A quick post

We are in the middle of changing our internet provider and are currently without it in our home. We hope to have it back within a few weeks, so in the meantime we will nôt be posting. We hope to catch up on things when it's back on. Fór now, we are diving Right in to language learning and realizing that it can really make one's brain HURT! The boys start school on tuesday and are really excited about that!

Shaylee's first birthday

Yes, Shaylee turned one just 4 days after we arrived here. I had bought a boxed cake mix and frosting at Wal-Mart in the final days before we left Morton, to be sure that she would have that first birthday cake even if I couldn't get anything at a store here right away. I'd planned to unpack a 9x13 pan and make that cake no matter what! As with many things, the Lord showed me that He could outdo any of my well-planned ideas and truly knock my socks off with His plans!

As you can see from the pictures, I am sooo glad that I didn't make my pitiful cake, as we had been told that a dear lady from the church was planning to bring over a cake for Shaylee the evening of her birthday!! We didn't have time to even wipe the pizza off of Shaylee's face because when Jilka and her daughter Jilka walked into our house singing the Slovak version of Happy Birthday and carrying this trophy of a cake, we were in such awe and gratefulness that we just kept taking pictures and laughing!

We shared the evening with the Shepperson family and Mike Sullivan, other JV missionaries in Slovakia who came to help us unpack. What a fun evening we had and another reminder that God has incredible things planned for us here and for you just where you are!

Move-in day

Well, to backtrack just a bit, in an effort to catch you all up on our past week, I thought I'd post something about the day we moved into our home here. It was Wednesday, January 13th when the truck came and about 20-25 people from our new church were here to help us unload. Sounds like close to the number of people who helped us load the same container at our Tremont home a month earlier. Funny how God can provide for our needs on both sides of the Atlantic... :-) We are finding this out every day here, as He continues to show us His power and grace!

By the end of moving day, we were thrilled that everything made it and that no one was hurt with the unloading of the piano or the 4-wheeler! I (Wendi) have yet to see if we really needed to bring that thing! :-) I sat and breathed that sigh of relief I was looking forward to breathing once we were all in our house and had our things here with us. We were so blessed by the demonstrations of kindness by the people here, as they provided meal after meal, help galore, cleaning ladies, translators, etc. to make this transition as easy for us as possible.

The man walking Shaylee is the pastor of our new church. He and his wife have been very helpful in so many ways. The boys with our boys at the table are the two friends they have already met.

God has provided

Well, here we sit in our new home in Bardejov, Slovakia, amazed at how God has provided for our family in innumerable ways! This first week here has been a blur of activity, new people, many boxes, and late nights. Jet lag took a few days to recover from; for the first three nights, the kids would wake up just when we headed off to bed. They were ready to play and we were exhausted. Missionaries and some nationals stayed in our house off and on for the first 5 nights, helping us unpack and begin to settle in. We have been doing a lot of charades to communicate with the people. They are so gracious as we try to figure out what each other is trying to say. The church here has welcomed us in many amazing gestures of kindness. We even have a dog for a few weeks until the homeowners find him a new home. He knows how to open the front door and walk right in if it's unlocked!

The kids have seemed to adjust fine so far. We visited the boys' new school today, and they look forward to beginning the new semester with their class on February 2. We are getting unpacked and settled in little by little.

We hope to really get going on this blog, for all you who are interested in keeping up with us in this way. Thanks for your patience as we have been "under construction" for quite awhile. For now, I'll end, but look for pictures soon as we would love to share some events of our first week, such as moving day, Shaylee's birthday party, and new friends we are getting to know.