home sweet home

i'm home! yay! i'm not sure if there are any faithful readers left out there, but if there are, thanks for staying with me! i haven't done the most stellar job of keeping up with my blog. my mom gently informed me that "...jackie keeps her blog very updated, you know..." yes mom, i want to be better at keeping this up. but i'm still here and i'm still writing, so that's a good sign.

so now that i'm home, what's the plan? i'm home until july 20th when i leave for prague and another year once again. in the meantime, i'll be working, training, doing a bit of travelling and spending as much time as possible with my friends and family here at home. i'll also be having a few visitors over the next month. at the end of april a friend that i studied with for 2 months in quebec a few years ago is coming to visit. i think we're both looking forward to getting caught up after about 3 years! and this friday one of my czech teammates will be flying into regina to spend 3 weeks with my family, soaking up canada and training with jackie and i. we're going to work her pretty hard. but i'm really looking forward to her coming. it will be great to have her experience life like we know it - and hockey like we know it! the only thing that's going to be a challenge is that she doesn't speak much english. looks like i'll be getting a lot of czech practice in real soon!

after my visitors leave, i'll be heading to columbus to spend about two weeks with jody. it's going to be pretty cool to have that time together and even better if jordan joins us for a week like he's planning.

in june jackie and i, along with the latest canadian recruit to join hc slava for next season - jeni creary, will be flying to prague and travelling to croatia with our team for training camp. it seems the president and coach really want us there - they're taking care of everything for us. a little canadian work ethic at camp is apparently worth it! we agree. :)

july will follow soon after two weeks in the czech and my departure date to come soon after that. july 20th we take off for another adventurous year!

next year will also look a little different for me as i'll be joining staff with athletes in action as a STINTer (short term international missionary). i'm really excited because i know i'm going to learn a ton. this past year i was working, along with jackie and sara, at the nursery school just outside of prague. so in the upcoming year, i'll instead be working for AIA. we'll be spending time at the sport university, planning events with my team and i will have the awesome opportunity to learn about missions close up and how to love on my teammates even better. great news!

there are a few things you could be praying for right now: jackie and i are in the process of getting our visas sent away and we need prayer for the speedy processing of our visa applications in order to reenter the country not only in june, but in july as well. the czech just joined the shengen agreement, so we're only allowed to be in any shengen country for 90/180 days. complicates things a little.

thanks for reading and for your prayers!

blessings :)