Nate Hampton In Ostrava: Progressive Dinner 2018

Having Some Fun

Over the last several weeks, we have continued our lessons to connect the Old and New Testament together by considering God's plan of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. This past Friday we talked about Jesus as the perfect sacrifice and looked back at the sacrificial law of the Old Testament. Two weeks before that, I unexpected had to cover Robert's lesson and was in a real time crunch for putting the lesson together. But in God's providence, Radim had spoken to the little children about the story of Samson the Sunday before and I was reminded of the Samson series that Pastor Steve did several years ago. Since hearing those sermons, I have been drawn to listen to them again several times as they point to Christ so clearly. I listened to the whole series, one after the other, that Thursday morning and early afternoon and thought about how I could condense the whole story and application into the time that we have for the youth lesson. And don't worry Steve, I made sure to give you credit. Thankfully the Lord was very gracious to me in allowing me to put all my thoughts together quickly to have it prepared for the following evening. The lesson seemed to go very well and when I spoke with several of the youth about it afterwards, they told me that they had the learned a lot about the story that they didn't know before. These responses were from Eliška and Táňa, who have grown up in the church and are very familiar with the story. Please continue to pray that the Lord would take these lessons and make them more than just head-knowledge, but that the Holy Spirit would apply these truths to all of their hearts in a transforming way.

Nestled in between these two lesson we had a week of fun. For the fourth year in a row, we had a Progressive Dinner here in Ostrava, Czech Republic. We had 12 youth involved in the evening and four host homes, two for appetizers and two for the main meals. Two of the youth were first time attendees and seemed to enjoy the evening. Although, I was only able to see two of the groups in action, because I was one of the hosts, it was great to get a chance to catch up with some of the youth that I haven't gotten to speak with lately and watch as people who don't know each other well got to know each other a bit. After the main meals, all the groups returned to the church for some dessert, photos, dancing, games and conversation. All in all the event was a success once again despite how strange it is here to go to a stranger's home for a meal. Each year we seem to add at least one new person to the experience as families from the church have the opportunity to get to know some of these young people that they might have known for years a little better or to get to know some that they might be meeting for the very first time.

Some photos from the evening