2026 Patterson Family Updates

Now that 2025 is behind us it’s time for a quick update on what we were up to.

Elisabeth

Elisabeth had a more than eventful year.

Wheaton’s January Opera MainStage has always been the highlight of the year for Elisabeth. Last January marked her final performance with them in the musical “Into the Woods”. She had the opportunity to play Cinderella and she loved it. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see her perform in person but we have these awesome photos to give us a feel of what it was like for her.

Although we missed her in Into the Woods we did get back to the States to see her senior recital. She sang mostly in Slovak, Czech and Russian, making the performance uniquely her own and a fitting culmination to her college experience as she had grown to appreciate her Slavic heritage.

It was such a privilege to see Elisabeth perform after learning and practicing so much at Wheaton. I’m one of those people that always thought “you’ve either got it or you don’t” when it comes to singing but even I could tell how much Elisabeth had grown as a vocalist.

In April Elisabeth had some unexpected health issues that made it impossible for her to finish her final semester or her degree. She’s doing wonderfully now, but she’s decided she needs some space from the pressure of performance. In the summer she enjoyed working for Wheaton and then after a couple of months of job search she landed a job as a Youth Services Specialist for RAMP. She’s excited about her new job and life on her own.

Max

Max is now in his third year at Sewanee: The University of the South in Tennessee. He enjoys his classes, but even more than that he loves Sewanee’s 13,000 acres of forest with its cliffs, caves, and trails—as well as his close-knit group of friends and the Sewanee Outing Program (SOP). Through SOP he has regular opportunities to climb, cave, canoe, hike, and take part in, or lead just about every outdoor adventure you can imagine.

Alongside his love for college life, Max has also had some remarkable summer opportunities. In 2024 he spent the summer at Fish and Cross Ranch in Yampa, Colorado, serving as a camp counselor and ranch hand. While there he learned to ride horses and even had the chance to ride a half-broke mustang.

His time at Fish and Cross gave him the riding experience he needed to apply for his dream job as Range Rider for Alderspring Ranch in Idaho. Alderspring takes 16 volunteer Range Riders from over 500 applicants so Max was excited they selected him for the summer of 2025. He spent five weeks herding cattle and roughing it in the wild mountains of Idaho. After Alderspring he went back to Fish and Cross to serve his second summer as camp counsellor.

With just a year and a half of college left Max is thinking about his future. Who knows, maybe he’ll end up on a ranch somewhere in the west.

It’s a long way from Slovakia.

Todd and Jana

Just two days ago Jana and I dropped Max off at the airport in Vienna at the end of Christmas break. Elisabeth wasn’t able to make it back home this year because she started her new job just before Christmas. It’s sad to say good-bye and have to wait six months or more before we see Elisabeth and Max again, but we feel blessed that both of them are following the Lord and doing things they love and find fulfilling.

In June we said good-bye to our dog Bona. We miss her but I have to admit—life is a little less complicated. We do quite a bit of traveling and now we don’t have to worry about making arrangements for a dog. But she did change our lives in a lot of ways. We have always been people to spend time outdoors but Bona made us do it every-single-day. Turns out there are such things as good habits that are hard to break.

And of course both Jana and I are deep in the challenges of ministry. Jana continues to love teaching English and Bible to first and second graders as well as leading the English language drama club for them. Todd enjoys teaching Old Testament at the seminary as well as the challenges of being on the National Board for the Cirkev bratská denomination, chair of the Ordination and Theology Committee and an Elder in our local church. We’ll share more about ministry in some other posts.

Thank you for being a part of our support team by praying for us, contributing to our ministry or by just reading these posts and thinking of us. You’re an important part of keeping us in ministry in Slovakia!