February 7th, 2012 by Kim

I have been writing weekly with one of the groups that pray for us faithfully each week. Each time I write, I have this idea that I could just post it on our blog so that more people, who want to know how to pray for us better, can do that. So I will start doing that and put it under the  category, “prayer” for those of you who are interested. In addition, I will go back to my emails and copy them here so that you can “catch up” and feel more in the know! I have to admit how good it feels, after the end of a long day to get an email saying, “hey, we prayed for you today”, even a short one!

February 1st, 2012 by Kim

I’m writing today, Wednesday, thinking of you and how you pray for us so faithfully. Today i have some things on my heart and mind and would like to share them with you:

1) tutor for Emili- I got a good lead yesterday for someone who can help Emili with Slovak language. She (Emili) is still upbeat about school and is wanting to find someone who can help her. This person is a new teacher at our school. Although she is teacher of German language, she has her degree for Slovak language as well. Since she is only part-time teacher, she has more time to give to extra teaching like this. I was at school today, but wasn’t able to find her and ask her about this possibility.  As for school for Emili, it is different each day. For example, yesterday she came home and said, “mom, I think i need to go back to home schooling for math. I didn’t understand anything the whole hour”. However today, she was completely opposite, ” i understood everything, and did the whole worksheet front and back with out mistakes”! Today the worksheet was in English. So i really believe this extra tutoring is all she needs.

2). Hampton- like emili his days fluctuate between loving school and hating it! Every day is different! I am praying and asking God for wisdom with him and how much i need to “make” him go. Presently, he is going everyday from 8,00 until 12, with swimming on Tuesdays!

3). Ladies’ Bible Study- I had my first meeting last Friday night with the 5 ladies who will attend the bible study. We spent time praying for one another and discussing what each week will look like. since the study is in English and most of the women are not so proficient in English, we decided to meet every 2nd Friday to give them more time to do the “week study” (so 2 weeks to do 1 week). In the off weeks, i will continue to meet with 1 of the ladies, most fluent in English, and we will work on translating the material for the upcoming week- to make sure that there is full understanding. I have to say how already this study is giving me so much joy! From the first day’s study the teaching was about posturing ourselves before God in reverence and and fear, like the boy Samuel. Showing obedience to God, like Samuel, even when we don’t have all the details, situation, and have questions. Just obey. LIke a child, we must come to God.

4) House- The house is still not ready. The floors are being finished as well as the bathrooms. Then a huge clean up must be made before painting each room. So at least 1 more week. Tomorrow we meet again to discuss the kitchen  options. We must decide if we will move before the kitchen is finished. Currently, it is a empty room. No cabinets, appliances, etc;  only floors.
We faced some problems with the how the contract will be worded. For us it was an issue of integrity and honestly and we are not able to sign it in the words it was written. Although we completely can empathize with the position of the owner, and would not wish him to pay more tax than what is necessary, it is a difficult situation. We are praying for wisdom in how to deal with this.

5) Church- Our church continues to meet every week. We have experienced a real strength from them since our return, and feel it is stronger than ever. We are so encouraged. Since our numbers are steady at about 45 people each week (30 adults and 15 children) we are finding it difficult to meet in homes. When I say “home” think Slovak, 1-2 room flat (not house). You can imagine how packed it is! So great to all be together in this way. We are actively looking for a space to rent each week.

I’ve been working on this email all day It’s 10 pm now and I will wrap it up and send it on to you! Have a great evening together and thank you for all your prayers!

January 26th, 2012 by Kim

For this morning, I am sitting in quiet! It is 8:15, dishes are done from breakfast, lunches packed, kids are gone (even Hampton). Wow, it’s really quiet! That is the first news I have to tell: Hampton has started preschool! My other kids all started preschool after they turned 5 and it worked good for them to have 1 year of Slovak in preschool before entering 1st grade. However, with Hampton, he is so sad after all the kids leave for school, he was asking me over and over if he could go to school also. So I began looking for a school that would take him in the middle of this year. It was a problem. Preschools here are all funded by the state and are VERY full. Since they are at no cost to the parent you can imagine even finding a free space even at the start of a year. I decided to let this be my indicator if he would start “early”. If a space was open, then I would send him. So I was not aggressive in pursuing this, just told a few of my friends. After about 2 weeks, 1 friend called to say that the school her daughter is in has an opening. So I went the next dat (last Thursday) and signed him up. He went on Friday for just a few hours (i was able to go with him) and again on Monday. Tuesday was his official “first day” of school! He is happy, although does not like the food nor the nap! After minor adjustments (sending his lunch with him, and picking him up BEFORE nap time) he is off again this morning, happily! I would appreciate your continued prayer in this area for Hampton. It is scary to enter a place at such a young age where no one understands you and you understand very little. We are encouraged with his enthusiasm.

A few other things i would like to report on so that you can know better how to pray:

Emili’s school- I told you how excited Emili is to be back in school full time. Although that is still true, she has seen the reality of missing 3.5 years of formal Slovak language class. She is very frustrated and it seems that we need to get her a tutor. As before (during the 1-4 grades) her other subjects seem to be suffering because of her lack of Slovak language skills. Obviously, she isn’t so familiar with the terminology of Physics, Chemistry and even Math. I was trying to help her this week, and although I believe she would be able to do this work if it was in English lang, it is very difficult to do in Sj (Slovak lang). So we are praying for the right thing to do. We are considering finding a tutor to help Emili on a regular basis We must make a decision before February 1, if she will be “full -time” or continue home-schooling part of this. I already see that she hardly has any homework, and I worry that she is not studying enough. When I ask her, she tells me that the teachers have not assigned anything. Or even, like yesterday, the Math teacher wasn’t at school, so they didn’t have math. We are considering finding a tutor to help Emili on a regular basis.

Housing- Although we have not signed a contract still on this house yet, we are moving forward and we are in constant contact with the owner. He is making many decisions now about the house and asked us for our decisions on paint colors, appliances, cabinet color, even design of the kitchen! We are excited about this. Yesterday, we were able to take from the storage place many of our kitchen appliances (oven, stove, refrigerator, dishwasher) so we can use them in the new house and not have to buy new ones. The owner believes the new kitchen can be finished in 1 week and the house ready to move in at the end of the month. We believe that it will more likely be by the 15th of February. In the meantime, we seem to be getting into a routine here at the Dorms. IT is so convenient to live so close in the city. The kids are walking home from school and to their after school activities. Laundry is a bit of a challenge in this small space. Since there is not a dryer (most Slovaks do not own one), we have clothes out drying every available space! Thankfully we were able to buy everyone enough clothes for at least 5 days before we left the States. That takes the pressure off to have something washed and dried in 1 days (which can not happen here)!

Slovak lessons- I got an interesting email last week from 1 company i had contacted back in 2010 about Slovak lessons for me and Zac. We had chosen to to use this company because they were very expensive. However, they wrote to me last week and asked for a meeting. They purposed that we exchange services. We would teach English for them, 2hrs per week, and they would give us Slovak lessons the same (2hrs per week). Although we have raised the money now to pay the full expense. We believe God has brought this to us. Giving us another opportunity to share our faith in the classroom setting. The contract is with one local international company. So the “students” are adults. This will be a new experience for us and we look forward to see how God will use us there. We begin lessons February 8th.

ALSO, I just remembered i forgot to tell you: some of the women in our church asked me to lead a women’s bible study, weekly. I have done this before and so i was honored they asked me to do it again. It will be on Fridays, here at our house (and at the dorm while we are here I have 1 book someone gave while i was in the states and recommended it. It is by Pricilla Shirer, “Discerning the voice of God” and “He speaks to me” I need to look at other resources online and decide if i will do the audio tapes (for myself) and if there is a leaders guide. It will be a little complicated translating it into Slovak.  I just need to spend some time making decisions about this. We are meeting for the first time this week! I am really excited. Here is a link if your interested to know more about this author http://www.lifeway.com/n/Popular-Authors/Priscilla-Shirer

Thank you again for your prayers and emails!

January 14th, 2012 by Kim

January 7th, 2012 by Kim

I wanted to give you a quick update on our family and arrival back to Slovakia.

We arrived last Friday evening around 9 pm. The van that was coming for us broke down on its way to get us from the airport (a 3 hour drive) and so when we came from the gate we only received a text message about the car problem  The kids were so completely exhausted at that point (it had been just over 24 hours of travel) they just collapsed there at the arrival area and slept. Hampton even slept on top of the 14 suitcases! (Soundly I might add) This was really a blessing because it could have easily been a very stressful situation trying to figure out this transportation problem. It was however resolved fairly quickly and we were able to get not only a rental van, but a driver that came for us from nearby capital city of Bratislava. We waited only 3 hours and he drove us all the way to our city (3 hours) with all of our luggage! What a blessing!

Speaking of our luggage, that is another huge blessing! We were only “allowed” 1 piece of checked luggage per person and was prepared to pay the 60$ for the second piece per person. However, at check in, I overheard the person next to me explaining how they were going on a mission trip and so their extra baggage fee was waived. So I asked if we were able as well to have waived fees since we too are missionaries. After a long discussion with her supervisor, our ticket agent arranged that our extra fees were completely waived! We all were so excited and thanked the Lord right there at the check-in counter!  Later I was so happy to have the cash in my pocket (literally in my pocket) to pay the driver who took us from the airport that next evening. I am certain it was no coincidence it was the exact amount I needed!

The kids were excited to settle in to beds in the dormitory at Kompas. and we decided to leave the 14, 50# suitcases on the first floor, since their was neither an elevator or space for them on the 3rd floor with us! After a long sleep we were excited to wake up to snowfall the next afternoon (yes it was afternoon when we woke up)!  Being New Year’s Eve, all the stores were closed! Thankfully, our friends in Poland called us and invited us to their house for the evening, so we drove 1,20 to their house just across the border and was well cared for (and feed) and celebrated the new year together! It was the easiest New year’s eve I can remember! We didn’t go to sleep until after 4 am! The next day was Zac’s birthday and we were able to go to Czech to a new cabin our mission has for our missionaires. It was vacant and so we were able to stay 3 nights there. What another huge blessing this was to have a fun place to go and celebrate Zac in the midst of all this caos. It  was only about 1 hour from where we were in Poland. It was a beautiful place, lots of rooms, in the mountains, beautiful views, etc. Finally, we were alone just our family after a very long time. No TV, no internet. Just lots of talking, laughing, reading, hiking and games.

We made it back to Zilina on Wednesday and started house hunting. Friday was a holiday here (3 kings day) and so many people were off from work. We were able to see only 2 houses. The first house, the “blue house” is under reconstruction. It is a little on the small size, but with a few changes, could be made more conducive for our family. We spoke to the owner and he is willing to make some changes. A few downsides are it’s location, it is on a VERY busy street. Also, the earliest he predicts it could be finished and ready is the end of January. So it would mean a good month here at Kompas in the dorms. Positives are: everything will be very “new” after the reconstuction. another very interesting fact is that the owner of this house is the BROTHER to the family we used to rent from (not our last house, but the house before). We didn’t know this until we went to see the house. This family is a very nice family, we have a great relationship and they were extremely kind to us during our 4 years renting from them. A family that we pray for already and live out the Gospel of Jesus to; so it’s exciting to think about an extension of that.

The second house we went to see turned out to be a “dud”. In fact, it was not even the same house advertised. We have written about and inquired about several others. We have many realtors and friends looking for us as well. We are praying for God to give us just the right house for us; one that will have a 4th bedroom for the future guests we expect to keep over the many days we are living there. So far we have not walked into a house and said “this is it”, “this is the one, we just know it”. We are waiting and praying.

In a very short time we have managed to meet already with at least 4 families/friends. Today i went for coffee with a unsaved friend. She was quite surprised our family returned to Slovakia, she admitted she was expecting us not. She listened intently as I told her how God has given me peace and contentment for living in Slovakia, even more, a love for it. I loved speaking so openly about my faith and my testimony of my God in my life.

Many of our friends think we are just crazy to have our family in a 2 room dormitory at the top of Kompas, no kitchen, no living area.  Tonight, one friend just said he didn’t believe me when I said i was “spokojne”-content. Again, I told him, “I can’t explain it, it’s from God, I am not lying to you. It is real”

We are so happy to be back in Slovakia with our friends here. Tomorrow we return to our home church and Monday the kids return to school and I will discuss my teaching schedule for the new term (starting in Feb.). Thank you in advance for your continued prayer for our family, our house, and the people of Slovakia.

Sorry this wasn’t so short after all (but what a joy to write it all down)!

November 29th, 2011 by Zac

One of the next steps toward returning to Slovakia is finding a new place to live. We are grateful we are not living on the street, but finding a new house to rent is a pressing priority.

We moved out of our previous house (pictured right)  for a couple of reasons. We preferred to not have to pay rent for 6 months while we were in the States. This alone is a huge financial savings for us. But also, the previous house had some mold problems that we believed were contributing to some chronic sickness with our boys.

We were thankful for the 4 years we had in this house. Our landlord was very gracious and helpful during our time there. And it was privilege to get to know her and her family through those years.

I (Zac) will travel back to Slovakia early (December 5-17) to look for a new house. I also will attend a special council meeting in Vienna focused on raising up healthy, reproducing churches across Slovakia.

God has always met our need in housing and we believe he has already prepared the prefect place for now. All of our possessions are now in storage. So, this means we will be moving in the first weeks of January – which is the coldest weather of year. (moving could look like the picture to the right!).

Please keep this whole process in your prayers as we search for God’s chosen location and make a winter house move.

November 29th, 2011 by Zac

After our second full month of focused fundraising, we are both challenged and hopeful. Our current standing is at 40% of our total need. We still need quite a few new financial partners to join our team in order to meet our goal. 

Some have asked, “why do you need to raise so much money? Have you suddenly lost so much support”? This is a good question. And the answer is pretty simple. We have NOT lost an abnormal amount of support. The reason is this. Apart from the normal needs of a growing family and the weak US dollar, the core reason is that we have simply been living for some time at a low support level. Our desire has been to live within the monthly support that God has provided over the years. And we have managed to survive with this approach for some years.

But now at our 10 year anniversary in Slovakia, it’s time to prepare for the next “stretch” of ministry. Part of that good preparation is to reach the proper and healthy financial position required by Josiah Venture (our governing organization). JV sets our budget figures as well as our monthly salary. So, our goal is to reach this required financial position.

Over the last two months we have presented our ministry and needs to a large number of people in numerous states and contexts. Many have responded with open hands and hearts and many are still prayerfully considering the decision.

Our focus in these final two months will be in ElDorado, Arkansas and surrounding cities. And although the balance of our need is a challenging amount, we believe that God is able to provide what is needed. He always has been faithful!

If you have an interest in becoming a financial partner with us, please contact us at zshepperson@josiahventure.com or call us at 501-613-2185

April 6th, 2011 by Zac

As you may know, in October 2011, we will have been serving here in Slovakia for 10 years. As we anticipate this anniversary, we have naturally been looking to God for his next steps for us – primarily whether we should stay in Slovakia or return to America.

Over the last several months we have been presenting this question to God, asking for his guidance. Through a series of strategic responses, we believe that it is God’s plan for us to remain here in ministry for another term. We can’t see exactly how long this will mean, but probably up to 5 more years.

We were already planning our regular visit (every second summer) to the States this summer. But in light of these new future plans, we see several other factors that must be considered.

First, we have a longing to have some extended time with our families after this long time away from home. So we look forward to spending extra time at home focusing on family.

Secondly, we believe we need to reestablish our financial base as we look to the future. This will necessarily mean raising a certain percentage of additional financial support in expectation of these next years ahead.

We are anticipating that this could take some additional months in the States, so we are planning to remain in America from June until December 2011. This will give us adequate time to do the necessary travel and retooling for this next phase ahead.

We have already bought our plane tickets and will arrive in Little Rock on Tuesday, June 7th.  We really look forward to being home again and to be with all of you.

We would appreciate your prayers as we make preparations for this plan in the next two months. This includes packing up our present house and putting it in storage, finishing the kids school early, renewing our visas early (they expire while we’re away), selling or storing our car, and our housing in Slovakia for when we return (we have the possibility of  building a house).

It will be a hectic couple of months, but we know God is with us and that he gives strength to those who rest in Him.

March 24th, 2011 by Kim

Today is the start KPM, our 17th Annual Youth Leaders Conference. This year’s theme is “ Gripping God’s Word”. We are expecting over 600 youth workers with their teams to come together to be inspired and trained on how the Word of God can help them and their ministries. This is the largest youth leaders conference in Central and Eastern Europe and we welcome your prayers as we put the final pieces together.

Pray for God to be glorified during this time, that the leaders and their teams will have open hearts, minds, and souls to hear His truth and go home with a deeper and passionate understanding of God’s word.

Pray also for our team for strength, wisdom, and protection. And, pray for Zac and I as we both will be leading seminars on Friday. Zac is also heading the team that will bring a missions focus to the whole conference. Saturday evening will be the main event for missions. Please pray specifically that God will inspire and mobilize Slovaks for world missions, especially in central Asia.

It all begins today here in our city of Zilina. Here is a link if your interested in more (it’s in Slovak) http://www.tckompas.sk/kpm/

Can you please take 5 minutes and pray for us right now?

November 22nd, 2010 by Zac

Dizmas is a Christian, American rock band with a mission (www.dizmas.com). Exit is a Josiah Venture vision that hungers to see students across central Europe come to faith in Jesus. Together they form the Exit Tour. Last month (October), in two major Slovak cities (Zilina & Kosice), Dizmas and the Exit Tour team have made purposeful contacts with over 3000 high-school students! Here is the way it works.                                                                                                                       

The Exit Tour team works for months in advance to train local church youth groups for outreach and follow-up. Plus, they make arrangements for concerts and social prevention seminars in local high schools. Dizmas gives of their talent and energy to come to Central Europe for 2 month and perform concert after concert in these cities and high schools. In each school Dizmas presents a short concert and the Exit team presents various seminars about drug, alcohol and AIDS prevention.

There is also a special seminar by Tomas Graumann, who was one of the final children survivors to board the Winton rescue trains from Prague just before World War II (www.auschwitz.dk/Winton.htm). Graumann, now 79 and a believer in Christ, openly shares his faith and gives out Bibles at the end of his seminar. His story and presentation are spellbinding!

Then, at the end of a week of visiting high schools, there is a final concert in the city featuring Dizmas and another local Christian band. At the concert, the gospel of Christ is clearly shared and everyone is invited to respond.

The two weeks of Exit tour are over now and follow-up has begun. Many small groups have been started, hundreds of new friendships have been set in motion and the seed of the gospel has been planted in hearts.

One observer commented, “I’ve never seen so many unbelievers in our church – EVER! Help us pray for significant fruit and more opportunities in other cities.

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