It's Christmas.

I've been back from my trip to Eastern Europe for about a week now.  I guess I've still been processing it all.  I showed my family the pictures today and posted a bunch on Facebook...

Overall, totally worth it.  We had more than our fair share of travel trouble, but we survived.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time with the Sarisanka Presov team in Slovakia and were able to share our faith with them and encourage the believers on the team.  We coached 5 ice times in 4 days and were able to attend one of their league games as well.

There is definitely some disparity between women's hockey in Canada and in Eastern Europe, which anyone who watched the Olympic Games would know.  This is a big reason why Chelsa and I, mid-level players here in Canada, are able to coach and work with high-level teams over there.  It's a huge privilege and we are honoured to do so in the name of Jesus.

We also had the strange privilege of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.  I say "strange privilege" because I know not everyone has the opportunity to go there, but I also know not everyone necessarily wants to go there.  It was a challenge to grasp it all... the sheer magnitude of the 1.1 million people murdered there, the reasons behind it, and the fact it only happened 65-70 years ago.  Wow.

We ended our trip in Prague, joining up with Athletes in Action there, helping teach conversational English at the sport university, and visiting with Chelsa's former teammates from Prague's professional women's team, Slavia.

I hope to post a video of some kind in the next week or two... stay tuned!

But it's now Christmas.  And it's been very much welcomed.  I'm in Lacombe and enjoying my family and the chance to catch up on sleep.  And of course, Christmas itself.

This quote was made known to me by some YWAM friends...

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton. In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart…The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.  — Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark, pp. 2,3

 Christ has come.  And He is here.