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| So, I've been back about 4 months now and this is an update of whats going on with me. Don't know if anyone still reads this or what, but here ya go. Life has been pretty tough since being back. There have been some highlights, but over all it hasn't been the greatest. Living with my dad has brought about numerous issues. I'm blessed in that he's letting me stay with him for the time being, but it is a frustrating situation. I have been job searching somewhat, but I haven't managed to find anything. I shot myself in the foot once at the beginning of the summer and have had a few prospects since then, but it is very hard to find anything right now. I haven't even been able to find a waiter job...let alone anything else. This has put a pretty big strain on me as I am also running pretty low on what little savings I have left. I've had to get quite a few things done to my car since being back and I still have more yet to go. Add in gas, groceries, and general life costs, and its been quite a big hit. The other week my laptop got some virus as well...I tried to fight it off but to no avail. I'm pretty sure its dead, so whenever I get everything else taken care of that's another thing I'll need to get. It could be a blessing in disguise as I was wasting a good bit of time on it, but now the question will be what will I fill that time with.(right now I'm writing this from my dad's computer which I prob won't be able to use during the week). Right now I would just like to get any kind of job so I can start building back a savings. Living with your parent(s) after being out on your own for so long is a tough adjustment. I just feel stuck right now. I know I would like to continue doing missions in the future, I just don't think it will be with Crusade. Until that day comes, I'm stuck here in Charleston, trying to have a better attitude about it and trying to learn why God has me here, but it is hard. I'm just in a valley right now with no end in sight. There are encouraging things here in Charleston that I try to remember. I was able to get involved with a community group at my church which is a definite highlight of every week. Wednesday nights I'm able to help lead worship at my mom's church which is another highlight. I love praising God through playing guitar and singing. I just wish that I was more creative that I could write songs or do that for a living :-\. I just hope I can find where God's calling me and soon. Your prayers are much appreciated.
His servant,
Aaron
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| We have a 2 hour layover in Vienna right now as I head home for the states. The past weeks have been amazing and I'm definitely sad to leave.
Our trip to Belgrade for summer project was amazing. Our four students that went did amazing and went all out in sharing their faith. It was so encouraging for me to see them take those steps of faith and to be bold. I got to be a group leader and I had two Slovaks in my group, a guy from South Korea who is studying in Russia, another Russian girl, and a girl from the American summer project. We went to a few different places in the city to do outreaches and share our faith but the coolest was when I got to go with Jakub to do Soularium on the economic faculty campus.
All semester I had been wanting to do Soularium with him in Presov but hadn't had the opportunity to, do it was awesome to be able to do it in Belgrade. He did a great job with sharing his testimony with the people that we talked to and we had some good conversations with quite a few guys. It was crazy how long our conversations went though. We had assigned outreach time to be like 1pm-6pm in the afternoons and we would maybe get 2 or 3 conversations in in that time because we talked for so long. I don't know what it is, but God always seems to place me in the path of hardcore athiests or people with really random weird theological beliefs but it is always a good challenge to defend my faith.
When we got back from Belgrade we had only 3 days to wrap everything up in Kosice and it was kind of a whirlwind. I was glad to be able to say goodbye to a good many people. Friday was mainly spent taking care of some errands that needed to get done as it was the last business day. I was in for a rude surprise at the internet place when they told me that I had to give them 3 months notice before I switched off the service. Apparently it was in the contract but I never knew it seeing as how it was in a bunch of Slovak legal jargon language. I was able to resolve it later on in the afternoon after bringing in some negotiating help, but it could cost us a total of 104 euro if we lose the appeal we did :-\. We were able to get lunch in Presov with the 4 students that had gone on summer project.
Saturday was mainly spent relaxing/starting in on packing. In the afternoon I had to sort out all the financial stuff from the summer project. For whatever reason in Slovakia for non-profit organizations, when they have to do reimbursements, or deal with stuff like per-diem, they have to keep their receipts for EVERYTHING. What sucks is if you have a place where you buy something small like an ice cream or something, you have to like write down a makeshift receipt for it. All the numbers seemed to add up thankfully though. That night we all went up to this forest area just outside of the city to roast hotdogs and such.
After church on Sunday I was able to go to eat lunch at this family's house that I have been good friends with these past two years. They had been kind of my adopted family while I was in Kosice. Sunday night we were able to get together with all the Kosice staff as well as some students for dinner at a Slovak restaurant.
As I head back to the States I'm still not sure where I'm headed yet or what I'll be doing. That has been one of the harder parts of this year is trying to find direction from the Lord and figuring out what to do next. I would love to stay in Slovakia, but I can't see myself doing teaching which is one way that a lot of Americans(or others) find work there. I decided not to continue with Studentsky Hlas pre Krista because I can't see myself doing campus ministry long term and I don't feel like God is leading me to stay in that area. Right now my plan is to head back to Charleston and find some kind of temporary work and then in October take this foreign service officer test. If I pass it it could lead to work in an American embassy but I'm not sure where. They place you wherever they need you, but I'm hoping the fact that I know Slovak would have them want to place me back there. It's all in the Lord's hands, but if you get a chance please pray for me about it.
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| Sorry about the slackness of updates. I have had plenty of reason to but I have just been lazy lately. God is doing some amazing things here and I want to share with ya'll about them.
To see where this ministry has gone from when I first got here until now is just amazing. We have students who are involved and are stepping up to help out in so many ways with different events that we are doing and just showing a passion for seeing others reached with the gospel. We have an outreach coming up called "Porn Nation" which I wrote about in my last update letter.(If you are not on my email list and would like to be please send me an email at aaron.hassell@uscm.org) Porn Nation is an outreach which opens up discussion with students about the disastrous effects our hyper-sexed culture can have on us. Leahy tells his testimony about how pornography eventually cost him a 15 year marriage with two sons and a promising business partnership and brought him to the point of bankruptcy and suicide. Please pray that as we host this event that God would use this in the lives of students to open their eyes to the forgiveness of sins and the freedom that comes through a relationship with Christ.(this text may look weird, I copy/pasted it from a word document).
Leading up to this event we had a planning meeting in which we invited students to come and help out. We had about 7 students come four of which were guys. It was amazing and such an answer to prayer. The students really took ownership of the planning and came up with some great ideas which they are in the process of following up on right now. I was in Presov the other day and one of the guys Jakub had a giant list out of avenues for advertisement that he was looking into and I was just in awe of God's answered prayer for guys to step up in Presov and help out. We will be hosting this event two nights, one in Kosice and one in Presov on the 18th and 19th of this month. Please pray that many students would be able to come to them(there is a hockey game the same night :P)
Another answer to prayer(although not quite in the way I was expecting) was that we have started a bible study in Presov this semester for guys and girls. We had two guys come out the first night and we had some great discussion from one of the guys' questions. Please pray that God would just use me in the lives of guys this semester in Presov just to set up this ministry for success in the future in Presov. I long to see guys' lives changed for Christ in Presov.
I want to thank those of you who pray for and give financially to my ministry and helping to make the great things the Lord is doing in the lives of students on my campus and in my own life possible. Recently, however, my staff account has become very low. This makes it difficult for me to pay for ministry expenses and everyday expenses. If you are able to give additional support or increase your current rate of giving, it would be very helpful and greatly appreciated. I understand that you may not be in a position to give any additional support, but if this is the case, I ask you to help by praying for the situation. I have 4 more months here in my mission year and I really want to finish the year strong with my team. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
It is possible to give through the website http://give.ccci.org/give/0597385. If you would like to be one of my ministry partners and would like more information about my ministry and what I do here in Slovakia I would love to talk with you more. My email address is aaron.hassell@uscm.org
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| Sorry it has been so long since I have updated this thing. We've been in and out of town for the past few weeks with different conferences all around Slovakia. We had our winter conference in a town near Bolesov and then our staff conference in somewhere in western Slovakia at the Slovak postal service training center.
After months and months of trying, I finally was able to turn in my visa application to the foreign police. It came none too soon either as it was the last day that I could use my koloks(think money order) for the application. I had bought them back in September with the rest of the team was putting in their visa applications and up until now I hadn't been able to turn in my application because I didn't know what visa classification I was trying to get. Thankfully now its in and all I have to do is get a few more documents together and I'll be able to be here legally until December(dunno if that will happen or not though).
As the second half of the year has been rapidly approaching I've started to have to think about what to do next. As of this point I have no clue what direction I should take. I've been praying about it and no clear answers have come up yet but I have had a few thoughts so far. My options at this point are to go back to the states and find some random job which I think is my least likely option at this point. Another option would be to come here long term doing the same thing I'm doing now. Another option would be to try and find a job here, maybe at the embassy or something. I just know that I do like it here and I like the fact that I can travel fairly easily. But whether or not that would be fun without my team I dunno. Another factor in my mind is do I want to be away from my family for even longer. I just dont know...making life decisions is really hard. God gave me some gigantic neon arrows pointing me towards coming to Slovakia, and I'm hoping that He will give something comparable to that this time around although He may not. If you get a chance please be praying for me as I make these choices coming up.
Tomorrow we leave for our mid-year STINT conference and then we have a little time off for traveling before the next semester starts up!
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| This week we have been doing a candy cane outreach on a couple of the different campuses. Students are in exam mode right now and so they don't really have time to meet one on one and so we decided to do a big outreach and hand out candy canes to students as part of a package. Mikey and Cindy's church sent them like 1500 of them, so we put them in a Christmasy bag that had an article about the candy cane that shares the gospel in it as well as a Knowing God Personally tract. We were in Presov today as a team handing them out and as I was doing it, one guy came up to me and asked if I was with the group that did the www.everyslovakstudent.com website since the website was at the bottom of the article. I said we were...last year we posted a bunch of flyers around campus about the website to promote it and some have still managed to stay up on the boards. As I get to talking to the guy, his name is Jakob, I find out that he is a Christian!
Turns out he is a first year student who is studying to become a teacher. He is from a town slightly north of Presov called Bardejov but he commutes every Sunday morning to go to Kosice to the Apostolic Church there(its kind of like the denomination Assembly of God over here, not like the Apostolic Church in America) which is one of the 3 solid churches in Kosice. From talking with him he was really excited to find out about what we were doing there in Presov and what our goals as a ministry are and he is interested in helping me do a guys Bible study there in Presov next semester! This was a huge answer to prayer and I can't wait to work with him more next semester. He is thinking about coming to Winter Conference so please be praying that he might be able to go!
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