An update from Alicia Cooke, our missionary in Slovakia.

Greetings from Slovakia! I am now halfway through my fifth year as the Evanjelické Lýceum and this is indeed a special year. As our students attend a bilingual school which stretches their studies into five years instead of four, this is the year that the graduating seniors are the very same students who sat in my classroom as naïve and optimistic freshman back when I was starting my job. It is great to have the opportunity to teach them again and see how much they have learned and grown. When they are able to reference something I taught them back in Social Studies four years ago, it is even better.

I am teaching African Literature for the third year now, and I love it still. There are amazing, exciting, and scary changes happening all over the continent now-in Tunisia, Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan, and Niger. All of this is now fodder for class discussion, and it continually amazes me how much Slovak youth are interested in learning about cultures outside their own. Since Slovakia became part of a democracy in 1989 and its own state in 1993, opportunities for cultural enrichment, interaction, and travel have steadily trickled in from around the world. The Lyceum was right in the middle of this, as it reopened in 1991 to continue its 400-year-old tradition after years of communist suppression with its first import of American teachers. Upon its reopening the school was newly deemed Slovak/English bilingual, signifying the optimism its founders had that their students would be among the first to integrate Slovakia into the wider world.

Denied opportunities to travel abroad during their own youth, Slovak teachers and parents now encourage their children to apply for study abroad scholarships and attend student exchange trips. Denied opportunities to practice Christianity openly without fear of being denied employment later in life, they can now encourage the growth of their children both academically and spiritually with no negative consequences. It's great to be a part of all this, to play a small role in the transformation of this first post-communist generation.

This weekend, our former pastor David Schick and his wife Carla are visiting us, and it's amazing to see how well the older students still remember them and how excited they are to see them again. And we teachers who remember them, of course, are happy to be reunited with old friends and mentors. It's clearly been an emotional trip for them, as Slovakia was a hard place for them to leave. I am finding that myself, as I prepare, slowly, to leave. There's something truly special about living in this country where people have gone out of their way to let the missionaries know that they are welcome, appreciated and needed.

And to pass that along, I am continually grateful for the love and support I receive from St. John's! Thank you for always passing along your prayers and thoughts for me, my colleagues, and my enormously talented students.

You can keep up with my school's activities (and practice your Slovak!) at www.evlyceum.sk. Our lovely and unique church can be followed at www.bratislavainternationalchurch.org. And me, I can be found at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if there is anything you ever want to know about life over here. You are welcome to write anytime!