15.7 – 21.7.2024

Monday

After I wake up in Pastor‘s house, we take my luggage and go to church. This week will be special for me because I will stay with a new host family and also my first Sunday sermon.
Monday I spent in church thinking and designing my sermon for this Sunday. I did the lunch with Pastor. We talking about things from biblical texts which are prepared for this Sunday.
It was a great discussion and I got a lot of ideas from Pastor. My sermon will be about the Shepherd.
I will talk about how great a shepherd is Jesus and also how we can be shepherds of our friends and relatives.

This day I also move to new family – Hamonds. Rendy and Peggy Haminds are my next host family. They are a crazy couple. At their age around 70s, they look younger. Randy is a sarcastic guy and Pegy is funny and puckish. Everything is in great balance.
They also have a nice house. I got a room next to the bathroom and kitchen so my life will be very comfortable. But Rendy and Pegy have a bed upstairs, so they must every day go down and up to stairs.
So in the end it looks like I and Peggy with Rendy have a similar sense of humor. So we will understand each other.

Visit of Ruth

Ruth is a funny and nice old lady. You have a good mood always we come to her. But her life is not so easy. Because she is in her 80s, She has problems with walking and moving. Fortunately, she still can eat by herself.
This visit was nice and in a good mood. I don’t talk a lot with Ruth. Mainly Pastor talked with her, but still, it was interesting to listen and see, how can look of church member in a nursing home. After this talk, she got the Lord’s Supper from the Pastor and we said goodbye.

Visit of Gail

The second visit to the nursing home this week was to Gail. We meet her in the nursing home canteen. One funny point was that all the time we heard bingo in the background. But I’m very impressed that people in this nursing home have a lot of activities like bingo. This lady was very nice and smiled. We talk with her about a lot of things in life. The pastor also serves the Lord’s supper for her. It was a nice and interesting visit. In the end, Gail wished me a happy time in the US.

Thursday at the beach

Today after I get home from church. Peggy and her grandson and granddaughter take me to the beach on Lake Erie. It was a fun and great experience. The water was pleasantly warm. I enjoyed swimming in the water and also I tried to build a castle from the sand but I was a little shiny because I was 23 years old – a very high age to build castles 😄. But I built damp and that was funnier. The only problem was that we were here only a few hours and that was a short time.


Friday

Friday was more about work and my Sunday sermon. I do a lot of things in my sermon. I sort my ideas into a logical schedule and think about how I can explain everything in interesting and understandable language.
Pastor we also talked a lot about sermons on lunch, but we also talked about life and it was a great talk – like every talk with the pastor.

Saturday

On Sunday again, I go on to trip with Peggy. This time she takes me to the nature center in Metro Park in Cleveland. There was interesting exposition of live snakes and turtles. Most fascinating was paleotological fossilnof big fish. It was an amazing and nice place.


After the nature center, we go to near park to walk. With Peggy, I see a lot of nice scenes in the river Canyon and forest. It was beautiful and great nature. It’s impossible to believe how beautiful nature you have near to big city. 

Sunday

On Sunday I had my first sermon. It was also the first time I had a sermon in English. It was a great experience but a hard and serious task for me. I talked in the sermon about how Israel’s kings were bad shepherds for Israel’s nation. Then I say that Jesus is the best shepherd for us. But that means that we must be shepherds for people around us who need to know about Jesus through our lives and church.

Lots of people after the sermon say that this sermon was great and very nice. I hope that the sermon was good for everyone. I also hope that people don’t talk about this from politeness. Pastor says my only big problem was that I talk a little quietly. So next time I must be louder.

Tires in supermarket

The highlight of this week is tires in Walmart. One day this week we went with Pastor to Walmart to buy something for a church member as a gift. And I see a lot of strange things. I see what is possible in American supermarkets 😄. My goodness, there were tires in the supermarket and lots of kinds. That was funny and great. Also surprising for me was that the supermarket was one big section with electronics, furniture, and guns.
So I ended this blog with this funny experience.


See you soon in the next blog.