[This post is part of the Ministry Slovakia blog series, make sure to check out our entire adventure!]

We have arrived safely in Nitra, Slovakia around 7:30am Chicago time today! We are very excited to be breathing non-recycled air and even more excited to see our Slovakian friends!

The trip started out like any other. A ride to the airport, full body scans and an hour to kill in the terminal at O’Hare. Then, just as we were about to board the plane CNN announced the Oslo bombing. We of course had a lot of questions and quickly jumped on our smartphones for answers. My first thought was of my friend Robert Quiring who is traveling in Norway this week. Read his blog post for a up close and personal account of his close call. He was at the building that was bombed just the day before! I thank God he and his friend are safe while praying for the families of the ones who were lost.

The flight to Madrid was long. We did not sleep much, if at all. The flight crew served us dinner and then turned out the lights. A few hours later the lights were turned back on and breakfast was served! It was a very weird feeling since I had not fallen asleep at all. They showed two movies. The first one I did not watch but the second one was good. It was with Martin Sheen and he was walking across Spain with his son’s ashes. The message of the film was very obviously about finding happiness and joy in your current situation and making the best of where you’re at right now. I’m not all that good at that some of the time, however there is something about church trips that makes it a little easier. At some point during the flight we got bored, imagine that… Walking around the cabin didn’t seem to do it for us an so I decided to take out my iPad and try and get everyone in our group to take a picture of themselves making a funny face. Worked like a charm! I have posted the pictures on my personal photography blog. The link on the top right of the sidebar of this blog says “Photography”. You can always click that link to see pictures from the trip. I’ve also created a link below to see the funny faces.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OUR FUNNY FACES!

Alex and I were seat buddies on the plane and we made this quick little tutorial video on how to properly sip coke while flying.

(The pinky is for stability during turbulence)

I’m going to head over to Holy Spirit Lutheran Church now and join the rest of the gang as they visit with our Slovakian friends!

The day has finally arrived! We are about to leave for Slovakia, otherwise known as The Other Side of the World! It’s going to take us a bit of time to get there. A ride to the airport, walking, a long plane ride, walking, a shorter plane ride, walking and a bus ride. I understand if that wasn’t very specific for some of you. If not, you might be interested in the rest of this post… the builder’s trip agenda.

[This post is part of the Ministry Slovakia blog series, make sure to check out our entire adventure!]

Continue Reading…

I am about to travel to the Eastern European country of Slovakia for the third time and I’m very excited! I will be traveling with a group of people from my church, Our Saviour’s Lutheran, who are going to work alongside our partners in ministry at the Christian Center for Education (CCE) in Martin, Slovakia. I have visited our friends in Martin on each of my past two trips and I can tell you first-hand, they are doing God’s work there in amazing ways! The CCE is a private school working towards offering classes from Kindergarten ages through High School and they are just a couple years from that goal!

When I first visited Martin, Slovakia in 2004 we were on a “mission trip”. It really felt like we were the Americans with solutions coming to “fix”. Today that could not be farther from the truth! What makes me so excited about what God is doing at CCE is that we are no longer on a “mission trip”. We are on a trip to visit our Partners in Ministry in Slovakia! The amazing team at CCE and their students have cultivated an environment where young people get fired up for Jesus and spreading the good news. This trip is a builder’s trip. We are going to put some serious sweat equity into some new buildings at CCE. We want to be clear that we are going to be working alongside our partners in ministry next week. Painting walls and doing some cleanup around the site. We aren’t doing this for them, we are doing it with them.

I am excited to bring updates about the trip through my blog and am launching a new ‘blog series‘ called Ministry Slovakia! Make sure you subscribe to my blog so you’ll be guaranteed to be updated!

Below is a list of all the posts for this series!

• Builder’s Trip Agenda – This post is exactly what it appears to be, the schedule!
• We Got a Little Bored on the Airplane – Check out our funny face pictures and learn how to properly sip coke while flying!
• Where Is Nitra Slovakia Anyways? – A little bit about Nitra and some maps of the route we took to get here.
• Sunday Worship at Holy Spirit Lutheran - I love spending time at my home congregation in Slovakia.
• Lutherans Throw Potluck’s in Slovakia – A great time with friends at Holy Spirit.
• Mayor of Naperville, George Pradel meets Mayor of Nitra, Jozef Dvonč – Reflections on the meeting written by Mayor Pradel.
• Bohdan Hrobon Meets with Reps of the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Bohdan explains his meeting with the Slovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Will Work For Food – The builder’s trip participants are actually working!
• Bohdan’s Calling and the Story of how the Bible College and CCE Began – Bohdan shares his story and his heart with us.
• Will Work For Food – Part 2 – More pictures of the work site at CCE.
• Future Buildings and Programs for the Center for Christian Education – Video of Bohdan giving a presentation on the dream for CCE that will, with prayers and support, become a reality!
• Slovakian News Covers Naperville Builder’s Trip - Video from the Slovakian news channel that covered the work we did at CCE!