CZECH IT OUT: September 2005

Remy, Andrea and Eden enjoy lots of laughs on the way to the Medeval Festival.

The train ride to Karlsteijn. Drinking lemon flavoured Sparkling water (Mattoni)

Beautiful Karlsteijn Castel - Built in the mid 14th Century.

Good vs Evil. Of course Good Triumphs over Evil!

For King and Country!

The crowd favourite missed the target...again!!!

Hit the shield and spin the "dummy". How many times does he spin around?

The costumes were incredible

Jousting...without a helmut?

5 Knights participated in the Tournament

The Tournament Instructions

The Evilest of the Mideval Festival

Prince William

Bad Guy on Horse Back

TRAIN To Karlsteijn

This past weekend we took in a Mideval Festival at Karlsteijn Castel. The hour train ride went by very quickly with friends from Riverside.

30 countries were represented at the ploughing championship. The fields were about 3 km's from our house. We were unable to see any of the competition.

We woke up to a suprise last Saturday. There was the World International Ploughing Competition Championships in Prague. This tractor along with many others were lined up in front of our house. We had a good chat with the competitor (from Ontario).

NEWS LETTER #3

Dear family and friends,

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and I am sitting here at the computer listening to all the sounds outside: Andrea, Mark and Sara playing football (soccer) in the yard, the traffic humming by and the ever present orchestra of dogs. I think almost every Czech family has a dog and often they have a picture and name of their dog on the outside of their gate. It sure makes us miss our Cesky boy.

We hope you are all doing well. It has been great to hear from so many of you, as we think of friends and family back in Canada so often. A day doesn’t go by that we don’t talk about someone from home and reminisce about one thing or another.

It is hard to believe we have been her over a month already. We are so thankful to have been able to step into Harder’s home (good friends who are in Canada for five months and were looking for someone to rent their home), and not have to worry about getting a house all set up. It has made our transition quite easy. We just found out this week that we have found a house to move into in January. It is a nice house with a yard and is just around the corner from the Harder’s house. We love the location as it is very close to a bus stop and a potraviny (a store the size of a corner store but with the amount of food you would find in a grocery store). We do our daily shopping here—every day picking up our bread, milk, cheese and yogurt…oh yes, and our chocolate! The owners of the house seem very nice and are wanting to work with us to provide the things we would like. It is not furnished, but they are willing to buy a washing machine, dryer and dishwasher ( the latter two things are not as common in the homes out here).

We have made it through our first week of school. Things went very well for Al in the high school. He is really enjoying his administrative duties and the two classes he is teaching (US history and general studies). Al and the director of the school, Peter Daish work great together, being like minded in their goals, and yet complimenting each other with their gifts. Our prayer is that God will continue to unify the staff, parents and students, so that God can accomplish His purposes in the school.

I have had an exciting and slightly unexpected teaching load this week. The reception (kindergarten) teacher became ill and so I stepped in to take the class. It was a challenging and also rewarding week for me. These 4 year olds are in school every day from 8:30 to 3:00, so it is a full day for them. I think I felt as tired as they looked by the end of each day. They were a pleasure to teach and have sure captured my heart. In the coming weeks my position will involve me teaching 3 days a week—one full day in Pre-school, a full day in grade one (Sara’s class) and a half day in Kindergarten.

The kids will all be in swimming lessons (a school program) every Friday afternoon. I will be supervising this club, so that works out well for us.

We have not found a suitable vehicle yet, so we are continuing to pray about that. It is a bit tough to do the bigger shopping when we have to try to haul it all home on the bus. We are quite the sight to behold, when you see our family of five completely loaded down with grocery bags, getting on and off the bus and then trying to walk home without any of the bags breaking through.

We are really feeling the Lord carrying us through each step of the way. This has been a time for us to draw closer to Him as He brings us through the ups and downs of adjusting to a new culture.

Thank you so much for all your prayers.

Love,

Connie (for the Falks)

Ready for the first day of school! Andrea is in Year 5...her teacher is Miss Clarke from Scotland. Sara is in Year 1...her teacher is Mrs. Gower from England. Mark is in year 3...his teacher is Mrs. Selbie from England.

Sara is doing so well. She adores her teacher and is loving every minute of school. She has made a good friend, Benjamin, and the two of them seem to watch out for each other. She has adjusted well to going to school full days, although she is pretty tired by the time we get home on the bus.

Andrea had a great week at school, reuniting with some old friends and connecting with new ones. Andrea often will sit back and slowly find her way in new situations, but she seems to have jumped in with both feet and is having a great time.

Mark is doing well overall, but is having a harder time adjusting to school. He talks a lot about family and friends in Canada and is missing all the great things about Cornerstone. . He is trying to be positive and I know that in time things will look up for him. He is so excited that he made it into the after-school soccer club, so hopefully that will be a time for him to get to know more kids. (Uniforms aren't so bad when you can dress them up with a few accessories!)

Enjoying a ride around the University courtyard.

A Hedge Hog (all rolled up) in our yard.

My beautiful (and flexible!) wife.

The university courtyard (still in August...no students around).

The kids love to ride their bikes up and down our street (south of our home...the university campus is just through the bushes at the end of the street. The kids can ride their bikes through the trails in this forested area).