Jonny and Lisa Lobel

I went to the New Canaan Society annual conference in Hot Springs, Virginia last weekend for great fellowship and some fund-raising too. My father, brother, father in law, and pastor all came to the conference, while my sisters and wife came along to relax at the amazing hotel, The Homestead.  We all went to the local hot springs together, the buildings around which were originally built by Thomas Jefferson.  It was a great time to get away and be a family.

We met a lot of great guys who are ready to be a “faithful presence” in their families, communities, and churches.  It was inspiring to hear about what men in business are doing to serve and reach out all over the world.  The NCS guys were hilarious, as usual.  Skip Bowlinski took his antics to new lows and hilarity ensued.

One conference highlight for me was personally meeting Luis Palau, who gave a stirring message at a Promise Keepers meeting I attended with my dad fourteen years ago.  I was convicted and responded with tears in my eyes by deciding to follow Jesus.  I was twelve year old at the time.  Luis was all smiles when I told him about it this weekend. He told Lisa, “You owe me one!”

Another memorable experience was having breakfast with Graham Kendrick, an amazing and experienced international worship leader.  I asked him loads of questions about leading worship and balancing family life with ministry.  He and Paul Baloche led some awesome times of worship at the conference.

The weekend with family and NCS “brudders” built me up spiritually and refreshed me emotionally.  I’m motivated to be a “faithful presence” in my family, community, and church and will be meditating on “Christ in me and through me,”   Luis’ theme on Saturday morning. Here is the video recap of the conference:

We were so blessed by the hundreds of dear friends and family who came this week to pay respects to our mom, Cindy, Lobel, who passed away last weekend after a brief battle with stomach cancer.  God is so good to have given us hope in Jesus, which he has clearly reminded us of this week.  Thanks for the overwhelming show of love and support!

Thinking about Mom and the tremendous work she did as a mother is sad, of course, but inspiring and wonderful.  She was passionate about raising a godly family, especially as she sacrificed her career to stay home with the siblings and homeschool us.  She also changed many lives by working as a nurse at the Alpha Pregnancy Care Center in Albany and with Moose River Outpost Christian Camp in Maine.  She gave her camp salary each summer to pay the way for Czech BMA students to attend the camp.  We are going to set up the Cindy Lobel Memorial Scholarship to continue this special ministry.

We are going to miss Mom dearly, but know that she lived according to God’s purpose and completed his work for her.  We praise Jesus for everything he did through her!  He is faithful.

The past weeks have been full of exciting and sometimes sad events.  My great uncle Jim Janssen van Raay died in the Hague and I took time out for the funeral.  A couple students are putting their last applications in to American universities and I have been overseeing that process.  Of course, Lisa and I both continue to teach, pray, and wait for God to do great things in our lives, church, and community!

The Netherlands
I took a couple days off, traveled to the Hague last week, and stayed with my extended family there.  My dad emigrated from the Netherlands to America when he was about one year old.  He still speaks fluent Dutch, though he never spoke at home with us.  We maintain a fairly close relationship with our extended Dutch family.  My sister, Mandy, even spent a summer there learning Dutch a few years ago.

Uncle Jim was the center of the family.  He was the last surviving sibling in my grandmother’s family.  They were born in Indonesia just before the Second World War and four out of five of them survived a Japanese concentration camp. As an adult, Jim became a politician and member of European Parliament.  His outgoing, gregarious personality charmed everyone he met.  One of his last big trips was two years ago to Chicago for our wedding.  He passed away quietly at the age of 77.  You can read about him in a Dutch newspaper, which I have translated into English using Google Translate.

The funeral was a sad time, but also a celebration of life.  We sang his favorite hymns and ate his favorite food (Indonesian) together.  I believe it was a special time of closeness for the family where Jesus was able to quietly speak about hope and comfort.

BMA
The endless cycle of teaching, learning, and developing the white and grey matter in students’ skulls continues as usual.  I’ve felt recently that I am seeing good developments in myself as a teacher.  The students we have at BMA also may be the best crop (on average) we have ever had, in my opinion.  I’m expecting amazing results from my homeroom class on their oral exams in a few months.  They are all currently applying to various universities around the Czech Republic, and some around the world.

I am overseeing the application process of two students applying to Moody Bible Institute.  These are the last overseas applications this year, and I am glad because I am exhausted!  I am so proud that BMA students step out into the unknown and apply to universities around the world.  They have also applied to several universities in the United Kingdom this year.

Family
Lisa and I travel to the States next week to visit with my family.  We are thankful to have a week off school for the spring holidays!  Mom Lobel hasn’t been improving much over the past two months.  She has been in the hospital for the last week, though should be home soon.  We are eager to spend time with her and the whole family.  Please keep praying for a miracle.  You can follow her progress at http://cindylobel.blogspot.com/

Lisa will also be stopping in to see her family for a few days.  She has some little nephews and nieces who don’t see their aunt nearly enough!  During that time, I will be at the annual conference of the New Canaan Society, a group of hundreds of Christian men who want to see God’s life in their families, jobs, and communities.  I’ll be doing some fund raising and getting quality time in with my dad and brother.  After a few days, both Lisa and I will return to Albany to be with Mom and the family.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support!

Jonny

The long neglected jonnyandlisa.com blog was throwing itself the self-pity party of the decade, the decade being off to a shaky start and all.  I’m the party pooper, here to put things right and get this shindig back on track. There is a lot to catch up on from snowy Frydlant nad Ostravici!

If you are here to skim, not read, here are the important links: http://cindylobel.blogspot.com/ and Lisa’s photo gallery.

Despite the jovial tone above, I write with a heavy heart.  Cindy Lobel, my dear mom, has been diagnosed with serious, advanced stomach cancer and is currently fighting through chemotherapy and the life-altering events that rocked our world.  We rushed home for Christmas and have two more trips to America planned for this year.  We are desperate for your earnest and regular prayers (see James 5:16), for a miracle is the only hope.  To keep up, visit http://cindylobel.blogspot.com/.

Despite the challenge of being faithful in light of God’s difficult goodness, we are enjoying a true outpouring of his blessings and Spirit.  Beskydy Mountain Academy is growing stronger each month, students are connecting with Jesus at every turn, and our small church is finding its feet. Lisa continues to blossom as a teacher.  I caught myself secretly taking notes as she related the effectiveness of an inventive new class exercise she used today.  As the only native English speaker in her school, she is currently editing term evaluations for each student in every class, which piles up to about two hundred evaluations!

You might remember that I am the homeroom teach for this year’s graduating class.  The responsibilities of guiding eighteen students through their final year in a Czech high school sometimes overwhelms me.  For example, it will be up to me at the end of this spring semester to sit in on the final, terrifying oral examinations.  I should act as an advocate for my students and ensure that the board evaluates them fairly.  That is a tall order for someone of my Czech language ability!  Yet, there are bright, even delicious, moments, which solidify my faith in how right God was when he called us here.

Some weeks before Christmas, my class staged a celebratory dinner, called stužkovák, for their teachers, classmates, parents, and friends.  My part in this mysterious Czech tradition was to knight each student with a massive sword and give them an official ribbon which signifies my approval for them to proceed on to the aforementioned, terrifying oral examinations. The scrawny kids I remember hazing as first years were suddenly before me as adults, ready to graduate and continue on to university, community building, and the full lives we always aimed to equip them for at BMA.  (The hazing comment was a joke, Dad…)

Family time has been precious, as you can imagine.  My youngest sister, Erica, dropped in on us for three weeks on her return trip from Uganda.  We had a blast and she made quite a splash with my class at BMA.  She hung out there, went to classes in Czech, and helped a couple Czech students study for the SAT. I was so sad to drop her off at the airport in Prague.  I thought it would be until the following summer before we saw her again.

The call from my parents came as Lisa and I were decorating our tree a week before Christmas.  We were shocked by the news of cancer and quickly arranged to fly back to New York for Christmas.  Yet, we finished our work at school and even threw a Christmas crêpe party for my class before departing.  The mix of emotions as home was intense.  It was our first time together as a family since my wedding with Lisa two years ago. We enjoyed some sweet times of prayer, worship and games together.  As an added bonus, Lisa and I spent an afternoon with our old friends from Frydlant, Ken and Andrea Pitcher, who have since moved their family to Rochester.

Now back in our cozy apartment, we are thoroughly entrenched in our work and ministries.  I’m guiding our church’s worship ministry, only by grace from Jesus.  Every other week, we hold a Bible study here at home for any BMA students who are interested.  Last week we had a record thirteen students in our living room, studying John 14 and 15!  More than twenty BMA students show up voluntarily for prayer twice a week at school.  Many students have connected with Jesus for the first time or in new ways this year.  One student summed up why I am so excited about BMA in a sweet facebook status update: It´s nice to feel, if anyone ask you a question: How is your school? And you can say: I pretty love my school! I am just happy about that!!

Finally, you might enjoy sharing some pictures from our second year of marriage.  Check out Lisa’s photo gallery.  Thank you so much for reading, praying, and faithfully supporting us here in the Czech Republic.

Christmas Party with (most of) my BMA Seniors

Bible Study with BMA Students

Our local mountain, Lysa Hora (1323 M, 4340 ft), in the January snow.

Erica, Lisa and I visited Prague together.

This Psalm has been really comforting to me lately. I hope it speaks to you too.

Psalm 86 (New Living Translation)

A prayer of David.

¹ Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer;
answer me, for I need your help.
² Protect me, for I am devoted to you.
Save me, for I serve you and trust you.
You are my God.
³ Be merciful to me, O Lord,
for I am calling on you constantly.
⁴ Give me happiness, O Lord,
for I give myself to you.
⁵ O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive,
so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.
⁶ Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord;
hear my urgent cry.
⁷ I will call to you whenever I’m in trouble,
and you will answer me.

⁸ No pagan god is like you, O Lord.
None can do what you do!
⁹ All the nations you made
will come and bow before you, Lord;
they will praise your holy name.
¹⁰ For you are great and perform wonderful deeds.
You alone are God.

¹¹ Teach me your ways, O Lord,
that I may live according to your truth!
Grant me purity of heart,
so that I may honor you.
¹² With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God.
I will give glory to your name forever,
¹³ for your love for me is very great.
You have rescued me from the depths of death.

¹⁴ O God, insolent people rise up against me;
a violent gang is trying to kill me.
You mean nothing to them.
¹⁵ But you, O Lord,
are a God of compassion and mercy,
slow to get angry
and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
¹⁶ Look down and have mercy on me.
Give your strength to your servant;
save me, the son of your servant.
¹⁷ Send me a sign of your favor.
Then those who hate me will be put to shame,
for you, O Lord, help and comfort me.

We are finishing up our second month of school in about  a week (a week and two days to be exact… not that we are counting or anything). Those months went by really fast. There were quite a few things to fill them up, besides the normal teaching hours. Jonny was busy finishing up a website that allows teachers to post grades online, we both spent time getting to know new friends and building relationships with existing ones, and we chaperoned the 4th year class trip (that’s the class that Jonny is the homeroom teacher for). They chose to go to Paris this year. For months Jonny planned and priced and talked with people from hostels and restaurants to get the best prices and figure out the best trip for these students. It all paid off! The trip was a success.

Everything was (for the most part) on time and simple. We did have an incident with a student getting the meeting time wrong when we left Frydlant, but we were able to get him on time. And one student had trouble getting off of the metro in Paris quick enough, but thankfully got back to the right stop quickly and without problems. Everyone seemed to have a really great time and thanks to the fact that, in Paris, citizens of the EU under 26 receive free entry to most museums and sights in Paris, we were able to see so much! The 3 days there gave the class  a chance to have fun, experience something new and bond.  The family atmosphere that characterizes BMA was very real for our class on this trip!  We got to chat with them, have fun with them and get to know them better.  I think they really enjoyed being together as well.

We are excited to have the rest of the year to spend with these students before they go off to college. They are a great group and have the potential to make the year very exciting! For more pictures, check out the album on Jonny’s facebook page, or click here:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071472&id=17507425&l=669a504bad

We have mostly recovered from our 7 week “tour” of America. We spent our summer visiting family and friends in various parts of the States. Some of our highlights include: meeting our new nephew (who came a month early just to meet us!), hiking with some of the Lobel clan in the White Mountains, sharing about BMA and other parts of our life in the Czech Republic with supporters and friends, going back to the place where we got married, Jonny speaking at Light of the World in Albany, NY and Main Street Ministries in Allegon, MI, being interviewed about BMA on WMBI, and spending quality time with both of our families.

We came back home with 10 days before the start of school… just enough time to get over jetlag, figure out the classes we will teach for the year, and start planning. It was the first time for me (Lisa) to go back to the States since moving here. By the end of the trip we were both ready to come back, but arriving brought mixed emotions for me. I was really glad to be back in our own apartment, not quite so excited to start again with language lessons, and melancholy about not seeing our families again for a long amount of time. Jonny, on the other hand, seems quite excited about his language lessons. He has even decided to work on his German by attending the first year German classes at BMA… in addition to Czech lessons.

We have finally settled into our new schedule and are looking forward to what the year will bring. So far, Jonny has already introduced the new first year students to BMA at the first year retreat, helped everyone work on their pirate speak during “Talk like a Pirate Day”, and has been working hard at some new technology for the school. I have mostly been working on my teaching and cooking. We also celebrated Jonny’s 26^th birthday with a surprise (for him, not for me) dinner and game night with some friends, a lovely dinner of homemade, Chicago style stuffed pizza, and a weekend hiking trip to the Tatras. The hiking just about killed me, but I survived and Jonny very much enjoyed it. We are excited be be back in our normal routine and are looking forward to what they year might bring.

Enjoy a few pictures from our summer and early fall…

Chandler siblings

Our sister-in-law, Judy, interviewing Jonny at WMBI

Our new nephew, Truman

On our way to visit Opa

In the Tatras

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2009

We’ve been absent from this blog for a while during our summer trip to America.  While we make our way back to Frydlant and get ready for the next school year at BMA, check out our August 4th radio interview on WMBI Chicago:

http://www.mbn.org/GenMoody/Media/MediaLibrary/TITD_2009-08-04arc.mp3

Storms have been unexpectedly tearing through othewise sunny, tranquil days in Frydlant.  The setting sun splashed watercolors on the backside of a particularly rainy evening last Tuesday, lighting the sky over our town square with pink and peach.  We experience the same kind of chaos-charged calm in June at BMA.

It is the last month of school and everyone, students and teachers alike, are ready for the holidays.  Grades are finished in some classes, leaving those remaining, government-required class hours entirely meaningless.  Other teachers wait until the last week to give their most important exams and students are understandably frazzled after facing an exam each day.  Next Friday is the deadline for finalized  grades and class trips start the following day.

We also have been basking in the satisfaction of sending off a capable, mature  senior class.  Our students conquered the dreaded “Maturita” oral examinations most impressively; four of fifteen students received perfect marks and the highest honors.  They have been applying to various universities around the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  So far, we know that our students have been accepted at Moody Bible Institute, Brown University, the University of Manchester, and many Czech institutions.

Directly following the exams, the entire BMA community (parents, teachers, students, and friends) celebrated at a touching graduation ceremony.  My colleague, Paul Till, had been the class teacher (or homeroom teacher) for the graduates and made a deeply touching speech before the gathering in the elegant and packed town hall.  Tears flowed and as he honored the students and lifted up the name of Jesus.  He spoke stunningly good Czech and his open heart was a refreshing surprise in a culture where emotions are often closely guarded.

On a large scale, the exam process and graduation were satisfying because we saw the finished product after years of dedicated work.  Talented students are leaving our school academically sound, speaking fluent English, and have weekly heard and discussed Jesus’ message of hope and love.  For me, the exams were also a triumph because the technology curriculum I designed was tested and shone (two students chose, for the first time, to do exams in Information Technology) and, also for the first time, I examined students in Czech (in accordance with Czech law).

We will be taking some school trips in the coming weeks.  I am going hiking and camping with my class in Slovakia.  Other students are heading to the northern Czech Republic and on to Dresden, Germany.  Then Lisa and I will be flying to America at the end of the month for a summer with our families and friends.  Maybe we will see you!  Drop us an email.

Frýdlant is really starting to feel like home. There are still days when I get frustrated that I still don’t know the language well enough to actually use it, but for the most part I am really comfortable and happy here.

I really enjoy not needing a car to get around. Taking the train from work is such a relaxing time and often reminds me of my dad. It is so great that I can walk to the store in 3 minutes to get the random foodstuffs I forgot last time I went. The little secondhand/antique shop where I can get things to make our apartment a little bit less like an IKEA showroom is kind of like a Target substitute (if you squint your eyes and use your imagination). 

I have always wanted to live in the same building as my friends and near cafe where I can go and be pretty confident that I’ll see someone I know at some point during the visit… and now I have both! AND Jonny and I get to have a Bible study with the totally awesome couple that lives upstairs from us. I love being able to walk to the river with my husband on random Thursday evenings. And I just found out yesterday that we have a dry cleaners in town!! Frýdlant is a great town.

Besides Frýdlant being a great town, I am also making more friends and building existing relationships and Jonny and I are getting more involved in our Church. Our new pastor recently asked Jonny if he would lead the worship ministry team and, after talking about it and praying about it, we decided it was where the Holy Spirit was leading us and it would be a great way to be more involved in our local church.

I am really looking forward to visiting our families in Chicago and Albany, but although it doesn’t mean I love or miss my family any less, I have to admit that this is home to me now. It feels good to be home.