Dear Friends and Family,

TeachOverseas.org has led me to a beautiful future of being able to serve my Savior by utilizing my abilities to teach.  While I still do not know all of the facts about my position yet, I will be teaching in a zakladni skola and a gymnasium (middle and high school) in Most, Czech Republic, located in Western Bohemia close to the German border.  The town is known for its softly rolling hills, long spring days, outgoing inhabitants and the endearing children that play in the fields of flowers that grow uninhibited across the land.  Okay, that’s not true.  At all.  Well, maybe the hills thing.  Actually, the city of Most (pronounced as it looks in standard English) is known for its rough appearance with the landscape raped by mining throughout the years.  The Czech people, as precious as they are in my heart, share very few personality traits with me.  They are not very social with new people, they NEVER smile at people that they do not know, and they are known for their bribery and cheating.  Cody, my amazing teammate who DOES have the EXACT same personality as me (ask Meyers-Briggs!), will be also teaching and working with me in a Dutch mission called the Atlantic Bridge.  We will be establishing youth groups in the region, working to encourage our students to get involved in them. 

The people in the Czech Republic have a history inundated with strong religious ideologies from the early Catholic Church (which includes the Moravian Brotherhood that has not ceased in its continual prayer for the past 100 years), but, after communism flooded the recently formed Czechoslovakia in 1945, they experienced a government that greatly suppressed their religious freedoms. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 that overthrew the communist regime and the separation of the nation into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, they did not see a revival of faith. They have the highest number of atheists per capita in Europe, with a record 59 percent of the country having little to no consciousness of God, let alone Jesus Christ. By teaching and working with the youth of this nation, I hope to plant the seeds of God’s love and inspire a curiosity in them to further a personal relationship with Jesus.

What I am going to ask of you is actually very difficult for me, but in order to make this work I need a strong support group. Could you please step out in faith and financially support me for this mission trip? I am raising $12,000 to serve God overseas for the next year, and possibly even additional years that I may serve.  I have $3000 still to raise.  Please pray about joining my support team this week. Please encourage others to help as well. The mission is flexible with payment optiond; gifts of $30 a month are highly encouraged throughout the year, but any gift would be a blessing. If you are unable to assist the ministry fiscally, will you at least please pray for me regularly?  This year will not be easy.  This year is going to be difficult in ways that I do not yet know.  There will be frustrations, irritations, homesickness, and general culture shock to endure.  Despite this, I will work with all my mind, with all my heart, with all my strength and with all my strength.  To donate, you can go to TeachOverseas.org/contribute.php and write my name in the ”Teacher or Staff” section and pay securely online, or you can mail it in to TeachOverseas.org 639 E. Soldano Avenue, Azusa, CA 91072, and write my name in the memo.  Thank you for the consideration and prayers. If you happen to have any ideas for me to raise money, I’d love to hear those as well!

Thank you all for all of your support throughout these past months.  I love you all!