Mexican food and swing dancing with Bill Nye

Training has been going quite well, and my departure date for the Czech Republic is a week from today! I would ask that you would pray for a safe (and relatively hassle-free) flight, as we are flying over on British Airways.

One of the highlights (and biggest stressors!) of training has been the Practicum site where we teach Hispanic immigrants English. It's stressful because we only had an hour each day to prepare our lessons, but such a blessing because the students were amazing and so eager to learn. Last week was our last week with the students and we had each class give a presentation of what they learned in the four weeks we had been with them. Some groups recited jazz chants, some did role plays, and they were all very excited and appreciative. We gave them all certificates, then they had a special program prepared for us as a gift of thanks: Mexican folk dancing and authentic Mexican food! Needless to say, we were all very grateful.

This past weekend was also very exciting because we got to relax and take in the Pasadena night life. Carice Blazo, the Regional Director for Cental Europe, took a small group of us swing dancing at a Lutheran church in downtown Pasadena. There was a free lesson at the beginning, then Stompey Jones from San Francisco played all night long as we danced. As we are in southern California, there are apt to be famous people wandering around all over the place. Up until this point we hadn't been lucky enough to have any star sightings, but that night I turned around after a particularly fast Charleston, and lo and behold, there was BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY! He even danced with Carice and a few other girls who came with us (and apparently he can cut a mean rug!). Needless to say, the night was amazing.

Right now we're going to go to Wahoo's Fish Taco's, a great Cali-Mex restaurant, to say goodbye to the Slovakia team, who leave on Friday. Be praying for all of us as we prepare to fly to Europe!