Two years ago today, I was walking from the train station in Beaune, France, to my hotel. I felt like I was beginning to breathe again for the first time in ages. Unbeknown to me, I was taking first steps into something that would radically shift the trajectory of my life.

Last Wednesday my visa agent secured an appointment with immigration. I got registered and photographed and fingerprinted, and applied for a social security number. All of this only took about an hour and a half, and my identity card (roughly equivalent of a green card) should be ready in a few weeks. Thank you for your prayers!

I'm enjoying language classes, but you gotta be "on" constantly, and the strain of concentration to follow what's going on is as much physically as mentally exhausting. I'm only doing two evenings a week now, but in September the plan is go full-bore, full-time intensive! I've heard the word "brutal" thrown around by others who have gone (or attempted to go!) that route. I'd appreciate getting your prayers on-board early for that.

So for now, I'm appreciating the slower pace. I've grown to love the quiet little town where I can walk through the barley fields at sunset; it has been life-giving. Living in the city will ultimately be more practical, but I will miss this place.

I've been attending a church called Do Slova ("Into the Word"), mostly made up of immigrants like me. It has been good...but as a somewhat insecure introvert, it's a challenge for me to break into the social structure.

But this is always the challenge of moving to a new context. It has been a few decades since I've had to do this...and it's a different experience at 58 than at 28. I've had some warm engagements since arriving in the Czech Republic, but the substrate of linguistic, cultural, and social isolation will be slow to erode, and there's just no getting around that. Community is a long-haul, hard-won thing. But please don't think I'm wallowing in loneliness and despair; I am grateful to God for his companionship, and the pleasant boundary lines that surround me.

Praise God with me for this next step in my visa process being complete! Please continue to pray for my house sale (which is scheduled to close TODAY). Well, more to the point, pray about how to receive the sale funds via the living trust. This is proving to be much more difficult than anticipated. And yes, please continue to pray as I seek connection and community...and incorporation into what God is doing here in the Czech Republic.

Požehnání vám v Kristu,

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