Welcome to our camp site! Pull up a log and grab yourself a klobasa (sausage) to cook over the fire. These are a few of my friends from the C.S.Lewis high school here in Bratislava. They recently finished all their exams from their junior year and were in the mood to celebrate. Even though most of them are 18 and have completed 4 years of high school they still have one more year before they will move on to college. Such is the school system in Slovakia. From my perspective the expectations and training they receive at their school is higher than the average American high school. Next years classes will be much like a first year at college in terms of level of difficulty.

These are the same kids I met 2 years ago on a retreat only 3 months after I had arrived as a new citizen of this country. The future possibilities for them are certainly better than what was facing high school graduates 10 or even 5 years ago. However, the prospects for college and jobs are not nearly what they are in many neighboring countries such as Austria or Czech Republic. One of the positives for them is that the first 5 years of college in Slovakia is free. However, many nationals have told me that in most fields the quality of education here is quite low. Its a common problem in many post communist countries. Too many of the best and the brightest from this region want to go study, work and build a life where there is the greater possibilty for prosperity as well as advancement in your field. That includes college professors.

Generally, its more attractive for most people to go to college abroad or at least to another nearby country. The problem with that of course is paying for school. Almost no young people here come from a family who are able to finance an expensive college degree. So, the choices are to go to school here and get what most young people feel is a less than stellar education or go abroad somewhere and start earning money for college in a place where you can earn in 1 year what would take 3 years to earn here. There are a few international college scholorships available for those few students who are the best of the best but that could be compared to winning the lottery.

From what I have learned in my time in Slovakia, both in my personal experience and observing how these young people respond, it seems to me that the increased adversity to making your way in the world creates people who are more firmly rooted and generally more creative and determined. I think it could be hypothesized that the more difficult the journey people must travel in a given situation, the better chance there is for something extraordinary to happen. I believe all of my friends here today have bright futures ahead of them.

Every cookout is more exciting if there are some games involved. A water balloon toss is the perfect activity for a hot summer day. You can see in the distance a storm blowing in so we had to celebrate quickly today. There has been several days of hot humid weather creating some very intense storms here. Fortunately they do not get tornado's here but the recent storms were eerily similar to tornado like conditions. Hold on to your hat!

Allow me to introduce you to my friends Miro, Susan and baby Lea. I recently had the privilege of sharing a table of fellowship at their home. This was my first occasion to spend quality time with Susan and Lea. Miro, on the other hand, was the first Slovak I ever met when he came to Minnesota in 2005. He stayed with a hockey friend of mine and came to one of our summer hockey sessions to skate and share with the guys about his life and reason for being in Mn. Miro formerly served as principal of the aforementioned C.S.Lewis school and is now pursuing other endeavors such as teaching at a local university. Susan has a law degree and is often involved in cases where people or groups have no voice and no means to seek fairness and justice in society. Lea, she eats quite well, can roll over with no problem and still needs more practice at sleeping long enough to give mom and dad sufficient sleep.

Dad's make the best horses (uncles too). Gidee up Daddy!
Warning: If you're going to try this at home, take it from me, dont do it right after baby has been to the milk station.

Enjoy some original Monet as I share a few thoughts from my journey in the field.

As I enter into my 3rd year of life in the land of castles, my personal journey for the contentment of the soul moves slowly but steadily forward. The battle between grace and pride, peace and anxiousness, joy and depression, fear and faith…is at the center of the struggle. The ultimate destination is an inner peace and an outward joy regardless of what may be in my tangible circumstances. Though there are glimpses of this far away land, I have a long distance yet to travel before I arrive at this place that Jesus called ‘abundant life.’ Throughout the journey I am reminded that it doesn’t matter where you live, the real challenge is to live in the world as a guest and not a resident. Anyone who has accepted and embraced the narrow road of life or the path of least convenience can resonate with these words. The question is not, I think, ‘how can we live in such a way that we remain unscathed by the tragedies and trials of life.’ The real question, it seems to me, is ‘how can we accept and embrace these realities of life in such a way that they are able to cut away all of our counterfeit identity revealing the true creation.’

The variety, scope and degree of painful and confusing life circumstances is never ending. There are days of uncertainty and doubt as well as confidence and assurance. Days when the darkness seems to overwhelm and have eternal staying power, until the light breaks through again to restore the promise of a life redeemed. The constant cycling through failures and success, defeats and victories, losses and gains threaten the sanity of those whose expectations are for personal perfection. Each of us must confront and accept the depth of just how corrupt our hearts can really be. To believe that a heart, which is without the healing and restoration of Jesus, can be truly free to love and be loved, which is the ultimate purpose, is to fall into one of the greatest deceptions ever perpetrated by our unseen enemy. In this understanding we see that life on our own terms is only hell on earth. As we press into God and reject the false hope of worldly promises we are able to reveal the power and beauty of a heart transformed by the loving yet painful sculpting of our Father God. The more that I understand and accept that this is what life with God looks like, this side of heaven, the more true peace I have.

God knows we are going to fail at most things in our lives. God knows we are going to injure more than we love. God knows we are going to prove disloyal and adulterous most of the time in our relationship with Him. It is no surprise to God when we give a false and ugly testimony to His beauty and greatness. The important part in all of this is to have the same response to our failures as God. If we are shocked, horrified and surprised by our terrible thoughts and behaviors (because of our human expectation to try and be good people) we remain trapped in a cycle of trying to be good (or successful), failing, then being immersed in shame and trying to restore our resolve to become what we unconsciously want to be—self sufficient. This is a classic process of futility, expecting different results using the same useless formula. An unbalanced mind and a divided heart is the result and confusion ensues leading us into still more darkness, or more accurately, a diminished presence of God’s light.

I have a great respect and admiration for those people around me who have mostly gotten over themselves. In other words they understand that, life, it’s not about them and it never will be. The only thing they take seriously about themselves is the understanding of their propensity to take themselves too seriously. This is one of the great points of departure from our counterfeit identity to our God given identity. In addition, these true disciples recognize and embrace that the notion of having any kind of real control over one’s life and ultimate fate is nothing more than an illusion. The reality is that God set everything we know and experience in motion and God will bring it all to a close in His way and in His time. May we all submit our hearts more deeply today, in all humility and lowliness, to the heart of the Father. May we allow His gentle yet powerful hands to lovingly shape us and mold us into the amazing vision he had for us long before we ever became foreigners of this planet.