Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 26 is life as usual in Prague. Work and school go on. Even though our kids won't have school, we will celebrate Thanksgiving with the Dora's brother and his family who are visiting us here. In preparation for thanksgiving, here are a few things I am thankful for:

Ministry partners who work with Roma:
1) Beraneks-Club Rachel
2) Pastor Ondrej and his wife Jana-Club Rachel, Hope Praha Church
3) J-Czech missionary working with ethnic minorities in Prague
4) Rene-lay pastor of a Roma congregation-compiling a Roma song book
5) Van vuurens and Peter Pristiak-pastors in eastern Slovakia

Family:
1) The Lord's help in adjustment to fast move
2) Kids all doing GREAT in school
3) Good health
4) Good friends for our kids

Personal:
1) The Lord's accomplished work on the cross
2) The Lord's continued leading in ministry
3) A great family!
4) Great ReachGlobal colleagues

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy New Year-Czech style!

At 12:00 AM GMT+1 the skies above the Czech Republic brightly lit up and resounded with a cacophony of explosions. Our Czech friends across the nation welcomed the new year with roman candles, bottle rockets, firecrackers, and other implements of mass celebration. A few enthusiasts even added their own shotgun blasts to the excitement! For us, this was the culmination of an evening spent singing, talking, and eating a lot of food with friends from church and then watching a movie as a family.

Czechs, like Americans, also make New Years' resolutions or "předsevzetí". I recently spent a weekend alone with God in order to evaluate my spiritual life and my yearly goals. One of my major goals for 2009 is to "create and maintain a comprehensive communications strategy" for our ministry. Thus the new newsletter and blog (and more to be announced!). Our target audience is you who pray for our ministry, give towards it, and serve in other ways. My goal is to allow our family, friends, and ministry partners to "experience ministry on the field and to take part in our lives".

I have taken a lot of time to think about how to accomplish this goal...but I need to hear your feedback. If you feel so inclined, I ask you to consider signing up for emails of this blog AND KEEPING ME ON TASK! Give me feedback about what you want to hear from me and what you want to see. Tell me how often you want to hear from me and in what media (blog, newsletter, pictures, video, etc.). In other words, please interact with me and join the ministry in Eastern Europe!

Tom