The Butt Kicker

I saw one of the most bizarre things in my life last night.

So, I'm in Prague right now getting ready to pick up the first five US teams that are helping with camps. Last night, Lucka and I went to go and hang out with a couple of my friends here. We were in the metro walking down the stairs to the platform. I was on the phone with a friend in the States, so I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on around me, but one things did catch my eye. I noticed this older, heftier gentleman bump into a young skinny guy. The skinny guy was walking up the stairs and the older gentleman was walking down. The skinny guy totally gets knocked into another guy and a look of disgust crosses his face. Now, remember, I'm on the phone, so I'm not totally paying attention, but I did log this event.

So about a minute later. I'm now standing on the platform waiting for the metro. I'm still on the phone and I feel something brush my arm and this guy (the young, skinny one) goes running past me. Standing right in front of me, with his back to me, is old, hefty dude.

Then I see something that I haven't seen since fifth grade. The young dude kicks the old dude right in the butt! I couldn't believe my eyes. Then, to make things even crazier, he runs away without a word. Yeah, seriously. He ran past me, kicked the old dude in the butt, and then ran away. The old dude turns around and yells something in some language (not Czech) and throws up his middle finger, then turns around like nothing happened. Like this is some normal occurance.

The other thing that kills me is the time delay between the events. There was at least a minute between the initial bump and the final kick. That means that young dude walked up the stairs, got to the top, stewed about what had just happened, comes to the ridiculous conclusion that he should kick the old man in the butt, runs down the stairs, kicks him, then turns and runs. It was totally premeditated.

I will remember this event forever...

Polish Worship

The town I live in is right on the Czech-Polish border. Therefore, most of the people in my town can speak Polish as well as Czech. This is especially true of the people in my church. Most of the sermons are in Czech, but occasionally the sermons will be in Polish. There is also this unusual dialect in our town called Ponasimu (sp?). It is a mix between Czech and Polish and sometimes when someone shares their testimony in church they speak Ponasimu. Learning Czech is hard enough, but with all these other languages floating around, it is brutal.

This leads me to my point. Every week, at least half of our worship is in Polish. In fact, even our Hymnal is in Polish. It is really fuuny, because I have not studied Polish at all, but yet, I learn it every Sunday at church. It is close enough to Czech, where I can recognize some words, but it is different enough to where I definitely struggle when I try to sing.

To me, Polish sounds like this, "Shush wosh blush slush wosh." Lots of shushes and wushes...

Sometimes when I am attempting to sing in Polish, I think to myself, "Self, what if everyone just stopped singing and I was left singing by myself. All they would hear would be a whole bunch of non-sense that sounds like "sush mush bush Bog (the word for God) wush blush shush."

Oh, the cross-cultural life.

Immigration and Burritos

I love burritos. I miss not being able to eat them. Every once and a while someone finds a new Mexican restaurant here in the Czech. Everybody is excited, we go, it sucks. Really. I have yet to have good Mexican food here. It's sad.

But, I'm not writing about burritos. I was listening to a Rob Bell sermon a while back and he said something that really shed some great light on the whole immigration issue. As far as I know, the US news is onto some new big story and no one cares anymore, but I still felt compelled to share.

Rob (yeah, we're on a first name basis) was talking about how we are completely unworthy of anything that we have and how only the Lion of Judah is worthy (Rev 5). He shared about how in our human nature we naturally feel like life should be fair and that we feel like we are owed something. He then started talking about how God called the nation of Israel to care for those who couldn't care for themselves; those with whom life hadn't been fair. Those who had suffered a tough life (the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner). He focused specifically on Deuteronomy 24:17-22.

In this passage God commands the nation of Israel to "not pervert the justice" due to the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. God says that when harvesting their field that they are to leave anything that they forget to take. That when beating their olive tree, they are only to go over it once and leave the remainder. And finally, when they gather grapes that they are to go once and leave what they don't gather the first time. In all of these instances the remainder was for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. All of this was because they were to "remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there". God had redeemed his people. He had showed immesurable grace on His people and He was calling them to do the same to those who couldn't care for themselves.

As a Jew, I'm thinking, "What the heck? I work my butt off all year so that I can harvest my field/beat my olive tree/harvest my grapes. I'm not going to leave some for people who aren't doing anything; who aren't earning it. They need to work for themselves. They can't just come into my land and take what I have worked hard for. They aren't even Jews..."

Get the point.

It seems like the default argument for kicking the Mexicans out (notice they never talk about building a wall on the Canadian border) is that they are stealing from us. We work hard to make a living and they come in and "take from our fields". I can understand this from someone who hasn't receieved God's immesurable grace poured out on them. But as Christians, as men and women who have received an inheritence in God's Kingdom for free, for no reason other than that God poured out His grace upon us, shouldn't we be more gracious? Shouldn't we be caring for those that cannot care for themselves? As Americans we are born into amazing wealth...shouldn't we be more willing to leave our "fields" open for the widows, the orphans, and the Mexicans...burritos or no?

the longbreak and will

God blessed me with a couple cool new friendship recently.

One guy is Will.


The other is Josh.


They both have beards. I only have a mustache.


Josh writes an awesome blog: http://www.thelongbrake.com/

Will reads Josh's blog.

Last weekend we went to Poland together with Lucka and Kenric.


We stormed the castle in Krakow. After we defeated the fire-breathing dragon guarding the main gate,


we marched our troops into the main square and hung an enormous American flag to show our supremecy.


Sometimes we HADUKEN things,


Sometimes we TIGER UPPERCUT things.


They leave on Friday to go back to the States. Goodbye. Come again.

DTR (Define The Relationship)

I hate DTRs. I hate that nervous feeling you get thinking about it. I hate the fact that the girl may not like me, so I am laying my heart on the table only to hand her a mallet and let her whack away. They aren't fun. But, there is the always the hope that the girl will like me. And it is that hope that pushes me through the fear of rejection to take the chance.

But, what I hate even more than DTRs is the UN-DTR. Technically, it is still a DTR, but I am calling it the UN-DTR, because, this is the one in which you have to tell the girl you don't like her and that you are just friends. This sucks on multiple levels. First, there is no hope of having a girlfriend after this. Second, there exists the possiblity that you will break someones heart. Third, there exists the possibility that all of her friends will hate you, therefore taking an entire segment of the female population beyond future option for you. Finally, it sucks, because you may be killing (or making awkward-which is basically the same thing, right?) a good friendship.

Well, I had to have an UN-DTR a couple days ago. It was with one of my best girl friends here in the Czech. I hated that I had to do it. The great thing about it is that it was born not out of her heart, but out of others around her. Everyone was talking about it, but no one was talking to us. Americans, Czechs...I even heard that Kofi Annan called a special session of the UN to discuss it. The only way both of us heard about it is through our friends. She said what put a lot of people over the edge was when I gave her a side-hug while we were standing up in front at our national conference.*

Having a girlfriend gives you protection. I could basically do anything I wanted and girls knew I was taken. But now that I am single, it is different. I haven't treated this girl any different, hung out with her any more, but because I am single now everyone thinks there is something with us! Suck.

So, we talked. Everything is cool. Our friendship is good. No awkwardness.

So, the UN-DTR is over. I'm glad. I just hope the next DTR has some hope for a relationship...

*Note to self: Don't hug, touch, smile, or look at a girl while standing in front of a room of Czechs.