Czech Republic Day Three

Sunday, April 6= Today was our first full day on the ground. Our team woke up from our first full night of rest. We were ready to get started. We began the day with breakfast and then our first team meeting before we traveled Sedlecany. Matt challenged our team by saying "God does the biggest work when we are uncomfortable while we put others first.". We were asked to focus on our team "why", why are we were in the Czech Republic? Well, simply put, our team agreed that our why was three fold: we were using an English conversation program in the public school to connect the staff & students to the local Czech Church; to support our missionaries, Matt & Patty and their local church and most importantly share and show God's love.  Then our team did some "get to know" questions and jumped right into cultural differences and how this would come into play while in the classroom. Here's just a few to make you ponder:

• Czech's don't smile; they are private and very much keep to themselves
• Czech's live in a beer culture- they are known for their beer. Drinking beer is much cheaper than water and.
• Czech life is one that is NOT about the "rush". They ENOY life, love nature- hiking, biking and skiing.
• Czech biggest meal of the day is LUNCH. They typically eat desserts for dinner. Two of the famous dishes are palacinky (crepes) and ovocne khediky (dumplngs with fruits)- hmm yeah, we all agreed we could get on board with that last one!
• Czechs aren't religious but spiritual. As mentioned before in another blog post, when referring to Christianity, it's best to reference God in the Creator (Elohim) context first not with Jesus first because Czechs only see Jesus as the "baby Jesus". 
• as far as our students, cussing is acceptable and that we were not to be surprised while in the classroom. why? because most of the english that the Czech students are exposed to is from films, tv series & social media. Because english is not their native language, they look at cussing as adjectives and don't consider it unacceptable & or rude even though they would never cuss in Czech. Ah! plus we are teaching in middle school- all middle schoolers despite their cultural differences express these freedoms anyway.

How do the Czech's think about Americans? well, they believe that all Americans are loud & rich, & highly educated. They believe that education is linked to richness. This is why coming to a public school as the english expert allows us the opportunities to do what we are doing this week. After learning about these cultural differences, we packed up and headed onto the bus for Sedlecany. It was a beautiful drive with lots of scenery and acres of land. We arrived at this beautiful town and settled into the community center where we will be staying for the week. Our team settled into our rooms and then prepped our lessons for Monday. Then we walked over a restaurant for some authentic Czech food. It's Sunday, so the town is super quiet and most of the stores are closed so families can enjoy time together. Our team agreed that we can't wait to see the hustle and bustle of the town tomorrow as we begin. Then we got ourselves ready for bed so we could begin our first full day of teaching. I'll leave this post with a few pictures of our team meeting. Please pray for us tomorrow as we begin teaching in the classroom. Our lessons will be about getting to know our students & their families. We look forward to all that the Lord will do with our "why". As always on a mission trip, "Flexibility is the BEST ability". Thanks for reading.

Here's a few pictures of our team meeting in Prague before we headed to Sedlecany

For you "foodies" out there- Beef Tartar, a local Czech cuisine dish.