Once More Unto The Breach...

James:

After a meeting with my managers at work, my current employers are no longer going to be my employers after January, once my term of contract has ran out.  The upside to this is that I no longer have to do a three-shift system, where at some points (especially when the car had broken down), I was getting up at 0330 in the morning in order to go in there for 0600, and of course there was the night shift.  It's a three-hour bus ride when I decide not to use the car because of tiredness.  Usually it would take me 30 minutes by car to get from our village to work.  It was a crazy working life, with very little time left over for much of anything else during those periods, and I had to be reminded what was going on during the week, as well as what day of the week it was.  On the downside, of course, is that I don't get paid a standard wage anymore, and with my Slovak language skills still a bit thin on the ground, I have to look to other options.

Happily, our church Most is becoming very active within our town, with Christina being the Community Outreach 'arm' of the church.  We're hosting Christian rock band The Circle Ends for their European tour during this time, and we'll be glad to share more experiences and stories with them.  Later on in Spring/Summer, we're going to have some level of involvement with another youth outreach project hosted by our friends in the Bratislava church, with Bluetree performing.  During this time we'll be sharpening our skills in language (well, me at least since Christina is pretty darn good at it already), musical skills and for me once again, writing and even teaching English.

In February, we're going to be taking a week trip to the UK to see family and friends, and hopefully we'll meet a few church leaders to share stories in our course of staying there.  Especially when some of my friends have decided that they've had enough of the Christmas blues and are taking short breaks in hotter countries.  After living in Britain for all those years, I can't say I blame them.  Roll on Spring in Slovakia, 20C sunny weather and above!