HI EVERYONE!

Let me introduce myself a little :

My name is Viki. I am a student at the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty of Comenius University – just finished my 3rd year here. I grew up in a small village near Bratislava called Blatné, where I got my first 9 years of school. However when I went to high school I chose one in Bratislava and decided to move there for my collage studies.

Right now I am a 22-year-old Slovak girl who is trying to make people feel seen, heared and loved. I really enjoy singing, walks in the nature, deep conversations with people, great food and listening to live pipe-organ music.

 

Tuesday

One more thing you need to know about me is that I never traveled in an airplane before, so for me the first new adventure started already in the Vienna airport. Well, in the beginning I felt a little bit lost, but I found my way to the check-in and dropped my suitcase off. From then on it was a bit easier to wonder around with only one bag to carry and so I went to my gate. After some time of walking, looking around and waiting the boarding started and I don’t even know how, but suddenly we were up in the sky on our way to the USA.

Obviously, as a person who was on a flight for the first time, I chose a window seat and was amazed by the view outside. The flight was comfortable and I had planty of time to rest. After arriving to the Newark airport there was a huge sign : Welcome to America. Right after that I was met with the reality of costumes – I had some complications there and it really stressed me out. After 15 minutes of trying to resolve the problem I was so stressed that tears started running down my cheeks. There was one sweet woman, another traveller, who tried to help me and calm me down – she hugged me and prayed for me. After things got resolved and I was feeling better she said to me :

You know, sometimes we just need Jesus´s love in human flesh.

And it is absolutely true. She was the one who carried His love and gave it to me when I needed it. I decided that it was exactly what I wanted to do while being in the USA. Showing people Christ´s love in the way they need to see it.

After I dropped my suitcase off again I had 4 more hours until boarding so I took a long walk, got my new boarding pass, had my first Smashburger, bought a donut and sat down to read my book and rest until boarding. On the second flight I had a beautiful view, because there were pretty clouds all around us and the sun was setting – I didn’t expect that because I wasn’t realizing what time it was, so it came off as a surprise. Irene and John Parks came to pick me up from the Grand Rapids airport – this is a family I stayed with for the first two weeks. They are a nice grandma and grandpa like couple.

Wednesday 

My first full day in the Parks´s home Irene showed me her beautiful garden and flowers and John introduced me to their daily visitors that they take care of – crows and squirrels – it was amazing to watch a few animal come to the feeder every few minutes. Later we took a nice walk on the beach of Lake Michigan and I rested a lot.

In the afternoon I met Doug – pastor of the Lebanon Lutheran Church in Whitehall and he took me to see the church and some other surroundings. This is the congregation that I will be a part of for the next 80 days.

Friday

I am still trying to get over my jet lag, but I am finally functioning. We went on the first home visit with the pastor. I met some lovely people from the congregation and got to get to know their story better.

Pastor Doug stands by his saying – we need to be visible – which means, we as representatives of the church need to be visible in everyday situations in places in public for people to see the reality, not only the stereotypes. Others need to see that we are normal people, living normal lifes. So we went for a dinner and a concert into a small town bar. It was nice to see local evening life.

Sunday

Sunday worship. I saw many new faces and learned many new names. Everybody said to me : Welcome to America, welcome in Lebanon. And I know they ment it, because I really feel welcome in here. It is a warm and loving place. I am very thankful for this congregation and I´m looking forward to spending the summer here.

(For those who noticed – I didn’t mention Thursday and Saturday, and that’s because I rested a lot and spent some time with the Parkses getting to know them better. Also I am really sorry for posting this blog 2 weeks late, I was really tired, trying to get to know everything and didn’t know how this worked yet.)