Day 47b: When in Rome, write about Slovakia because you are way behind.

I am sorry everyone. I waited too long and now I can’t remember all the entertaining, funny, interesting parts of Slovakia. At this point, I can really only remember the important parts, like what Jesus was/is doing. But who wants to hear about that? Come on!

I am an American and am all about readership, volume sales, and market share. I know that people want to be happy. Wait, happiness isn’t good enough for my readers; they deserve a euphoric state of numbness. I know that, so I will not, regardless of what my conscience tells me, bore you with anything like truth, love, hope, or faith.

I am in Rome right at this exact time. When I say at this exact time, I mean this exact time now, not now your time of reading this now, but now my time of typing this now. Follow me? So, now, my time now, I am driving into Rome; home of the Romans, killers of Paul, protectors of Benny XVI, husband to a murdered wife, father to a murdered son, and I will have my revenge, in this life or the next. Sorry, off subject, way off subject. This blog is actually about Slovakia, which means I am about 1500 km off subject.

The fourth day in Slovakia was the best of times; it was the worst of times. (None of you will get that reference, but know it was funny.) Two events happened on Tuesday, as previously referenced, one was good, great in fact, one was bad, not terrible because everything turned out good in the end, well good for Christian, not so good for me. Just let me explain and you will understand my ramblings.

Tuesday was my small group’s assigned time to do VBS, Vicious Bubble Squeezing. Our part was the songs and games. Let me back up. Monday, the relational ministry girls, Beth and her mom Kathy, asked if my guys and I would like to do VBS the next day. She was selling it to me as being the shortest of the days because I had mentioned that neither I nor my guys were super interested in doing VBS at all. We jumped at the chance, half heartedly.

Tuesday, we got to do VBS for about an hour. Games and songs turned out to be the greatest thing that happened in Slovakia for me and my guys. Working with the young kids was amazing. The looks on their faces when we played musical chairs, the joy in their eyes after singing “Deep and Wide” made the week. If I had done nothing else it would have been worth coming to Europe.

That was the great thing. Now let’s talk about the not so great thing. After VBS and working at the site, we went to the water park that was co-located with our retreat site. The park was more like a natural hot springs. There were a few pools and some small structures to play on. One of those structures was a line of large lily pads big enough for a person to stand on. They were loosely tied to the bottom of the pool so walking across them was difficult. It was easier because of the rope strung across the pool.

I got this bright idea to try and run across the pads. Well, not me personally run across the pads, but I was encouraging others to try. Teenage type of others. Their hearts weren’t into trying until I threw in 20 Euro. That got them going for a bit, but after a few failures they started giving up so I upped it to 50 Euro. That got them very interested.

When I first made the offer of 50 Euro for anyone that made it across the pads without touching the rope, I didn’t specify who it was for. I thought that only my guys would be trying. I stepped away for a few minutes and when I returned just about every guy at the pool was trying to run across the pads. I asked if they all knew of the offer and yes they did; my guys had spread the word. Thanks guys!

So after many attempts, on the last one, Christian, one of the guys from Bamberg, made it across and I was out 50 Euro. Unfortunately, Christian ended up in the hospital. As I said, on the LAST attempted, Christian made it across, but slammed into a pole in the process. He hit his head pretty hard and I am pretty sure had a concussion. He asked for his sister about 100 times and had no idea what had happened. I was really hoping that he would forget about the 50 Euro, but just my luck, he didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered because everyone was reminding him anyway.

Christian spent two days in the hospital for observation and made it back to the work site on the next to last day. The worst day of the week ended just fine, except for the 50 Euro.

Many more things happened. I will try to remember more of them.

Until then and tomorrow.

Jason