můj sen (my dream)

one night in the early fall of 05, while still in the process of looking for an apartment, my (future) roommate and I had a conversation on the terrace of a local pizza place. the conversation was short and was basically me looking at this rad building across the street from where we were dining and commenting, "what if we lived up there?"

we dont live there now.

>> two years

since i've decided to stay in czech long term i have started looking into buying an apartment here. my initial idea was to buy the apartment that i currently live in (i hate moving), but i've been scanning reality boards to see if anything else was available. last week while i was scanning an aforementioned board i spotted this place:



intimidated by the size and not really needing a place for 20, my eyes didn't linger long. since i didn't see anything that peeked my interest, i went back to the above pictures wondering where it was. the board said:

location: cesky tesin square

i live near the square and not initially recognizing it, i looked at it more closely.

!!oh, dang, that is the house across from the pizza place. i walk by that every day. i can't believe i didn't recognize it!!

<< one year

my friend romana and i started dreaming of what it would be like to open a kavarna/cajovna (coffee/tea house) in cesky tesin. it would be a place where ministry could be done and a great way to meet people in town. we had tons of ideas, but not really a way to have them realized. she got married and moved to prague.

>> one year

so as i looked at the pictures of this house all these ideas (and more) flooded my mind.

_the basement is currently a grocery store, so it is already zoned commercial, so that could be the coffee/tea house



_the first floor could be split in two. one half would be where romana and michal (her husband) could live and the other half could be the english camp offices
_the second floor could be housing for future english camp missionaries



_the third floor is where i could live...fulfilling my dream from two years ago



>> one days

my mind continued racing about the possibilities of owning this building...how much would it cost (no price had been listed)? what would i need to charge to pay a mortgage? etc.

so, lucka called the reality agency...the realator is on vacation and will be back on the 25th...and the price tag is 12m Kc (approximately $600,000)...dang, that could be too expensive...but i kept dreaming...and started praying

>> two days

so after church last sunday we took a closer look at the property and more ideas came...

_there are three garages, i could keep one for a car/storage and knock the wall down between the other two and make a youth room out of it...the address of the garages is 1971...so everything in the youth room would be vintage 70s...















_there is a chata (little house) located on the property too...sauna, hot tub, ???




>> now

as i sit here i'm two days away from having our first set of six us youth groups fly into prague. i'm also two days away from the realator being back in town. we're going to call her on monday and see what the deal is. we've heard that it has been on the market for six-eight months, so i'm hoping that may give us a shot at getting the price lowered.

what i'm praying for right now is {if God wills} to find someone who would want to make a {financial and spiritual} investment into this house. maybe God would redirect this vision, but for now I don't see the possibility that i'd be able to get the financing for it on my own...at this rate i probably won't make $600,000 total in the 40 years!

so that's můj sen