Summer Milestones, Ukrainians and Ballet: Update 15 from Prague

Dear family and friends,

Summer is going fast! We want to thank the many people who gave financially in our giving challenge last month and for your prayers and encouraging messages. We have been finishing a semester, finishing a school year, having students to dinner, teaching a Czech leadership summer course, teaching a ballet and Bible camp to Ukrainian families, and seeing students graduate that Josh taught in their first semester at AAU.

We are heading into our 4th year here with good momentum.

The week of July 4th Anna had an amazing experience teaching ballet to Ukrainian children. Each day Anna taught two groups of girls with a translator and participated in Bible lessons, crafts, and other activities. There were 20 girls who attended, and we were reminded how much their lives have been disrupted just by their excitement for an activity just for them in their own language. While many kids have their summer camps and activities as usual, these Ukrainian refugee kids are unable to do those things they usually do in summer. We wanted to share with you a few testimonies from the camp:

• One mom said that her daughter would come home each day and tell her the Bible story and ask questions. She asked if we could have a Bible lesson for the moms and the kids in the future so she could also learn about Jesus. So, our camp team is planning on having ballet classes and then dinner and Bible study for parent and kids every Friday afternoon starting in the fall.

• Another mom said that every evening her little girl would call her dad and granddad in Ukraine and tell them all about what she had heard and done and would dance her choreography for them. This made Anna especially emotional to hear.

• One lady said that these kids have had nothing to smile about since the beginning of the war and that this was the first time she had seen her granddaughter smile so much.

• Another mom said she had been depressed up until this time and this week gave her so much hope and joy watching her daughter being loved so well.

One sweet thing that happened was that our Abigail joined the girls in the camp and even learned some Ukrainian songs.

We are very excited to participate in what the Lord is doing to support the Ukrainian community in Prague. We will lend our gifts and talents to a community hub for Ukrainians that is being started by an American couple, Greg and Debby Nichols (who spent 10+ years in Ukraine as missionaries). They attend St. Clement’s with us along with several Ukrainian women who helped organize the camp.

The past met the present for Josh as summer term began. We welcomed a group of 17 American students from Christopher Newport University (where Josh worked from 1999-2003) coming to attend a course on Czech leaders that Josh designed. The students were struck not only by the long sweep of history here, but the depth of struggle under the Nazi and communist regimes that the Czech people have endured. It is interesting how much issues of faith come up when studying courageous people who have led. One woman, Milada Horáková, who was executed after a communist show trial in 1950, had a deep faith in Christ and spent four years in Terezin, the Nazi concentration camp just north of Prague. Along with the students, Josh got to take Collier to see the camp where Horáková was held as a political prisoner, but also feel the suffering of the thousands of Jewish people who were with her there. Though not much reflection comes out of the mouth of a middle-schooler, Collier’s attention was rapt the whole tour.

The course went very well and is already planned again for next summer so Josh can continue to use his studies of Czech culture, history and leadership.

Josh also got to see 34 students whom he taught, some took multiple classes with him, graduate from AAU in late June. Oleksandr (Sasha), a Ukrainian student that Josh advised for his senior thesis, introduced Josh to his family after the ceremony. Josh was moved by much Sasha and his family had to endure this semester as he finished his studies with his and his family’s future so uncertain. Our family had Josh’s two thesis advisees, Sasha and Valeria (Ecuador), over for dinner to celebrate and Sasha treated us with some Ukrainian rootbeer and cake. Abigail drew some pictures of them and we gave them graduation gifts including Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak, which has helped many along their spiritual and vocational path. They will both be working in Prague in the near future so we can keep the relationship going.

Another transition point is that Abigail graduated from kindergarten (here, part of preschool) and will join the boys at the Christian International School of Prague (CISP) next school year. It was sad to leave her bilingual school where she has had such a rich connection to both teachers and classmates. One of the Czech mothers of Abigail’s school friends invited our family and another family to their country home and we spent a day getting to know them in beautiful surroundings. The boys will enter 7th, 5th and 4th grades this next school year and Anna will be teaching the 6th grade Bible class at CISP as well as ballet classes during the week.

Thanks again for your support and prayers for us as we enter our fourth year in the Czech Republic. We hope these updates encourage you as they do us and we look forward to catching up in person with as many of you as possible in the near future.

Peace and happy summer,

The Haydens

Caleb won Cub Scout of the Camp Award:)

Abigail was a mouse in Cinderella

New school parent friends!

Josh joined AAU colleagues in a 5k relay