Hello all! We are writing to you from a great coffee shop in Kladno called ‘Penguin Coffee.’ Unfortunately, the name disappoints… There are no penguins here.

Here’s the latest noteworthy items from our life! Thank you for your prayers and support.

Bennett is at a new school…

When we first got here, we hoped to put Bennett in the public/state school, which is a great education. Unfortunately, we arrived too late into the new year to sign him up. All the classes were full. Something about a bunch of COVID-19 babies now being in kindergarten…

We determined it best at that time to put Bennett in a private school, which was a great ‘soft intro’ to Czech school for him at the time. That said, it wasn’t ideal. It was a 15 minute drive from home, and $325 a month. Yikes. While we were content and trusting the Lord that this was best, we kept praying.

Unexpectedly, God worked through some conversations with neighbours (even in broken English and broken Czech). One neighbor (Marketa) took it upon herself to see if she could get Bennett into the school in our village (Lidice). The next day, we saw her at the park. She said to Claire, “I… uh… talk to school… er… manager… she say… uh… Bennet can to start… uh…. beginning at… jak se říká (how do you say?)…. November… ? So, we will going next week… um… and help I to you… papers and meet manager…”

(I know, it’s like you were there, right?)

Long story short: Bennett is now an 8 minute walk from home, and the schooling is free! Additionally, it’s an all-Czech school. The previous school was a hybrid of Czech-English, emphasising English. He’s already using random Czech words, and he’s learning a lot of other things. He has a couple friends from church in his class, and he’s making a couple new friends. He now goes 5 days a week, from 8-Noon, and he loves it.

One of his teachers, who speaks English, said to us: “I am so happy when Bennett is here! I don’t know what it is… He’s just so… happy, and respectful. It makes my day better.” We trust this is a testimony to the gospel at work in his life. We trust, one day, it will be true in his teacher’s life too!

We’re so thankful for this! Pray we’d be growing in patience and gentleness toward Benny as his personality and attitude is changing a lot lately. He’s still such a sweet kid, but he’s getting his own strong will too.

Millie is moving up in the world…

Millie is now 4 years old! Her ‘golden birthday’ was November 4th. We celebrated for a few consecutive days with small gifts each day, a giant cake, and some fun outings. Claire had a fun tea party with her and some other little friends.

She is a becoming such a sweet little girl who loves her brothers deeply. She’s in to all the little girly things that make a four-year-old so fun. Claire is especially having a fun time with that.

Pray we’d shepherd her well to trust mom and dad as we trust God, not living in fear and selfishness. Pray we’d show her what kind speech and selflessness looks like.

Frequent interactions with unbelievers…

We are thankful and surprised at how many interactions we’re having with unbelievers. I think we’d even say we’re starting relationships with some of them – surface-level for now, but still something.

The neighbor who helped us with Bennett’s schooling has been so kind. She’s also helping us find a good family doctor, inviting us to parties and her son’s football (soccer) games, and holiday festivities. When Claire asked why she’s being so kind, she simply said, “I don’t know… We think you are… um… great. You clean your garden… Your kids are, um… nice. And… we like you!“

A brother at the church reminded Jared, “Czechs will be watching your life to see if you are trustworthy and respectable people. So remember, every bit of faithfulness matters.” So… we don’t take our neighbours comments lightly!

A mom of a daughter from Bennett’s previous school also reached out to Claire because her daughter wanted to play with Bennett again. She is Russian, her husband is Italian, and they don’t speak Czech. We had a play date with them.

Jared also had the beginnings of a gospel conversation with one of our other neighbors who, essentially, believes in some sort of eastern mysticism hybrid. The door is open there for further conversations.

Pray we would maximise these relationships and gospel opportunities, but also be patient and tactful. Winter is here. People are outside less. So this means we’ll have to be extra intentional to pursue them.

Language learning…

Yup, it’s still hard! But we’re staying diligent. In our personal lessons we’re in to things like the past, present, and future tenses now, as well as possessive pronouns and demonstrative pronouns. Some evenings, we’re reading a funny book to practice pronunciation, reading aloud, understanding sentence structure and casual language. We don’t know everything being said yet, but it still has its benefits! (Do you recognise the book?)

Passages like Psalm 39:4-5 provide the right eternal and temporal perspective we need to labor with all our strength. Our life is like a breath, or a shadow. There’s no point, then, spending it on ourselves if our joy will soon be completely fulfilled in eternity with Christ. For now, we labor hard.

There are ‘slump’ weeks to be sure, but God is faithful to sustain us. Pray we’d be motivated by a love for these people, their hearts, and their need to hear of salvation in their own language. If anything less than this is our motivation, we will tend to slack. May it not be so!

Other happenings…

Until next time…

We are filled with gratitude when we think of you all, your faithfulness to pray for us, and when we fill up our gas tanks or buy the kids snow boots for that matter.

This holiday season we miss our U.S. family and friends.

Thankfully, we get to travel to London for Thanksgiving to see Claire’s brother and his family (missionaries also). And, when we get back, a dear family here at the church is hosting a thanksgiving feast for all the missionaries! That will be a refreshment 🙂 More on that next time!