Parties, Reunions, And Sermons

Youth Revolution Halloween Party

Although Halloween was officially Tuesday, Youth Revolution celebrated this past Friday night.  Táňa and Matouš handled most of the planning and decorating for the evening, which was very helpful as I was very busy with several other things as you will see later.  We had quite a good turnout on Friday with several people bringing friends for the night.  Táňa planned a couple of games for the evening, both of which required complete darkness, so people entered the church to see the many large windows covered with black tarps.  People dressed in costumes and we voted on who had the best costume and who had the most creative costume.  Maybe you can pick your favorites below.  After the games we carved pumpkins to end the evening.  It was a great night and because we had several guests come, I was able to invite them to our youth weekend which will take place at the end of November.  Please pray that we would have a good turnout for the youth weekend, that Robert, Míla and I would prepare lessons that would point each of us to Christ and that the Lord would prepare the hearts of each person before they come so that their hearts would be softened for His word.

Kuba as a creepy clown and Táňa as a corpse bride

Adéla and Matouš

Verča as Rambo and Klára as a calculator

Eliška as the cat from Alice in Wonderland

Terka as a teabag and Klára as Eleven from Stranger Things

Nikča and her younger sister

Anička as Wednesday from the Addams Family 

Nikol and Kačka

Me as a geek

Fajny English Camp Reunion

After a Friday night of pumpkin carving and costumes, Saturday was just as busy.  On Saturday afternoon, Petr and I had planned to have a reunion for the people who were involved in the English camp this past summer.  Although Eliška and Kuba helped clean up after the Halloween Party, there were still things that needed to be cleaned before people came for the reunion party.  So, after spending the morning finishing up the slideshow for the reunion, I headed over to the church to finish cleaning up and then finished preparing the worship music with Mirek.  Dawson was very helpful in sending us videos of how to play the songs so that the music would be as close to the music of the camp as possible.  At 3:00 people came to the church to begin the festivities.  We had worship, a time of sharing, video greetings from some of the American team members, a slideshow, food and chance to talk with one another and a Skype session with Jim, Bridget, Annie and my mom.  Everyone really seemed to enjoy the time together and the memories, those who ordered camp t-shirts finally received their shirts and those who came became the first to hear when and where the camp would take place in 2018.  Here are a few pictures from the get-together.  Please pray the people who came to the English Camp this past summer, that they would not only look back on those memories fondly, but that they would consider those biblical stories and desire to know the God of the Bible in a closer way.

Sunday Sermon

Even though the weekend was full of parties, I spent most of my week studying and preparing for preaching this past Sunday afternoon.  Over the past few weeks as I'd been preparing for youth lessons and Bible studies, I had come across references to the story of Jonah, so I decided to preach on Jonah chapter 4.  Just as God was gracious and compassionate toward Jonah and the people of Ninevah, God was also gracious and compassionate toward me as I studied and wrote over the course of the week.  Because of the busy weekend, I knew that I would not have much time to work on the sermon once Friday came along, but God was gracious to me by allowing me to steadily move along as I prepared.  As anyone who has taught knows, it can be easy to get hung up on something while studying, but God allowed me to steadily move forward so that everything was finished for the sermon by Thursday evening.  Because of the different things going on in the lives of the members of the church, I was a little anxious about how a sermon, which spoke about anger might be received.  However, the Spirit was definitely present on Sunday afternoon and people seemed to be blessed the sermon.  We have such a gracious God.