{"id":1892,"date":"2026-07-23T15:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2026-07-23T16:25:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T21:25:30","slug":"2nd-week-6-7-12-7-lets-dive-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/?p=1892","title":{"rendered":"2nd WEEK 6.7. – 12.7. –> Let\u00b4s dive in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi!<\/h4>\n

I would like to tell you about my 2nd week<\/h4>\n

in the Lebanon Lutheran Church<\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is the week where I dived into some of the key ministries of the congregation.<\/p>\n

Monday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There are some good news, I finally have an American phone number for these 3 months!<\/p>\n

For those who don\u00b4t know – the Lebanon Lutheran Church<\/em>(I will use only Lebanon from now on) in Whitehall has a ministry called The Food Pantry<\/em><\/strong>. They give out food to approximately 130 families that need it every Wednesday. I was really nicely surprised and amazed when I found out. On Monday we went to pick up some canned goods for the Food Pantry. I was glad that I could be a part of that – I met some new wonderful people(and a sweet dog) and got to look into the process of how it works a little bit more.<\/p>\n

After that we went on a home visit<\/strong> to one really kind man. Even before I came to the USA I knew that the pastoral care is one of the most important ministries to me. And now as we go on these visits I can see it with my own eyes how much it matters. How much “just listening”<\/em> changes. The person can feel seen, heared and loved, maybe after a long time. They can see that they are still an important part of the congregtion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the end of the day we went to a trivia<\/strong>. I found out that people from the congregation have their own trivia team. I find it amazing that they have activities together even outside of church. They just like to spend time together after work on Mondays. Isn\u00b4t that sweet? I really enjoyed this time with them even tho I didn\u00b4t know almost any answers – we had so much fun! Aaaaand I got to taste my first tacos. What a day!<\/p>\n

Buuut that\u00b4s not how the evening ended. After trivia we went to an outdoors live music event<\/strong>. I was reminded again of how important it is to “be visible”<\/em>. We need to be a part of the town community and not distance ourselves. It was a nice time to get to know a few other people and read my book while enjoying the beautiful peaceful music and the sunset.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

Tuesday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On Monday one of the big summer events started – The swim lessons<\/strong>.<\/em> I was not there that day, so Tuesday was my first day of seeing how things work and helping a little. These swim lessons started in Lebanon because the congregation is located in an area that has many lakes and unfortunately a lot of kids cannot swim. Each year they have an official swim coach and some family is accessing their swimming pool for the swim lessons. The course happens in the spam of 2 weeks – 4 days a week.<\/p>\n

\"\"Wednesday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On Wednesday I experienced The Food Pantry<\/strong><\/em> for the first time. There are many amazing people behind it. And I was really surprised that a lot of the volunteers are from outside of our congregation. The Food Pantry works on a drive thru system. We set up tables on the parking space in front of the church and people come there and they get different things from different tables(the photo is from when it was not set up yet). We talk to them a little and put the food and other things right inside of their car as they go from table to table. I was at the table with herbs, fruits & vegetables. The sun was shining really brightly that day and as we stood there on the sun for more than an hour, we started to get really tired. But what was amazing, we started dealing with the stress and tiredness with laughter and being goofy around eachother<\/strong>. We enjoyed eachother\u00b4s company and talked to eachother in different accents and\/or voices. It was really fun and surprising, because I am used to people getting more cranky and mad as this happenes, so that was a huge possitive experience for me.\"\"<\/p>\n

After food pantry Irene picked me up and we went shopping. She showed me some different types of shops that they have in America and I fell in love with one cute cat in PetSmart – her name was Nilla – she was really cuddly. Then we met at a restaurant with John for lunch together<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Aaaand I am happy to inform you that I finally adjusted my sleep schedule to the American time.<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Here we go – I went to see the swim lessons<\/strong><\/em> again. I saw some cute baby toads and met some really nice people. During this time pastor Doug asked me : “What is this good for? What are you learning here?”\u00a0<\/em>Sooo here are some things that we talked about after he asked me that :<\/p>\n

    \n
  • When kids got distracted and started doing something they were not supposed to at that time, the swim coach refocused them, she did not punish them, she did not try to argue with them. She just simply refocused them<\/strong> on the things they were supposed to be doing and she did it in a different way then before. Kids need to be playful and they cannot keep the focus on things for a long time, so it\u00b4s important to make it fun.<\/li>\n
  • It was really interesting to observe how kids handle their fears<\/strong>, how their parents<\/strong> handle it and how the coach<\/strong> handles it. The most important difference for me was, that only the coach handled it calmly. She did not sush them. She showed them, that it is okay to be scared, that the thing they were doing are safe and that she is there to handle the challenges with them(she did this individualy for every kid that needed it).<\/li>\n
  • And the last thing – even tho she thought different age groups the same thing, she always had a different approach according to the age group.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    And as Doug said – the things you see here apply also outside of water when we are working with them.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    After swim lessons we went to visit one of our church members into a hospital. We were there, we talked and it was really visible, that showing up matters<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

    In the afternoon I got to meet all of my hosting families because one of them organized a host family dinner. It was really nice to talk to all of them. Everybody brought amazing food and we had a great time. I was happy to see that they create a good community. I am really looking forward to staying with them and getting to know them better!<\/p>\n

    Friday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Friday was my rest day, but at the end of the day we went to a concert once again, to be with people and to enjoy ourselves.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Saturday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    I spent the whole Saturday with my host family<\/strong>, the Parkses, because this was my last full day with them. Ever since I came I wanted to cook them some of the tradicional Slovak and Czech food. So for breakfast I made them palacinky<\/em> (very thin pancakes with various fillings). As soon as we finished I started working on svie\u010dkov\u00e1<\/em><\/strong>(cooked turkey meat with thick creamy vegetable sauce) and homemade kned\u013ea<\/em><\/strong>(a czech fluffy dumpling).<\/p>\n

    However it took a lot more time than expected, so for lunch we went to Burger King, because Irene wanted me to try the Whopper. I did and I also tried root beer, both were good. Irene also made us cherry cheesecake as dessert after lunch – it was a nice surprise, because I love cheesecakes.<\/p>\n

    I finished cooking dinner, we ate and then we spent the evening together. We went the Block House<\/em><\/strong>, then to see a nearby channel and at the end we spent the rest of the time just resting and watching Jeopardy<\/em> <\/strong>together.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Sunday<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Before Sunday worship we had adult class<\/strong> where they usually read a book and than talk about the parts that are important and stood out for each person. It\u00b4s a nice way to spend time together and get to know people a lot deeper in different aspects of life. Currently we are reading a book called Tired of apologizing for a church I don’t belong to<\/em>. We talked about the weight that comes with being a Christian when it comes to prejudice connected to what the church has done to people in the past and some people shared stories of how the prejudice affected their life.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    During worship I got to read the Gospel. It was nice to see everyone again. And I was really happy that the member we visited in the hospital on Thursday was back at church feeling better.<\/p>\n

    After church I moved in with the Ogdens, Doug and Monica. Aaand of course I was pretty happy about my new dog roommates – Poe and\u00a0little Ruby.<\/p>\n

    In the evening their son and his wife came for dinner, they are great people to be around. I am really thankful, that I get to spend family time with people in here and I can feel like a part of their family at least for a short period of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hi! I would like to tell you about my 2nd week in the Lebanon Lutheran Church   This is the week where I dived into some of the key ministries of the congregation. Monday There are some good news, I finally have an American phone number for these 3 months! For those who don\u00b4t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americantime","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1892"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1942,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slovakzionsynod.org\/sip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}