Planning our 2020 Home Assignment in July and August

It’s our custom to visit the States for home assignment in even numbered years and we’re hoping this year will be no exception. We’ve already purchased tickets to leave Vienna and arrive in Chicago on June 24 and we’re looking forward to sharing in person about life and ministry in Slovakia.

Coronavirus and Home Assignment

The coronavirsu has certainly been affecting all of us all over the world. In a recent post I shared a bit about how it is affecting our family and ministry in Slovakia. I like to buy my airline tickets early because the prices for international travel are lowest about 6 months ahead. Unfortunately, this time around that means I booked our flight before the coronavirus was on the radar. Who knows how long flights will be cancelled or how the school year will be affected by school closings. In any case, we’re still hoping we’ll be able to travel to the States on June 24.

Home Assignment Schedule

All of us (Lord willing) will arrive in Chicago on June 24.

Jana and Max will be leaving the States early this year. They’re scheduled to leave Chicago on July 29. That will allow Elisabeth and I to stay one week longer than usual, departing on August 26.

Why the different travel schedules? Max is starting to take climbing very seriously. I’ll be writing about this more in another post but summer break is the one time of year when Max has the chance to get out climbing every day and it would be really hard for him to miss that. It works out well for all of us. Jana can go back with Max and make up for some lost time at school and Elisabeth can stay a little longer to visit universities (also more in a later post).

You Can Help Us with Our Home Assignment Goals

As with every home assignment, our first goal is to communicate with supporting churches and individuals. I think we’ll be able to visit all of our supporting churches this year and I hope we’ll get to visit with as many of you as possible.

I wrote earlier that we’re a little short of monthly support and that’s one reason I’ve shifted back to volunteer status at the seminary. In order to stay long term viable in Slovakia we need to increase our monthly support. That will be a major goal this time around. Starting now, I’ll be putting some effort into making contact with pastors and churches in northern Illinois. We’d appreciate your prayers that God would make those connections.

There is also another way you can help. Cold contacts are usually pretty fruitless. If you know of pastors or congregations that might be interested in our ministry or in Slovakia, you can help us by recommending us to their pastor or missions committee.

You also might know of a congregation that might be interested or blessed from my teaching. Having the chance to preach or teach is a great way for us to serve the church and it helps people become familiar with our ministry.

Along with communicating with churches I also need to spend as much time as possible in the library at Trinity. Research is an important part of my ministry and we just don’t have the library resources we need here in Slovakia. This is a chance for me to catch up on two years worth of publishing output.

Family Time

Home assignment is also a time to catch up with family. We feel very blessed that Max and Elisabeth especially have maintained good connections with family, in part because of these regular visits to the States. That has helped them to avoid a lot of third culture kid issues that we’ve seen other missionary kids struggle with.

This year we’ll be traveling out to Colorado for a family reunion at the end of July. It looks like we’ll also stop by South Dakota to do some hiking and maybe even get some climbing in for Max.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support! We hope to see you very soon.