Nate Hampton In Ostrava: The Latter Days of January

School Visits

Over the last two weeks I have had the opportunity to make four different visits to local high schools. Last week, I spent Tuesday and Thursday speaking to multiple classes at Obchodní akademie and Gymnázium Olgy Havlové. As always, I had a great time speaking to the different classes about different topics and allowing them to get more and more comfortable with me. Later on in the evening on Thursday I received a message from one of the students whose class I'd visited earlier in the day asking if he could join our Tuesday afternoon conversation time for teens. I'm hopeful that he will attend because he seems like a really nice guy and I also share an office with his mom when I visit Olgy Havlové. Klára also asked me if she and a classmate could join our teen conversation group as well. Please pray that these young people would not only attend but that young people would continue to join us on Tuesday afternoons and that they might consider joining us on Friday nights for Youth Revolution. The week before, I visited Gymnázium Olgy Havlové twice, once to speak to a class and once to assist with the judging of an English speaking competition. These English competitions seem to be a common thing here as I know Kuba, from our youth group, has been involved with them over the last few years at his school. I was very impressed by the ability of several of the students to speak on topics like health and the arts.

Biblical Teaching on Youth and God's Sovereign Choice

I did the teaching the last two weeks at Youth Revolution. Two Fridays ago, I spoke on the topic of youth. As a group we discussed the benefits of being young as well as the difficulties. The teens added their thoughts on the topic but none more than Táňa. She had some very insightful comments as we discussed the topic. The goal of the topic was get them to realize that they, as teens, still have the opportunity to be godly examples not only to their peers but to people who are older than they are by the way in which the honor the Lord with their lives. Another goal of the topic was to speak against the idea that young people should just demand respect. Sadly, it has become more and more common for young people to believe that they are just owed respect from others. You can see it in the way in which it has become more common for young people to act in a disrespectful manner toward their parents, teachers and other elder or authority figures. As Paul encourages Timothy in 1Timothy 4 not to let people look down on him because he is young, he directs him to live a godly life that is worthy of respect. Pray that these young people would take to heart these truths so that they would not only encourage their elders by their godly lives but they would seek to do so in order to bring glory to their Lord and Savior, Jesus. We have also been working on trying to grow the groups together as one. We spent about half of the time doing two different activities designed to have people from each group work together with someone from the other group to accomplish a goal. One of the activities required that we divide into pairs, one from each group. One person was blindfolded and the other had to direct them through an obstacle course. I was partnered with Kristýna and I think we did quite well. The other activity required that the whole group work together to move a marble across the church. Please continue to pray for unity within the group. It seems to be growing but it is a slow process.

This past Friday, I spoke to the group about God's sovereign choice to have mercy on undeserving people. We spoke about God's justice in punishing sin and how it works in hand in hand with his mercy. I tried to have the group imagine themselves standing before God, undeniably guilty before Him, but because Jesus took our sins onto himself when he died on the cross those who are in relationship with him will be declared not guilty. Please pray that those who are believers already would grow in their love and appreciation for the sacrifice that Jesus made on their behalf and that they would accept it in humility as we are completely undeserving of that mercy. Pray also for those who are currently not in relationship with Jesus. Pray that the Lord would have mercy on them as well and that they might see that this coming judgment is not a hypothetical thing but a reality. We again had an activity designed to build unity within the group. We drew straws to see who would be on the hot seat and Barča had the shortest straw. She came to visit us this past Friday and she spent about five minutes telling the group a bit about herself and then they had the opportunity to ask her questions. It seemed as though everyone enjoyed getting a chance to know a little more about Barča.

Both evenings ended with people hanging out much later than usual. We stayed and talked at the church for about two hours after the regular program and it was very enjoyable. People spoke about where they are with their walks with the Lord and about some other practical things of life. Please pray that people would continue to want to have these conversations and that the teens would begin to reach out to each other throughout the week or on the weekend as they try to find things to do. I would love to see them grow from being a group that meets together on Friday nights to a community that seeks to grow beyond the walls of the church.