The Czech Scarf

I really like wearing scarves. Yes, I am from a desert where the temperature rarely gets cold enough to validate wearing one, but never the less i own a ridiculous amount of scarves. I even wear them with T-shirts, which didn't used to be cool when I first started doing it, but is now acceptable, especially if paired with some skinny legged jeans and an indie looking shirt. I still don't have the skinny legged jeans thing down (believe me, I have tried) but I can really rock a scarf with confidence and I listen to indie music, so that should count. Right?

Well, when I am in a new culture I like to acculturate myself through picking up on the fashion of the country. In Guatemala this was a challenge considering it would have been slightly offensive, not to mention ridiculous, for me to wear traditional Mayan costume, but here it is different. Anyways, of all the "in" fashions here in the Czech my favorite is the "druggie" scarf (named so because it is generally associated with hippies and druggies who often wear them. I have always wanted to be a hippie, at least in theory, so this is great for me). I finally bought one and have felt instantly more Czech, and, if I say so myself,  look pretty cool when I wear it. That is depending on your definition of cool. These scarves are everywhere here. Absolutely everywhere.  It is like a symbol of Czech youth and style. However, this scarf seems to be showing up other places also.

Last night I was watching Heroes, my one connection to American popular culture, when what do I see? A czech scarf! One character is banished to some unnamed remote part of Africa

where he is approached by an African (I know this term is really broad, but I don't know specifically where he is from) man wearing wearing a Czech scarf (See picture).

Obviously, this scarf is not exclusive to the Czech Republic. In fact, I know that its origins are of another country, I am told Egypt (that makes sense) but still, I was so excited to see it being rocked out on the show. Yes, the scarf is officially cool now and apparently very versatile. If the African man can wear the Czech scarf in the desert, then I can work it in AZ for sure. Wait a minute, I will be in Colorado. Oh, well, I guess the point is that I am bringing this fashion home. The perfect Czech/African/American accessory whether hot or cold. 

Bratislava, Slovakia

Fortune Cookie

I opened up my Bible today and out fell a fortune from a cookie I ate a month ago.

It reads: Der Humor bringt Dich in schwierigen Situationen weiter, verliere ihn nicht.

Oh great, I can't read German.

Wait a minute...I flip it over and...

In English this time: Don't lose your sense of humor. It helps you through difficult situations.

Finally a fortune cookie that tells the truth. I have to remember this for times such as when I forget to label the prices on my fruits and vegetables and I have to struggle through my limited Czech to tell the girl at information about my slip up while the entire line waits for me. Or the times when I get on the wrong train and end up miles away from where I want to be. Or how about when I get yelled at in Czech because I am texting and standing in someone's way but don't realize it because I have no idea what she is saying. Each day I face moments where my foreignness makes me feel ignorant and foolish. But I take heart. Really all I can do is laugh. Thanks fortune for reminding me.

Presence

"A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person in present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation."

A.W. Tozer

The Pursuit of God

There are a few things that have become more apparent to me as I have gotten older. One is that I don't know as much as I think I do, and the other is that I desperately need God. I need to experience him in more than an intellectual way. I need to know him as a father, as a brother, as a friend. I need to find my self in his presence, not simply viewing the brilliance of his glory through through a veil of self imposed distance. It is immensely easier to be contented with such a distance when there are so many noble things to fill it. I have always been a runner. By that I mean someone who runs to one thing or another, to one friend or family member to share my pains with, my joys, my thoughts, desires, and burdens. I seldom find my place of rest in the presence of God. When trouble strikes, when pain pierces my heart, when a burden comes that I cannot carry on my own I am all too quick to pick up the phone and call a friend, to escape in some activity or company of people, to busy myself so as to forget or to postpone. Being here, away from all the common comforts and pleasant distractions of my "normal" life, has only made it unavoidably evident that when it comes down to it, it really is just me and God. As I walked home from the train station the other day I started to cry. The ironic thing is that I had just gotten back from a great weekend with a youth group I work with. However, as I walked home by myself and in the quite of my own thoughts a sense of being completely alone came over me. I wanted to grab my cell phone and call a friend to reassure myself this was not true and to set my mind at ease, but I realized that with all of my good friends being across the Atlantic Ocean that this was not an option. So I kept walking, wiping tears, and avoiding eye contact with passers by. I prayed. I prayed with more honesty than I have in a long time. I prayed to God as if  he was my friend on the line. Not with eloquence or with well phrased requests and adoration, but with simplicity and honest pleas. I have always been drawn to the Psalms because of the way they portray and express unhindered human emotion and experience. I mean, the psalmist was one messed up and confused man, crying out to God and asking why he has forgotten him in one breath and in the next praising God for his abundant goodness and proclaiming the great deeds of the Lord. But aren't we all like this? Grasping for God and yet at the same time cursing him for his supposed distance or distraction from us, form our needs. I want to pray to God as the psalmist does, with shocking confidence and vulnerability. He does not hold back, he doesn't pretend, he doesn't reserve his prayers for only praise but for confession, for admitting his great doubt and need, for honestly laying his most painful experiences of his heart before God. The psalmist doesn't offend God with this vulnerability, he confesses his belief in his presence in his nearness to his need. He cries out to God knowing that he is not crying out in vain, his cries are expressions of trust, expressions of utter recognition that God is among him, within him, near to him, intertwining himself in our deepest desires, pain, and burdens. Intellectually I know this is true of God myself. I know that he is forever present and intimately aquatinted with all of me, but I don't act this way. I act as if I need something more, as if God were distant and uninterested, incapable of meeting my needs or untrustworthy with my pain and supplications. The reality is that I will always treat God as distant as long as I accept him intellectually but refuse a relationship with him that is experiential. In other words, I must experience God. I must experience his presence and simply know that he is there. A.W. Tozer writes, "God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can , without anything other than himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is. " This is what first drew me to God and this truth is what must sustain me in my relationship with him. I regret that the only thing standing between me and the presence of God is my own self living on unrepentant and uncruicified, to steal the words of Tozer. Coming into the presence of God requires a coming out from behind the veil of ourselves, but the death of self is painful. I think what I am experiencing here is a little bit of this death. Though I am resistant and I complain whole heartedly for having to go through it, it is a death that I cannot escape. It seems impossible to be here and refuse to be in the reality that I can experience God's presence. God is a knowable God, a God that has always chosen to be present among us, to be aquatinted with our sorrows, to know fully the pull of temptation. After all, was Jesus not Emmanuel, God with us, the Word that dwelt among us? God "is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28). If only I would realize how truly present God is. What difference that would make. 

Ontoño

 Has entrado al otoño 

me dijiste 

y me sentí temblar 

hoja encendida 

que se aferra a su tallo 

que se obstina 

que es párpado amarillo 

y luz de vela 

danza de vida 

y muerte 

claridad suspendida 

en el eterno instante 

del presente. 

By: Claribel Alegria

List #2: Thanksgiving

I find at times when it seems things seem difficult, when I would rather mourn that which I don't have, it is better to be deliberately thankful. These are some things I am genuinely thankful for right now here in the Czech.

1) My roommates: Leah and Bonnie

2) My fellow ESI's

3) Erin 

4) Melissa

5) My Strakonice girls: Eva, Naomi, Lucka, Leni, Zuzka, Kakuse, Jana, Lydie, Hanicka, and so many more lovely ladies that teach me and encourage me.

6) Great neighbors: Alca and Martin

7) Friends and family that I know are praying for me and love me back home

8) Conversations on Skype at 1am

9) All the JV staff

10) Exit 316 Club

11) Elim Church and Youth Group

12) Getting emails from people I care about

13) The beautiful Czech countryside

14) Having time to simply love people

15) That my job is to build relationships

16) No homework

17) I have time to read

18) The All Star Girl's Bible study

19) The fact that I am growing up through staying young

20) The simple wisdom and encouragement of teenage girls

21) Cesky Budejovice Youth Group! (Kikina, Marketa, Martina, Dr. Eddy, Sarka, Anicka, Bara, Katka, Lukas, Marek, Honza and Petr H., and so many more awesome people!)

22) Trains

23) Having time to really think

24) Being humbled by everyday tasks (i.e. grocery shopping, going to the store, sending a letter, etc.)

25) My lovely flat and the park outside

26) Having more than I need

27) The fact that my roommates are always willing to eat my cooking experiments even when they fail miserably

28) Tea houses

29) That everyday I learn something new

30) That I can finally understand a lot of what I hear

31) Leah's translating abilities

32) Great Indian food

33) Learning how to be a conservationist Czech style. This culture is so creative with how they reduce, reuse, and recycle. I even turned a spaghetti jar into a fancy change container.

34) Laughing and making random comments with Leah when we watch movies

35) The leaves changing colors

36) Everyone in Tabor, especially Lenka

37) For being part of something bigger than myself

38) Being able to travel around CZ to visit old friends

39) God's abundant goodness and provision

40) families that shower their hospitality on me and show me what it means to live in community

I think that is enough for now. I am thankful that there are so many more things I have to be thankful about.

2x3 Campaign: A Generation Waits

Next Generation from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.

One Percent from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.