Title: Day 34: Slovakia or Bust!

Title: Day 34: Slovakia or Bust!

How do you spell Slovakia? Is that right? I don't have a map in front of me so I will just have to cross my fingers. If you haven't guessed, my next stop is the country of Slovakia. I am heading there as a group leader for the MCYM, Military Community Youth Ministry, from Heidelberg. Young Life, known as Beyond, works through MCYM as the "contracted" organization that does youth ministry. Serving as a Christian in the military is interesting because it is not treated like a normal ministry. For the military it is just a funded project similar to something like a fishing club or the golf course. You can imagine with all the separation of church and state, a government authorized and funded "church" group is not exactly what you would expect. In that environment, YL does a great job and I tip my hat to them.

So with YL, I am heading to Slovakia for their annual service project. Some of you may be asking yourself, "Slovakia, I've never heard of Slovakia? There is some country named Checkenoslikavikiania or something like that, but Slovakia?" If that is what you are wondering, then 1. You are way old because Slovakia has been around for over 15 years, and 2. You are so completely out of touch with the world. I will give you a little credit because Slovakia came about without much global fanfare. Back in 1993 the people of The Czech Republic got together with those of The Slovak Republic and decided to undue almost 100 years of lousy decisions that were made for them by stupid third parties and break up. (They are still friends though and call each other often. The other day I even saw them sitting together at this romantic Italian cafe.) I would go into more detail, but I ain't got a clue as to what I am talking about and if I keep going then you too will know that. "Remain silent and be thought a fool, speak and remove all doubt." That's my motto. Well, it isn't really my motto, but it is a good quote and I am always up for a good quote, like, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Isn't that a great quote? I love that quote.

When I was in High School, I started collecting good quotes and wrote them down on this piece of paper that I kept folded in my wallet. I had at least 15 really great quotes on there. Over the years I would add to the list. The piece of paper became very fragile and thwarting my best efforts to ruin it over the years, throwing it in a lake or burning it, it stuck around. I had the paper until its idiot creator and owner decided to leave his wallet in the top of a Wal-Mart shopping cart in Enterprise, AL. He, the idiot that is, then proceeded to leave the cart unattended at the end of the isle while he walked down them to obtain his shopping needs. (See the idiot thought that he would be nice and not crowd the busy Wal-Mart as to be courteous to the other shoppers. Note that Wal-Mart is the only place to shop in Enterprise of UCLA so it is very busy, very busy. In fact it is the place to hang and pick up chicks.) Ironically, someone besides the idiot needed the list of quotes more than the creator and made off with it. The idiot owner was heart broken, not about the loss of money, credit cards, license, or military ID, but about the piece of paper and only the piece of paper. True Story.

The Velvet Revolution was its name. If you are scratching your head about how Slovakia came about, it was a bloodless overthrow of the government, hence The Velvet Revolution. Those of you in the US are thinking no big deal, we over throw our government every four years, and there is never any blood, at least there wasn't before "W" got involved! Now there is a little blood and a lot of sweat. Slovakia pulled a fast one on the world and scooted away from the Czech dudes, according to a Slovak. If you ask a Czech, and I have, Eva was her name; she would say that they, the Czechs, gave the boot to the less industrialized Slovaks. It would be similar to the States shoving to the corner the aforementioned dirty South. I doubt our forefathers foresaw the South remaining what it was and is and if they had they might not had put up as much effort into keeping them around. (Now to everyone reading this from the South, including my parent, I love you guys so don't send me hate mail, please, or if you do, send pictures!) We leave for Slovakia tomorrow around 2200. I am taking a train from Ansbach to Heidelberg to meet up with the guys from there and then it is a 20 hour bus ride. I am so excited to spend 20 hours cooped up with a bunch of teenagers I will not have met before then, but that is what serving is all about. Praise God!

I am guessing that there will be little or no access to the Internet and combined with the fact that I will be super busy, this will be my last post till we get back, 16 April. I know you all are pulling your hair out wondering how you will ever survive the scarcity, but pull yourselves together and get a life. I can't handle the burden of entertaining the world, I am not a superstar. I know what you Bible thumpers are saying, "But Galatians says..." I know, I know, but it is not talking about this type of burden. I promise to fill you in on all the details.

Until then and tomorrow.

Jason