Do I Know You from Somewhere?

campfire

Interesting story. Maybe even funny, but not very.

I’ve written in other posts about the power of presence and how I wish I had more contact with my students. This year I had a rare opportunity to meet one of my current students face to face. The first time I met him in person was last year–at least that’s the first time I remember meeting him.

Maybe I should back up…


Continue reading…

The Legacy of Viktor Poloha: My Ministry Manifesto (video)

Viktor with Jana in 1975

What follows is a three-stranded interweaving of my Ministry Manifesto, the Legacy of Viktor Poloha, and the quiet calling of the Savior on each of our lives.


Continue reading…

Patterson Update 2010 07 22

Our July, 2010 family and ministry update is now available. Read about

  1. Our new address!
  2. Max and Elisabeth’s summer
  3. Music Together at Trinity extended through the fall
  4. Teaching on Acts in Rockford and Naperville
  5. Our support team building status

We appreciate your prayers for us, especially now as we are raising support to return to Slovakia. Please pray that we’ll be able to go by December of this year.

Newsletter archives

1,000 Years of History Hits (My) Home

treaty-of-trianon

I am the only one in my family that is not a citizen of the Slovak Republic. Jana has Slovak citizenship because she was born in Slovakia and thanks to her so do Elisabeth and Max. All of them also have US citizenships. Jana became a citizen of the United States just a few weeks after Elisabeth was born and since Slovakia recognizes dual citizenship she did not lose her Slovak citizenship by becoming a citizen of the United States.

So far this has been very nice.
Continue reading…

We Rattled Him, He Rattled Us

rattledrattler

We took our first family vacation in a long time during spring break, enjoying a week with grandma Terry in Phoenix, AZ. Perhaps the highlights of the trip included our encounters with creation.
Continue reading…

Lighting up the Switchboards

bombsuitheader

I guess this is kind of a throw away post. I could have also titled it, “How to Drive (Unwanted) Traffic to Your Site” or “Weird Things People Search For.”


Continue reading…

Preaching is to Teaching as Poetry is to Prose

param name=”movie” value=”http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=isa46media-100308125755-phpapp01&stripped_title=isa-46-media-3367293″ />

On March 6-7 I had the opportunity to preach at First Evangelical Free Church in Rockford, IL for the spring missions conference. The title of the sermon is “In the Mi(d)st of Reality” and is from Isaiah 46 (same as in Davis a few weeks ago). I was able to get an audio file from Rockford and have embedded the sermon presentation with the sermon audio above. If you would like just the audio version you can get that here:

In the Mi(d)st of Reality (I’m working on fixing this link)

Continue reading for more on why I think preaching is to teaching as poetry is to prose.

Just for fun: In the text below see if you can find a section where there’s an A-B-C-D-E-E’-D’-C’-B’-A’ chiasm. That is, sentence A is parallel to (it’s formed like) sentence A’, sentence B is formed like B’, etc. If you get it, let me know in the comments.


Continue reading…

Turmoil in the University System

umb-logoFor several months now I’ve been reading about uncertainty in the University system in Slovakia.  New laws have been redefining requirements and schools have been scurrying to meet these new requirements in order to preserve their status as a “University” instead of merely an “Institution of Higher Education.”

This has had implications for the seminary in Banská Bystrica (KETM).  
Continue reading…

Right Place at the Right Time: Visiting with the Nitra Delegation in Naperville

As I was looking for Slovakia news to post through our twitter account (see our events page) I ran into an article in the Naperville Sun about a delegation from Nitra, Slovakia that recently visited Naperville, IL.  Nitra and Naperville are sister cities and this year a delegation from Slovakia visited Nitra to share ideas and resources in areas such as religion, higher education, and public safety.  
Continue reading…

And a Good Time Was Had by All

creation-rest

From the Bannockburn Gazette…

“Todd and Jana Patterson, missionaries to Slovakia, visited the Growing in Grace Sunday School class at the Evangelical Free Church of Naperville on Sunday, October 4th.  Todd finished a five week series on the book of Genesis and the class hosted the  missionaries along with their two beautiful children, Elisabeth (7) and Max (5), for a pot-luck dinner.  Afterwards John and Lois Rabb invited them for an afternoon of conversation … and a good time was had by all.”
Continue reading…