Hello! My name’s Michal, but you can call me Mike. I’m 22 years old and I was born and raised in Třinec, Czech Republic. I have finnished my second year of theology this June at the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava. I am a member of the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (SCEAV) and my congregation is in Třinec-Oldřichovice. My hobbies are spending time with my girlfriend Ema, chess, Minecraft and reading. In theology, I like dogmatics and Church history. I hope you will enjoy my blogs and feel free to react on them!

Somewhere past Easter a mail came in into my university email. I got accepted for the Immersion programme! I was excited. This programme is a huge opportunity for me to grow and to find about other cultures. The church where I should be staying is the Holly Trinity Evangelical Church in Little Falls, NY. The pastor here is Rev. Joseph Famulare. I got in contact with him and was pleased to lern the congegation is happy I will pay them a visit this summer.

I did’t have much time to think about my stay in the USA since school and the exam period came. My focus was on that. But everybody in our cingregation in Oldřichovice was excited that I’m going to America. I had four days to pack for my stay once I have done my exams. I tried to spend as much time as I could with Ema, since we won’t see each other for three months.

Maybe you are interested about Ema’s possition on my visit. She is happy I got this chance. But when she congratulated me, I could hear from her voice that she means that sincerelly, but she was also sad that she won’t see me for so long. At the time, we were about a month together, now we are four months together. And to be honest, I was crossed too. Being three months without a person you really love is hard. But she always says “We will do this” and she’s right. Nontheless, I am very looking forward to see her again.

Let’s leave the harsh reality of reationships behind for now, I might update you on that in a later post. I should fly from Vienna, Austria on thursday June 22nd, but my journey started a day prior. I wanted to stay at our dorms in Bratislava, so I travelled there from Třinec. It is a 4,5 hours train ride. I came to Bratislava and cleaned my room and then went too sleep. I got only an 3 hour sleep, because I booked a bus drom bratislava to Vienna Airport. I neede to get to the bus and that took me an hour. So I woke up at 1:45 am and around 2:30 am I went from my dorm to catch my bus. Everythink went fine, the 45 minutes ride to Vienna was ok. I arrived at 5:10 am at the airport and the flight was going to start at 10:40 am.

It was my first time flying. I was never outside our neighbouring countries (Germany, Slovakia, Austria and Poland).  Naturally I was nervous. I asked our youth to pray for me, mom and Ema (and her family) did too. Of course I prayed a lot. I was scared that my luggage will exceed the maximum measures and I’d need to pay a fee. I didn’t have that much money. But thanks God everything was allright. So, we took of from Vienna, Austria and flew to Newark Intl.

We arrived, did our passport check and claimed our bags. My classmate Tomasz, who is also in this project but in Brooklyn, OH needed to go for his flight so we parted our ways there. I had 4,5 hours time, so I went to do the whole airport process, asking everyone what shall I do. After all the checks, I sat down in the waiting room. Since the take off in Vienna, I had a mild headache, but now it started to go worse. It was almost 24 hours I last slept. Fortunatelly, a few minutes before the flight from Newark to Albany it stared to get better. Once in the plane, I fell asleep for probably half an our. I have a feelinig I snored, but I was almost dead. A nice lady sat next to me and we tallked through the whole flight. It was quick.

At the airport, a couple from the church in Little Falls came to pick me up. It was Joe and Sue. They had some water ready for me and a cinamon bun. It was really good. The water was really a life saver. We got to Little Falls to the house of the pastor where I’ll be staying for three months. He showed me around the house and then I went to sleep, since my batteries were absolutelly low. I fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

The next day, we went around the city and pastor Joe showed me the church. Outside was something really heartwarming. I saw a writing saying “Wellcome to Holly Trinity Lutheran Michal”. I guess pastor wasn’t lying when he said the congregation is excited for my arrival. This was really sweet!

On Saturday evening, pastor Joe’s son John invited me to the local brewery for a beer and to watch a band. It was nice. Just the beer wasn’t really good. American beers do not really even taste like beer. I really love beer and in Czech Republic, we make objectivelly the best beer so I needed to figure something else. Right now, we got some Belgian beer and it is so much better! Hopefully I can find some good Czech beer in an another store. Right after the concert, we went for a pizza and oh boy it was good! It was thick as a pie and really delicious. We had a good chat with John.

And on Sunday, we went to church. The people over here are really nice. A lady gave me a loaf of toast bread. It is really wonderfull to see the people being sincerelly happy I’m here in Little Falls. Then we were invited by the local Episcopalian priest Jack for a celebration of his 25th anniversary of ordination. So I met a lot of new people, who are really nice! The people here are incredible. I love being here.

Now you know what was I doing the past few days. I have to tell you, that many prayers went to all this stuff. I could see God’s hand over me and blessing me these days. It is incredible to be here and it would never even cross my mind that I could really be in the USA for 3 months and gain experience for my future ministry. I prayed a lot to get safe here. Our youth prays a lot for my safety and God’s guidance. And so does everybody back home. And today I found out that everybody here also prayed for me. When I look back on all the stuff that happened in the past months, I have to be so thankfull to God! Me – a guy who was raised by a single mother is in the “New World”. I’m in a fantastic place with lots of wonderfull people. I can get mentored by one of the coolest pastors you could ever meet and see his spiritual life. I arrived safe and sound and God even calmed me the whole time. What else can I do than sing: “How great Thou art!”

Remember; God is good all the time. And all the time God is good! Thank you very much for reading my post and have a blessed week!