First Sunday

Well today was my first Sunday in Czech Republic. This is Maranatha, the church I work for now. It awesome to say I work for something. Those of you that know me know that I haven't really "worked" in quite a while. Sure I've worked here and there for various people. Ms. Prince was very good to me and more generous than I deserved. But I am so proud to be a part of a Church and this Church in particular. It's a pretty young building. It's only been around since 1929 or so. 

Today Ivana, Petr's wife gave the sermon. She was the pastor at another Methodist Church in Plzen before and now preaches from time to time at Maranatha. I was prepared to just not know what was going on but Petr introduced me to Teresa (I am sure I'm misspelling everyone's name that isn't named Petr so I'm just going to have to ask forgiveness until I get Czech spelling down) and she translated for me. It was a big help and she was very nice. Teresa speaks remarkably good English. She doesn't really have an accent. 

So Petr introduced me to the Church at the end of the service and I embarrassingly had nothing to say. But they of course were very nice.  The service was a lot like what I'm used to in many ways. They sing praise songs just like Northside. Well, not just like Northside. They sing in Czech. They don't have an organ. But there were two girls and I assume their mother that played flute, violin and acoustic guitar. Yeah you're right is was very pretty.  The songs were similar in structure to most of the praise songs that Americans are used to but they use minor keys a whole bunch more and I totally dug that about it. 

After the service a bunch of people went down to the little cafe in the Church downstairs.  This is a very cool idea by the way. Another Petr invited me down and gave me a nice strong coffee. The cafe filled up with Dads and their kids and Moms too. The kids didn't drink coffee though. They have Coke here too thankfully.  

Anyway I had a nice conversation with this Petr. It turns out he went to University for Missionary studies. How cool is that! Plus it turns out he plays football (soccer to you Americans ;)) and he has a band.  So I'm pretty much set.  I had only a few modest goals for my time here. 1. Most importantly to do a good job teaching English. That is why I'm here after all. But I was hoping I could find people to play soccer with and musicians to play with. And Bang! One dude does all that stuff. Well he doesn't teach English. You got me. 

After hanging out at the Church cafe Petr Prochazka (the Pastor at Maranatha) and I went and had lunch at this cafe. This is the view from my bathroom window.  It was my first meal outside of my apartment or Petr's or Becky's and Linda's apartment (Becky is American, Linda is South African and live downstairs from me. They've been lifesavers for my big dumb American butt.)

Petr ordered for us one of the specials of the day. It was pork (you know I luvs me some pork) with green peppercorns and fries and cabbagey cole-slaw type salad. Yes Mom I did eat the cabbage. I'm not only eating sausage. (mmmm sausage) Boy was it good. Anyone coming to a new country for the first time is always going to be afraid they'll hate the food. I'm no different. But I gotta tell ya I have yet to have anything that wasn't really tasty. My stomach doesn't always like me very much but he'll just have to get over it. 

Here's some random photos I snuck on the street today. I'll just leave it at that for now. 

Shalom