Fusion Czech Team: Treats and Pikola

Tuesday means a full day, so I have lots to tell you. I'll try to be concise (but this is still "according to Jennifer," so concise doesn't mean anything, let's be honest; and did I mention, there's so much to tell!?!). :)

Daniel and I began the morning having our second weekly meeting with Vašek (the pastor of Kostel Jinak). We talked about this past weekend's retreat, potential upcoming events, English Conversation, and prayed.

How you can be praying about these things with us:

- this past weekend's retreat: the retreat gave us personal insight into the dynamic between people of Kostel. It's a beautiful brother/sister-in Christ love for one another that they share. Pray that continues to strengthen, that we can join in this affection and that the Enemy is kept from wedging anything in between anyone. Pray for continued unity.

- potential upcoming events: pray that God gives us fresh, exciting and effective ideas; that we would have the energy, innovation and the knowledge of how to execute ideas in a way that connects culturally, mentally and spiritually.

- English Conversation: we have an informational meeting this Thursday, November 5, 6pm, at Kostel Jinak. You might have seen the promotional video for it on Facebook. Now we need to make sure we do a good job of personal invitations! Pray for us to be bold in our invitations, remember to invite, that peoples' hearts would be prepared and open to this event; pray for their courage to actually step into a church building, and that God would use this to add numbers to His Kingdom. And, pray that people would actually attend!

After our morning meeting, Daniel headed out the door for work, and I cleaned up the dishes (we had breakfast during our meeting) before putting on my cat ears (really!) and rushing to meet Lida (Vašek's wife) for our couple hours of helping with the homeschool group that meets at Kostel during the weekdays. As mentioned in our previous post, today was trick-or-treating. Lida and I were thrilled to see the children had remembered to wear costumes! I was also sweetly greeted with a few gifts from children: a handmade friendship bracelet and a paper plate made into a cat face. Don't worry - I've managed to maintain my crazy cat lady status internationally. We took the children and the teacher with us to Lida's workplace (I have more to tell you about that further down) where the children first said, "Trick Or Treat" in English and received a treat. But it was also a special day at this place, Pikola, because it was their 1st business birthday!!! So after receiving our treats, we also sang "Happy Birthday" in English and presented the staff with birthday pictures we'd colored earlier. It was all so amazing, and the kids are excited to be learning and practicing English.

After the children's time, Lida made her famous tomato soup (I paid close attention so I hopefully can recreate it at another time) before she had to prepare to go back to Prague for school.

Fast forward to this evening; I met Lenka and we returned to Pikola. It's such an exciting week to visit this place with all their birthday celebrations! It's a classy, hipster coffee house; and they sell handmade jewelry, candles, mugs (you know the mason jar style ones with a nice leather band around the outside), clothing; and they recently switched up the artwork in there in celebration of the birthday. If you're a local Czech reading this, GO TO PIKOLA. THIS WEEK. The banana birthday cake they served was out of this world! I also noticed this evening that they had incorporated the children's drawings into their decor! It was really special.

Pikola is one of those little treasure boxes tucked away in my heart. I first was introduced to it online; my friend Babu was sharing her story via a video last year and I kept thinking to myself, "Oh, what a charming background!" It looked so magical: all white washed boards, a bicycle and bright golden leaves on the ground. I thought it was a staged set specific for recording Babu! Then, during my fall 2014 visit, Lenka and Zuzka brought Inde and me there. I was enchanted. We shared delicious quiches and drank espressos and teas, and it was a special time to thank Zuzka for hosting us at her home for the past week (and thank Lenka for co-hosting and helping us with our unfamiliar surroundings). Now, tonight. Happy birthday, Pikola! *dreamy little sigh that indicates the end of my words and time for you to look at pictures below*