After an unfortunate snowfall on Friday where we woke up to about nine inches of snow, I believe that Spring is here. The sun is shining bright and beautiful over Hlinsko today! Take a look at the live webcam shot of the main square outside of our apartment: www.hlinsko.cz/mesto/webkamery.

I'm not sure where January, February and March went, but it seems I woke up today and we are into the first full week of April! It is fun to be entering a second year here and looking back on how far we have come in one year. To have now celebrated our second Easter in Czech!! Maybe to an outside onlooker, it could seem that we haven't made much progress, but we believe otherwise. There are so many things to be thankful for, but we are really excited about one in particular. One of my (Rach) students has now come to church three times in the last two months! This coming Saturday we will enjoy time together as a church family at the YFC Conference Centre (Christer and Kicki's pastor from Sweden will come and will have some teaching sessions. There will be food, fellowship, worship and teaching). And my student told me on Sunday that he plans on coming! One year ago when I started teaching, if you would have told me that one year later he would be coming to church I might not have believed you. But praise God because for some time now I have sensed God working in this man's heart and drawing him to Christ. I pray that he will continue to seek, and will ultimately find! Please join us in prayer for him.

What else have we been up to? Well it goes something like this:
1. God teaching us new things. 2. Me teaching English. 3. Us learning Czech. REPEAT.
We believe that we have entered a time ever closer to when we will see a Drop In Centre opened here in Hlinsko. Looking back, we see that we were eager to begin when we arrived, but not ready. It seems that God has had a checklist of things that He wants to accomplish in us before we are ready to serve Him in the capacity that He will have for us. His plan is so much bigger and so much better than we could have ever imagined. And yes, part of that plan is learning Czech better. We have stepped up our studies to three times a week. Through a friend we have found an EXCELLENT teacher who we really enjoy studying with. She is a teacher at the school where Hannah will attend first grade next year. In fact, she will be Hannah's teacher! So not only have we been blessed with a new friend, but we have the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with her as her students, but also as the parent's of one of her future students. She told me on Friday that our meeting was not by chance and how happy she is to know us. I couldn't agree more. Her husband and her split up about six months ago and life has been difficult for her. But I believe that God wants to heal her heart, and I pray that we will be obedient to whatever role He has for us in it. Please pray for her! And pray for us as we learn Czech.

This coming Saturday we are excited to get to see some friends from Ontario. The husband is in the military and they were able to get on a flight to Germany, and will come to Czech to visit with us. We got the confirmation about their trip yesterday and it has encouraged us so much to know that we will get to see and spend time with this amazing family! Please pray for their safe journey!

And last, but certainly not least, we now have tickets to be returning to Canada for a summer visit. We will arrive in Toronto May 31st and head back to Czech August 15th. It will be a wonderful time to spend some much needed time with both our families and also get a chance to connect with our dear supporters. If you would like us to come and share our ministry at your church during that time, please let us know. We would love the opportunity!

Blessings from Czech on this beautiful day!