Koliba

Here are some pictures of how Micah spent the past few months.
Here are the before images. This was a smokehouse, converted to a small cottage that was only used when it was crowded.



Micah installed a window and added insulation under the floor and ceiling inside and around the walls outside. He laid new flooring and put the wood on the ceiling. Because of some structural thing, the door will stay short though.




It is not quite finished but after the carpet is laid and one or two electrical issues are resolved we will have a nice new office here at the ranch that will fit more than two people at a time.

Weekly update

Hello from Slovakia!Did you all get to see the big game last night? We are so jealous! We thought about seeing if we could find some way to watch, but ultimately decided it was not worth staying up till 5am since the Steelers weren't playing. We checked online this morning. It is a little unreal that yesterday was the super bowl. We haven't seen any football all season :( What we really missed though was the time we would have spent together with friends if we had been home.
We are starting to meet some new people here. Last month we met up with another young American couple living in Banska Bystrica (a 50 minute drive and the location of the nearest McDonald's). We had a great day visiting with them and found out we know some of the same
people in Grove City. We also met for coffee with a British man who is teaching English and ministering in Ruzomberok. It was nice to speak English, share our experiences and hear the stories of how God called other people. God works in different ways for everyone and so
often we can't see what He is doing until we are able to look back.
Stasi attended a women's small group for the first time on Friday night and is looking forward to continuing to meet with them for fellowship and to practice her Slovak. She has dedicated the month of February to tying up lose ends and finishing projects. The past week she finalized much of the Crown Seminar DVD and will hand that off this week. She also has some loose ends with the CampFest Live! DVD and will work toward finishing a 12 minute promotional video for
CampFest 2010. YFC Slovakia got a new digital video camera to record seminars and Stasi is figuring out all the buttons bells and whistles. This weekend is a seminar for people who sing in worship bands and she will be recording it using the new camera. Micah has been working the past weeks on renovating and insulating the smallest cottage here to serve as an office. He is mostly finished with that, just waiting for some detail things to come like
carpeting and shades for the light fixtures. He also spent part of a week working on our car after the fuel gelled and clogged the filter. He is also installing a door and window in the terrace and will be working inside part of this week on some of the trim work that is still unfinished in Marian's Cottage.

Thank you for praying for us. We have seen Gods hand of protection and provision already in 2010, with our car, our finances and I'm sure we have been protected from a thousand things we don't even know about!

Blessings,
Micah and Stasi

God Provides

The YFC Slovakia team

(Please look at anyone but me (Stasi) I was sick last week and thought this meeting was on Thursday not Wednesday)

One of the things that I have to learn over and over is that God is in control and He will provide. I don't know why this is so hard for me. I have seen Him work things out over and over again. And yet, I am always surprised by how He does it.

Last week, our car decided that it did not want to start. I sympathize, I don't like getting started on cold mornings either. But we all have to do things we don't like. The car actually had a more legitimate reason than laziness though.

Did you know that diesel is in danger of gelling in the fuel tank and filter when it gets cold?. Who knew! Fortunately I married an amazing man who not only knew this, he knew they made additive you can put in your tank to remedy and prevent this issue. So we went to the gas station in a borrowed car to buy some of this miracle stuff. Unfortunately this did not fix the car. So Micah took out the fuel filter.

Did you know that it is very important not to let air into the fuel lines of a diesel engine? Something or other about the placement and/or number of fuel pumps. (I start to zone out pretty quick during car talk). Oops, guess what we now had in our fuel lines! The internet suggested a variety of small pumps you could purchase to remedy this problem. We did not want to buy a small pump for this purpose, we never plan to have air in our fuel lines again, and the nearest Auto Zone is in a different Time Zone. Fortunately, waaay back in June, some friends who were moving back to the States gave us a box of various kitchen gadgets including a small turkey baster.

I have never before in my life owned let alone used a turkey baster, I would never purchase a turkey baster and will probably never own one again. Usually when Micah comes in and says, "do you have X that I can have?" I ask what for and them tell him no. Either because I don't have what he needs or because even though I have such a thing I use it regularly for its intended purpose and don't want it filled with wood-shavings, oil, dirt or all thre.. But this time when He came in and said, "Do you have something like a big syringe I could use?" I was glad to tell him I had just the thing and hand him the small turkey baster which just happened to be the exact right size to use on the fuel line.

Last summer God provided a turkey baster to fix our car before we even knew the car needed fixing. Great is Thy Faithfulness.

Please pray with us for YFC Slovakia, God has provided for the ministry here in a lot of amazing ways since it started over 16 years ago. The past year has ben especially difficult though and many of the staff have not had a regular paycheck in over a year. (Through your generous support Micah and I receive our salary through YFC-USA and are not affected financially by the situation here)