Something New

As the New Year begins, we are starting a new project.  Please take a look at the column to the right to get an idea of what we’re hoping to accomplish in the early months of 2012.  We are excited about the possibility of publishing this excellent book in the Czech language. 

As many of you already know, the print resources available to Christians in our country are pretty limited.  It is also true that the need for help in the area family and marriage problems is great.  The divorce rate here is one of the highest in the world.  This book could really help – both Christian and non-Christian families.

Please consider helping us start out this New Year in a fresh way, by enabling us to help our friends and neighbors here in the Czech Republic.  

Many Blessings on all of you!

All I Want for Christmas is a Long Stay Visa

The Czech Republic changed their immigration laws in January 2011, making it more difficult for foreigners to enter and stay in their country.  Stricter health insurance requirements, a biometric ID card, and a shift in the ministry responsible for issuing the visas all added up to a much longer process for us this year. 

We started the process back in March by applying for a renewal of our work permits.  That went pretty well, so we assumed the remainder of the steps would fall in place as they had in 2010.  With our renewed work permits (and all the other papers) in hand we set off for the Interior Ministry office to apply for and hopefully obtain our visas.  A young man greeted us and looked through all of our papers.  He asked us if we had a Czech health insurance card.  No, we replied, we have US insurance.  He told us we needed to have Czech health insurance.  (We have found out since this event that we probably are required by the new law to have Czech health insurance.)  Nonetheless, he graciously took all of our papers and told us that they would call us in about a month.

Before that month was up, we once again went to the office to check on the visas, having heard nothing from them.  Our old visas were to expire soon and we would need a temporary extension.  They graciously pasted a temporary visa into our passports.  They told us they would call when the visas were ready, hopefully before the middle of October, when the temporary ones expired.

So, on the first of October, having heard nothing from the Interior Ministry, we once again visited to check on the visas.  Still our new visas were not ready and our temporary visas were about to expire, again.  The woman helping us looked at our paperwork and asked several questions.  There seemed to be some sort of problem with the information they had in our files.  It appeared that she did not understand what it was, and we certainly did not know.  In the end, she put another temporary visa in our passports.  It was good until the middle of December.

At the end of all this visa drama, we are very happy to report, we received our new visas just last week.  Thank you for praying with us about this!

Church Retreat



We just returned from our second church retreat.  Since there was a Czech national holiday on Thursday of last week, many of our church members had the opportunity to spend an extra-long weekend together.  The fellowship was awesome!

We were also introduced to a Czech filmed titled “Občanský průkaz“, or “Citizen’s identity card”.  It told the story of four Czech families living in communist-controlled Prague in the waning days of the USSR.  Our Czech friends wanted us to see this film because they believe it accurately depicts the conditions under which Czechs lived at that time.  It would be difficult to survive such a depressing environment and remain unscathed.  Sadly, many were deeply affected and the wounds are not yet fully healed.

We went on a couple of hikes to the nearby Catholic pilgrimage site on Hostýn hill.  The hoar frost on the trees there was truly beautiful; some pictures are included in this post.

We enjoyed several wonderful times of singing, praying, and studying together; and we returned very much refreshed.