Praha Holesovice = Trouble

Well let me paint the scene for you. A 186 cm tall girl with a backpack, a rolling luggage, carrying a pillow, wearing sweats tucked into ugglike (this word came up in spellcheck as ugliest, which is true at times because everyone here stares at my feet it seems) boots steps of the train at the station marked Praha Holesovice. The advice I received to follow upon arrival was, “Just get off the train, follow the crowd and I will be waiting at the Burger King. It is the first thing you’ll see.” So what do I do? I get off the train and follow the “crowd” which consists of five people that all go different directions. To myself I think, “Which one is the crowd?” and choose a kind man that was sitting across from me. We go down a long stairwell and I come to a three way stop, where there is no Burger King in sight. I hang a right and walk outside and nothing to be seen. I check every way and still cannot find a Burger King. Mind you, I do not have a cell phone at this time and do not know Czech. I can’t even use my go to phrase, “Ich kann kein Deutsch.”, when people start speaking to me because that means nothing to them. But don’t worry the only English that I do hear is over the loudspeaker saying, “BEWARE OF PICK POCKETING!” Great, so I now have my head on a swivel as well.  At this point I find this long tunnel that is underground where I see some people going, so I decide to follow since reading signs is a hopeless cause considering every letter has some kind of dash or upside down v over it. After walking through the tunnel I come out at a bus stop and I must have had a sign on me that said, “I AM AMERICAN.” or extra limbs growing out of me because EVERYONE was staring at me. I saw a sign for McDonald’s though and thought that maybe Kelsey confused the two (common mistake right?), but sure enough she wasn’t there.

Kelsey and I in front of Powder Tower



 Now I am starting to panic a little, because I literally have no idea what to do. I realize McDonald’s has internet so I whip out my ITouch and email Kelsey since I don’t have her phone number. I then decide to start asking people where Burger King is. I first ask if they know English and of the first eight people I ask not one person does. Finally, I find a person at a bakery that knows a little and I ask where Burger King is and she throws her left arm in one direction and points. I decide to take a chance and listen, but this only brings me to more bus stops and a busy intersection with no businesses. I am sweating profusely because I am dressed for winter and it’s like 60 degrees Fahrenheit. My last hope is asking a woman at the currency place, she informs me that I got off the train three stops too early. Perfect, not only am I lost, I will now be late to our meeting place and Kelsey will be nowhere to be found. This is exactly what happened, a man with one tooth, helps me get on the metro and find my way to some other stop with a name I can’t say. This time I follow the “real crowd” and find Burger King. Only to see that Kelsey is not there because at this point she had looked up where my train stopped and put two and two together and left for the other train station. Just perfect. I go up to the Burger King counter to start to buy something so I can get the internet password to check my email, only to realize they don’t use Euros, they use Crowns. I try to explain this to the woman and thankfully she gives me a piece of paper with some letters scribbled on it. The nice German man next to me helps me decipher the second grade hand writing and I get on the internet. I ask the man if he saw a tall blonde here, but he says no and just as I look up I see Kelsey walking towards me. Such a relief! 

Kelsey, me and two of her friends
at Starbucks in Prague.



So this is how my weekend in Prague started off. You probably are wondering why in the world I went to Prague when I just arrived in Berlin. Well you see, my director gets home this week and once he comes back I will know more specifics about living, team, etc., and also my roommate was gone for a basketball game five hours away. Clearly as you can see from the previous story, me in large foreign cities by myself does not make for a wise idea, so I decided before my life gets started and before Kelsey leaves for the states I should go visit her. She is a STINTer with AIA in Prague and plays on a professional basketball team there.  The weekend was so refreshing and definitely made me even more excited about my ministry in Berlin. I went to their AIA staff meeting on Friday, which was fun to see the dynamic of their team and what the ministry in Prague is like. I got to meet a lot of the women that Kelsey has been hanging out with for the last year and I was very encouraged by the relationships she has built. It reminded me that I will have relationships like that in due time; I just need to be patient. The most encouraging part of the trip was getting to have a great conversation about God with a girl that I met there and just hear where she stands and challenge her on some things. Being in a place that is spiritually dark and getting to have this conversation after knowing her for an hour was such a blessing. Overall, after an overwhelming first week in Berlin and at times wondering how am I ever going to make friends and share with them, it was super encouraging to see Kelsey and her ministry in Prague. Plus it is always good to see a familiar face that you have known for some time. Prague was definitely beautiful and it was such a great weekend and I left feeling refreshed.