Exploring Slovenia...

View near Lake Bled

I realise that I didn't put up a blog post last week when I was due to so sorry about that. Firstly I just plain forgot that I was supposed to be writing last week, and secondly, last week my parents were here visiting which meant that I took a bit of a break from my work.

It was half term here in Slovenia last week as well as in England which worked out very well for me. It meant that I got a break from both language school and Cornhill, my Bible handling course. (It also happened to be my birthday but that's just an aside!) These first few weeks have felt hectic at times trying to get everything done so it was good to be able to spend time with my parents and to show them parts of Slovenia they had never been to before. One of the highlights for me was visiting the arboretum. It was just amazing in the autumn colours and really made me grateful for God's wonderful creation. We also took the opportunity to go visit Lake Bled and the nearby gorge. Again, the weather was amazing and we had great views across the whole landscape.

Autumn in the Arboretum

Before my break two big things happened. Firstly, my language teacher had to withdraw from teaching the course because she needs back surgery. We now have two teachers on alternate days of the week. Whilst my new teachers are great, I do feel that we had all built a good rapport with the first one. It takes time to build that with new teachers especially when we only see them half the time each. At first I was a bit worried that it was going to be quite disjointed but having had them for 2 weeks now (1 each side of half term) I feel that we are starting to get into a good rhythm.

The other big thing for me was that I had to give my first talk of the year for Cornhill. For those of you who don't know, I have to prepare and give 6 talks this year, each on a different passage. Last year we stayed in the book of Colossians and worked on maybe 1 or 2 verses for each talk. By the end our talks had to last 10 minutes. This year we are working with larger passages and each talk is from a different genre of literature in the Bible. My first talk was from 1 Peter whilst my next one will be from the Gospel of Mark. Our talks also now have to last 12-15 minutes. It really does feel like a step up but I guess that's the point. I'm very grateful that I got positive feedback on my talk but I get the impression that my next passage will be a bit harder to work on. Please be praying for me in all these studies.

Finally, some of you may be wondering about the situation here in Ljubljana. The last two weeks have definitely felt a lot calmer than previous weeks. I'm sure there are still people protesting but it's nothing like it was the last time I wrote. That being said, cases are still rising here and numbers of vaccinated people is not increasing at any great rate. Praise God that the situation is calmer but please continue to pray for the Covid situation here as well as across the world!