night, I was front and center to see John Scofield play (my friends and I got to be famous on the jumbotron a couple of times), and then Tuesday night, we went to see Victor Wooten, one of the best bass guitarists in the world. You can't beat listening to free live jazz as you're surrounded by gorgeous Prague architecture.

Life here is about to change yet again in a very big way. We will be leaving 6:00 AM this Saturday to work at sports camps in different villages in Prague. We are joining two teams of Dutch atheletes who work with a group called Athletes in Action, a sports ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Michael, Will, Lindsay and I will be serving in a village about two hours from Prague called Jihlava, while Hannah and Jeremy will be working in Pribram. We'll spend our days playing sports with children and teenagers, such as volleyball, basketball, soccer, and street dance (don't ask me what street dance is, because I'm not sure yet myself....but I'm excited!). Our team is highly non-athletic, but I think the most important element of this whole experience will just be loving the kids and hanging out with them, not our athletic abilities. I'm excited to work with young people again, and I can't wait to get to know Dutch Christians and see experience a taste of that culture through my teammates. Pray for our time away from the city to be fruitful and for our teams to be quickly unified across all cultural and linguistic boundaries.

So I'll be gone until next Sunday....then we have two days in Prague, and we leave that Wednesday morning for Krakow, Poland for the rest of the week. After Poland, we'll only have one week left here. Things are really speeding up and life as we know it here is changing. I'll be away from computers for the next week, so no more blogging for a while, but please keep me and my team in your thoughts and prayers.

P.S.....the best part of my day were these two letters. I truly have wonderful friends. One beautiful homemade one from my dear friend Sarah, and another letter signed with tons of encouraging messages from all my wonderful staff and CIT friends at New Life Camp. I miss you guys!

Thanks for all the love!

A Tale of Two Cities

I gave you pictures, but no details on my trip to Vienna. I'm in the midst of a crazy week, but in what little time I have, I'll try and give you a quick runthrough. Also, let me please apologize....I have gotten so many kind Facebook messages from friends at home in the past week, and I just haven't replied to any of them...life has been a whirlwhind since returning this weekend. If you have not gotten a reply, I promise you aren't the only one!

Vienna was amazing. This was the one free weekend for the interns, so we were allowed to travel on our own, using our own resources. Five of us chose to go to Vienna and stay with some other World Harvest missionaries, the Hunter family. Brad, Stacy and their wonderful children graciously let us all stay in their beautiful apartment, and served as our tour guides for the whole trip. Brad led us around Vienna as we prayed for different parts of the city, and it was amazing to see the passion he and his wife have for reaching this city.

My favorite time of prayer was an individual one, inside St. Stephan's Cathedral (Stephansdom). You can see this incredible building on my previous picture- it absolutely took my breath away, inside and out. It was magnificently ornate, enormous, full of stunning architecture and sculpture.....and somewhere in all that beauty, my heart was pierced. The glory of God was reflected in this place in a way that touched me deeply. In the midst of crowds of tourists, I wondered into a quiet prayer room inside the cathedral, filled with people on their knees in between stately wooden pews, bowing torwards the alter and the crucifix, crossing themselves after dipping their hands in water as they came in and out. I joined them on my knees for a few moments, soaking in the stillness and the beauty. I looked across the faces bathed in colored light as the sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, wondering how many of them truly knew the love of the God reflected in the icons and the ceremonial ritual. My heart broke for the city, the way it has for Prague, knowing that these people have a deep thirst for love and transcendence that can only be satisfied with the living water of Jesus Christ.

Vienna is remarkably different from Prague, in ways that I'm not sure how to articulate. It seems a little more modern, more Western, more glamarous and wealthy, far more international, and much larger. Prague has a very Eastern European feel, heavily rooted in tradition and nationalistic Czech pride. It was good to see the differences, to take a step back from my time here, even if it was just for a weekend. It helped me to reflect on my time here and my thoughts about Prague, and to see some of the ways I've grown personally since arriving. Arriving in a new city, I felt excited to explore and find my way around, confident in navigating a metro system in yet anther language I don't speak....then I remembered the way I felt when I first set foot in Prague, helpless and confused, fearful and discouraged by my own incompetance. A mere month has transformed the way I look at myself and the world in so many small ways. I was excited to be walking in a new boldness, to feel independant and not helpless, to feel my fear replaced by a simple peace. God has shown Himself to be infinitely strong in my most crippling weaknesses.

The most striking thing I felt when I arrived in Vienna was the fact that I was not home. I was in another foreign culture, but I didn't know how the transportation system worked, I struggled to convert the currency in my head, I didn't know where to walk to down a street to find the best coffee shop or the closest grocery store, I couldn't even say basic phrases like "Excuse me" when I bumped into someone or "Thank you" to a server. I do know those things in Prague. Admittedly, pride in my level of city knowledge is like a child learning the alphabet and believing she has mastered Shakespeare......but it's something, no matter how small. I knew, with a sense of deep joy, that Prague was indeed my city. As our bus pulled back into Prague at the end of the weekend, my heart lept up as we zoomed past the familiar terra cotta rooftops.....I was back home. I walked into church that afternoon, out of the rain and the cold, warmed by the sight of people who have grown to feel like family. The benediction spoken out at the end of that service, adapted from Jeremiah 29, is still ringing in my ears:

"Thus says the Lord of hosts, God of Israel, to those He has called into Prague: Build yourselves houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat the fruit of them. Marry and have sons and daughters, increase in number there and do not decrease. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

Amen.