Here is a picture from my recent mission trip to the Czech Republic. This is us in the conference room we used as a base while teaching.Before I put in anymore pictures I thought I would give you a brief overview of what I did over there.

Our Team:(First row left to right) Heather, Jen, Kristen, Stacie, Jessica, (Back row left to right) Willie, Chris, Me, and Mike, Not pictured are our leaders, Ben, Janice, Jim and Lanette, and their little girl "Baby Ruth" The permanent American missionary we were working with was named Don.

Our Goal: Teach English in public school and show our students the love of Christ. Also to evangelize and work with additional students at a Christian sports center.

What Happened: Our first two days were spent traveling. Basically we left the church on a Friday morning and ended up in our dorm late Saturday night. None of us really had much sleep on the plane so we were all somewhere's between really cranky and really excited by Saturday night. And most of us were switching between the two rather quickly.
But we were all ready to go on Sunday morning. Jim was the guest speaker at the church we went to. He talked about be willing to be God's servant. See First Peter 4:10-11. It was really cool how we were able to see the similarities through our differences. We couldn't understand what they were sharing or what they were praying . . . but we could feel God's presence just as much as we could back at MABC. Seeing other Christians in a completely different country worship in a similar way was a huge impact on all of us. But it would soon be, almost forgotten, as we watched God do veritable miracles in peoples lives.
Monday . . . our first day teaching. None of us knew what to expect. Our plans had been turned inside out so many times most of us had really stopped expecting anything. So we just sat there for a few minutes outside the front door of the school. We watched as the earliest kids walked in for class. Most of the kids said nothing at all to us, they simply stared and whispered. Finally a bearded man, maybe in his mid-fifties wearing a white sports coat, approached us. He said "Hello" and asked us in a thick voice and broken English if we were the American teachers. We all nodded and smiled. Afer explaining that he knew very little English he began talking with Don. While watching the two jabber along with seemingly random syllables for several minutes. Don turned to us and said "he welcomes us to his school and hopes we will enjoy our visit." We then followed him through the front door and up several floors he led us into a room with a large table in the center. This would be our "base" while we were teaching. After showing us the room said something to Don and then left. We all just stood there looking at each other and wondering who this guy was. We knew that he was the director of the school. But aside from that we were left to our imagination. The man had never smiled. He hardly even looked at us. But we were here to do a job.
Well, the permanent English teachers soon came in to escort us to where we were supposed to be teaching. My group (me, Kristen, and Willie) were going to be teaching a group of fourth graders. I had drawn the short straw and I got to lead the class this time. The teacher we were working with, Suska, led us into the classroom and told her students that we were Americans that were going to work with them this hour. Then she left. I very quickly went from unsure of what I was doing to being downright scared. My interpreter just left!! Now what I do? Well, all I could do was to swallow the lump in my throat and introduce myself. I tried to explain some typical American greetings but I was greeted with only blank stares. So I did a quick mental reboot and went on to explaining what a family tree was. They caught on quickly soon they were writing out their own family trees and labeling each person. After forty-five minutes we heard a buzzer go off. We weren't sure what it meant because our students just sat their listening to us. Finally Suska came in and told them all to leave. As they left they were all talking excitedly to each other. As they walked past us, each of them used every form of American goodbye they could think of and got their last minute pictures of us on their camera phones. (Yes, most of the fourth graders had their own camera phones.)
The next two classes did not go well at all for me. Don asked us to try and split up into groups so we could work on a more individual basis. Once again I had to "reboot" and totally rethink how I was going to teach. The next classes were eighth and ninth grade classes. I expected their English to be at least somewhat better than the fourth graders. So I started teaching at a slightly higher level. In just a few minutes I had exhausted all of my family tree supplies. It wasn't that they knew it all -- I was going over their heads and nothing I had planned was working. I looked at my watch (actually it was Ben's watch I had forgotten to pack mine) and realized I had thirty-five minutes left to teach and no material left for today. I choked. Thankfully Don was working in my class room and he came to my table and started talking to my students in Czech. All I could do was sit there and watch them go back and forth. Finally Don stood up walked to the front of the class and again talking in Czech. After he was finished he interpreted for us. He had just asked the students "on a scale of one to ten, how much of our English were they understanding, ten being every word and one being none of it." I looked around the room at all our different groups and watched as most of the students were holding up seven, eight, and nine fingers. I looked back at my table and was horrified to see them holding up three and four fingers.
"What do I do now?" I thought.
I thought for what seemed like hours and finally tried to ask what their fathers did for a living. It took a couple minutes for me to explain myself. But they were soon drawing pictures of Ambulances, forklifts, and guy typing on a computer. Not bad. So then we went on and had them label as many items in their drawings as they could. After doing that for the remaining time, I was extremely relieved to hear that stupid buzzer again. I quickly packed up my supplies, said a quick goodbye and returned to our little conference room.
Then I had to go to the ninth grade class. The ninth grade class was a huge class the three of us had over ten kids each. These knew even less English than my eighth grade class. Not only that it seemed like I had all of the rowdy kids who didn't want to sit still or pay attention. It's one thing dealing with kids who aren't paying attention -- but it's quite another trying to work with them when they don't speak your language.
I was so stressed out by then end of that class that there was no way I could spend that much energy on another class. I felt like I had nothing left to give. As I headed for the door of our conference room as we were headed off to the next class I simply snapped. I couldn't face another group like the last two. I stopped and leaned against the door jam and tried to collect the will-power to keep following our teacher, but I couldn't do it. Mrs. Janice saw that I was having trouble and asked me what was wrong. But there was no way to explain. She simply told me to stay behind and take a break. She then took my supplies said that she would be praying for me and hurried off to class.
That was it. I felt like I failed. I failed my team, my friends, my church that sent me there, failed Don who set this all up, and worst I felt like I failed God. I just couldn't teach these kids anything. Don saw my dilemma and hung behind to try and help. After trying to explain to him what I was feeling, he looked at me and said,
"Jayson, hold on. Let me pray with you."
After praying for God to relieve my stress and to help me to simply love these kids by focusing on God, I realized, I was right, I didn't have anything left to give these kids. I didn't have anything to give them to begin with. All I was was the tool. I didn't have to teach them English and increase their vocabulary at all. All I had to do was go out there and love them like God would if He was in the room. He would take care of the rest.
Don then suggested that I sit in on another person's class just to see what they did and maybe get some fresh ideas. So I joined Heather. Instant Icebreaker we would soon be calling her. She had taught Children's Church back at Mount Airy Bible Church and she was just great with her kids. She just kept them busy. When they were working on something that didn't her leaning over their shoulders she would pull out the next thing and just keep right on going.
With that for a recharge I was ready for our last class of the day. Boy was I right about one thing . . . just leave it in God's hand and He would take care of the rest. And He did! Whenever I had a problem all I had to do was to treat the kids like God would if He was doing the teaching. It didn't matter what I taught. God would keep giving me ideas as I needed them.
That was an incredible experience. My week took on a whole new perspective after Don prayed for me. Thank you Don. But the incredible experiences had still just begun. After that last class we went to eat lunch in the school cafeteria. The food was not bad. It was simple. The students would all wave, smile, and shout hello to us. We felt like we were best friends with all of them. Even the ones who weren’t taking English would wave and try to talk with us. We really caused a ruckus that day. It wasn’t just at lunch either. During the few minutes we would have between classes our students were taking pictures of us on their cell phones. While we were eating though something caught me off guard. It was the director. He had been eating in the teacher’s cafeteria where all the teachers ate. But when he came out he saw us he looked over at our table and saw over a dozen students crowding around us asking how their English was or telling us about their favorite actors, this man had a huge smile on his face. That was when I first felt welcomed to the school. True, he had done his job that morning and ‘welcomed’ us . . . but just then as he walked past I saw that he was truly grateful for what we were doing in his school.
Tuesday, we were all fired up and ready to teach again. Alright hold on. I'm typing enough for a book. Maybe I'll write one. Here's a brief overview:

Tuesday was when we had the gypsy class.
Wensday we had the afternoon off and got some time to tour Brno
Thursday we had just a couple classes and then a talent show.
Friday we played softball w/ our students and then had a party at the Majak.
Saturday we went shopping and our students took us on a tour of their city.
Sunday we went back to Austria and toured a palace and then watched a concert.
Monday we made it to the airport and flew home.

There that didn't take too long did it?

more pix are coming





God bless and check back soon!! Jayson