Hi! Another week is gone. It is crazy to even think about the fact that I am already writing about my 10th week here in Brooklyn, Ohio. I have never been so far for so long.

On Monday we started by visiting Greg who was still in the hospital from the cat bites and scratches. We stayed there for about an hour and talked with Linda and Greg. Afterward, we went to print more flyers for our Carnival because we ran out of them. We ordered another thousand flyers and went for lunch. Meanwhile, the flyers were getting ready for us. We got stuck in traffic really badly both times that we went from that place. When we got our flyers we of course went and delivered more of them to people in Brooklyn. In the evening, pastor Eric and I went to Michnay’s house for dinner. They are two older sisters who have lived together their whole lives. It was a really nice evening! And the food was delicious! They made us a Slovak dish.

On Tuesday we as always went to Duck Rabbit to get our drinks and discuss the lessons for the upcoming Sunday. Tuesday was weird because after lunch at Dina’s I didn’t feel good at all so instead of delivering more flyers pastor just took me home to rest.

Wednesday morning I started by preparing stuff for healthcare kits that we were going to be assembling on the Carnival. Also, pastor bought a brand-new canopy for Carnival so we tried to build it. It was so frustrating because it just broke and we were not able to put it down. We spent like at least half an hour trying to do something about it. On Wednesday evening and night there was a huge storm in our area. 100,000 people were without electricity. I just couldn’t sleep for hours and then I got a really loud alert on my phone that there is a possibility of a tornado and that we should go to the basement. Luckily after a few minutes the storm passed us but I sat in the living room with Peggy for some time and we watched the news. In the morning some of the news were crazy. Especially there was one church on the East side of Cleveland that got really damaged. Half of the roof was gone.

Thursday was the best day for us in terms of delivering flyers. We deliver quite a bit that day. In the afternoon I was supposed to go with Randy and Peggy to some concert in the Rocky River. When we got there we discovered that the concert was canceled due to weather. So we ended up on dinner in an Irish pub! I got an Shepherd pie which was very good and of course a Guinnes!

On Friday we prepared most of the things for Sunday. Mostly for the games, so our volunteers would have it easier to run them. We also delivered some more flyers. In total we delivered 1700 flyers! 

The weekend came and I had fun right from the morning. Kim and Kenny Vlk picked me up at around 10 AM. First we went to a WWII submarine which I founded really interesting. I really like history so it was fascinating for me. I can not imagine how so many people lived on a such a small space for such a long time. After that we went for the biggest thing upcoming that day – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Because I love music, I was just so much looking forward to it! And it was really cool! I was just amazed how did they get so much original things from a variety of artists. They had Elvis Presley’s guitar, motorbike and many other things, Johny Cash’s guitar and suit…, Michael Jackson’s jackets, literally everything! The things that I loved the most were all the different guitars. You can see on your right the Jimi Hendrix section, which had a really nice guitars from him. The interesting fact about Hendrix was that he was lefthanded but played a right handed guitar just with switched strings! On your left you can see a Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) section with his iconic guitars, especially his Jaguar. And the last photo is on your right and it is one of the most iconic guitars ever – Eddie Van Halen’s guitar! We spent there a whole day! It was fascinating. We also went to a movie theather in there and watched whole The Beatles Rooftop concert. It was absolutely amazing! I really enjoyed that. If you can, try watch it! Another fun thing there was a garage were you could played bunch of instruments or jam with other people. I tried every guitar that they had there! 😀 It was so fun! After we left the Rock Hall, we went to get me a photo next to a Cleveland sign which is a must do if you are visiting Cleveland! After all day we went to have a dinner in a really good steak house. Thanks to Kim and Kenny for a very nice day!

And here we come – Sunday. In the morning I went to church early to help set up everything because we were having an outdoor service this Sunday. Everything went smoothly and we got a lot of people. Everybody enjoyed it and we also played four songs with our band. I stayed in the church a whole day preparing things for Carnival. We started at 4 PM and ended around 7 PM. It absolutle overcame our expectations! We had 42 volunteers from our church helping with everything and during these 3 hours we got around 180 – 200 people come excluding the volunteers! It was just such a blessed time! I am so happy about it. Everything was free. Kids enjoyed the games and the bounce houses. Everyone enjoyed food! We served 260 sandwiches with either smoked pork or kielbasi! I played and singed with the band a whole afternoon and we enjoyed it! On your right side, you can see a photo of our band. It was a very blessed afternoon and we got really nice responses from people that attended. Thanks to God for that! Hopefully he will work in the hearts of people that came on Sunday!

I am still thinking about what happend at the Carnival. One thing that suprised me maybe the most was how many people said that they came because of a flyer in their door. You know during the days that we were delivering the flyers I wasn’t always so enthusiastic to do that like I am with a lot of other things. We just walked, sticked a flyer in a door and walked. It wasn’t something that I was enjoying the most. But I am so happy that God showed me through all of that, that we don’t need to always enjoy things for Him to work through them. I was so happy when people said that they came because of the flyers. Afterward I was sad that we didn’t deliver more of them! God showed me once again how He can work wonders! Sunday was just an amazing example of that!

Stay safe. God is with you all the time! And I will be with you again next week!