Here’s a video I took with my camera of Mocha trying to get a walnut that had fallen under the kitchen cabinet.
Little Big City October 30, 2008
One of the slogans I’ve seen on buses and trams around Bratislava is “Little Big City.” One of the things I like most about Bratislava is that while it is a big city with most of the advantages of a larger city, it still has a small town feel.
Old Town Square
One of my favorite parts is Stare Mesto or Old Town in English. Unlike Vienna or Prague, Bratislava’s Old Town is not so crowded that you can’t walk around with some space between you and the person in front of you. (I’ve experienced more than my share of being packed liked sardines in buses, metros, or city streets, but rarely in Bratislava). There’s a slower pace and fewer tourists which is nice. One of my favorite sites is walking on the square in front of the National Theater and seeing little old ladies sitting and talking on park benches on a Sunday afternoon. I love exploring Old Town and walking down new streets that I haven’t been down before.
Just to illustrate the littleness of this big city–I had been here barely a month when I was walking around Old Town one Sunday afternoon to meet a friend for lunch. I had some time to kill after church. As I walking around, I heard someone say, “Hey Julie” in English. I looked up to see someone I knew. Later that day, I ran into another friend I had recently met. Still later on, I looked out the window of the bus and saw a lady from my Tuesday morning Bible study. Just the other day, I was getting off the bus with Heather and heard a lovely British voice behind me say hello. Again, it was someone I knew from church.
I don’t think I run into that many people I know in a day in Bristol.
Granted to You to Suffer October 30, 2008
My church Bible study has been studying Philippians. Philippians 1:29 says, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” As we discussed this verse last night and whether any of us had suffered for Christ, this verse took on new meaning for me. There was a lady in the study visiting from Budapest and another lady in the study is Slovak. Both of them recounted different stories of how they or their families had suffered during Communist times because of being Christian. One lady’s family wasn’t even Christian, but because she attended a church group just for fun, her father was denied a promotion. Young children in elementary school used to be interrogated by their teachers. What did your family do on Sunday morning? Do you go to church?
As someone prayed and thanked God for our being able to meet together freely, I realized that only a few short years ago a meeting such as ours would not have been possible. I often have heard people pray that prayer at home and maybe I just take the religious freedom available at home for granted. It all became very real for me last night.
Roman Holiday October 24, 2008
This past weekend, my friend Lisa from work visited me and we had the opportunity to go to Rome for the weekend. I never expected to get to visit Rome, so it was really great to be able to see all the things I’ve read about in history books. Here’s a few favorite pictures and there are more available by clicking on the flickr album on the left.
Lisa and I at lunch near the Spanish Steps
Views of Rome
Colosseum
Spanish Steps
Spouts, Trickles, and Leaks October 9, 2008
One of the big questions I’ve been wrestling with while I’m here in Bratislava is why am I here? What am I doing? Will this work that I’m doing matter after I’m gone?
All of these questions have led me to see how results-oriented I am. Maybe that’s just the way I am or maybe it’s the product of two years of preparing for accreditation reviews at work and asking myself if the mission is being accomplished. Goals, outcomes, strategy, plans. What are we doing? How do we get there? How do we know when we’ve gotten to that mysterious place of “there” once we’re there?
My questions, I think, point to the question we all ask and what we all wish for ourselves: significance. We want to know that our work has purpose and that we’re not working in vain. We want to know that what we do matters to someone. Even more than that, we want to know that who we are matters to someone.
Part of the confusion of my questions is that I think I expected to be doing something different than what I do everyday or expected life here to feel different than it does at home. Perhaps if I was in the deep dark jungles of Africa or in a culture vastly different from my own, things would feel different. The big surprise has been that things are surprisingly the same. Even the landscape looks alot like Tennessee (and there’s a bluegrass festival this weekend? What?!).
Once again, I think I’ve been approaching my questions from the wrong angle or asking the wrong questions to begin with. I think came expecting to “minister” to people here, whatever that means. Perhaps that has happened. However, I know (warning: here’s another missions cliche coming up) that probably more is going on in me as I’m learning to trust that God has a purpose in my being here, whether I understand it or not. I’m learning more about what it means to offer my work and daily tasks to Him as worship and praise because this is the work He has placed in front of me to do for this time and place. Maybe it’s not what I was expecting, bit it’s the place where God has put me for right now.
I’ve been listening to my church’s sermon series on Acts while I’m working. This past week, the sermon was about how we’re all on mission all the time. I’m learning that is true. Whether I’m living in Europe or Bristol or where ever, I’m on mission to know Christ and to make him known. How I go about doing things that maybe are not my favorite things to do (i.e. cataloging books or taking out the trash) speaks to my faith in God. As God works in me to increase my faith in Him, hopefully that will leak out from me onto someone else. Occasionally, I might get to pour out myself in a way that looks like what we think ministry looks like. More often it seems like my faith is coming out in trickles and leaks of the seemingly mundaneness of everyday life.
