It's Been a Blur

School Visits, Thanksgiving and Youth Lessons

Sometimes it can be difficult to decide what to write on these blog updates.  I mean, how do you make the activities of daily life seem interesting?  How do you take school visits, youth activities and days of study and share those things in a way that others might want to read about?  This is always difficult to do, especially when my schedule is full as it is now.  

For more than a month, I've been going from one thing to another.  I have made several visits to schools, speaking with classes about American holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Students here are aware of these holidays and even some of the details about them, but as American holidays and festivals are one of the topics that students here must be prepared to speak about for examinations, it is helpful for them to learn as much as they can about them from someone like me. 

 Besides making these school visits I have also have also had to prepare to celebrate these holidays with people here.  Last time I wrote, I shared a bit about celebrating Halloween with the youth, but several weeks ago I once again celebrated Thanksgiving with people here in Ostrava.  Since my second year here, I have invited members from the church, youth group and conversation groups to join me at the church for a Thanksgiving celebration.  Since it isn't a holiday here, people don't have a any time off from work or school, so I have to prepare much of the meal on my own.  However, I did once again receive a lot of help from my neighbor and fellow church member, Daniela, who was willing to help me shop for some of the food and assisted with the cooking of one of the turkeys and some macaroni and cheese.  Thanks to her help and with the addition of desserts and drinks brought by guests, we once again had a successful Thanksgiving meal at the church.  Around 40 men, women and children came to share in the time together and although it was an exhausting few days of preparation and cooking, I was happy to see so many people enjoying the time together.  

The youth group has been very busy as well.  We have been continuing our Bible study through the book of Revelations with Eliška, Kuba and Míla.  We have spent time worshiping God for His glory described in John's description of the throne room of God and considered the coming righteous judgment of God.  In the regular youth lessons, Robert and I have been continuing to teach on the book of Romans.  Recently, we have talked about how the gospel frees us from slavery to sin and the law and the peace that we have in knowing that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  And several of us attended a meeting of the CB youth in the region one Saturday last month and while the youth were engaged in different seminars, youth leaders of the different churches met together to discuss how things have been going and our plans for the future.  

Although I was too busy to get pictures of the school visits and Thanksgiving celebration, I was able to get a few shots of some of our youth lessons and a picture from the regional youth meeting.  Here they are below.  

God of Wonders

The things described above are enough to fill my schedule over the course of the month, but in the midst of all of those things we were also planning a youth retreat.  About two months ago, we decided on where and when the youth retreat would take place, but we still needed to decide on a theme and prepare lessons and activities for the weekend.  During that time, the song "God of Wonders" was running through my mind and I thought about how often I neglect to recognize God's glory in creation as I go through my everyday life.  I thought that if I let these wonders pass me by, it was quite probable that this younger generation, which is more addicted to their phones and computer than I am, would be susceptible to falling into the same blindness.  So, Robert, Míla and I agreed on this theme and I broke the theme down into three lessons for the weekend: God of Power, God of Wisdom and God of Love.

For the retreat, we had a pretty decent turnout, with all of our regular attenders going along with Táňa, Barča, Martin and Petr.  Upon arriving we found that the cottage was a bit colder than we expected so we spent much of the weekend huddled together near the fireplace playing games and talking.  

On Friday evening, after eating dinner together we opened up the theme for the weekend by watching a couple of episodes from the BBC series, "Planet Earth."  Even though it was cold, everyone seemed to enjoy the beauty, power and creativity of God as we learned about plants and animals of the jungles and seasonal forests.  

Saturday morning we opened up our lessons with Robert's lesson on God's glory as displayed in His power in creation.  After lunch and some time to warm up around the fire we headed out into even colder temperatures to view the late autumn beauty of the surrounding area.  Upon returning we were all happy for the warmth of the fire and some time to just relax and play some games together.  In the evening, Míla led her lesson on God's glory as revealed through His wisdom in creation.  Knowing that Míla has a real love for biology, I was really excited to see what she had prepared.  And I wasn't disappointed.  Her love for God and biology really shone through to everyone else as she spoke about things like plants, different types of animals and snowflake designs.  After her lesson, Petr, cousin to Eliška and Táňa, shared his testimony of receiving Christ as his personal Lord and Savior and his recent baptism.  On Sunday morning, we spent some time in worship and then I tried to bring the previous two lessons together with the final topic of God's glory displayed through His amazing love in creation and His special love and care for humanity.  After the sermonette and some prayer and discussion, we quickly ate lunch and went into clean up mode.  After cleaning up around the cabin, we headed back to Ostrava, some in cars and some by public transportation.  I led the group going by public transportation and it was a really nice time talking with them about the weekend and having some laughs along the way.  Despite the cold, the retreat seemed to be a success and each person was thankful to have time to think about these things, praise God for who He is and what He has done and just enjoy some time together.  Please pray that each person who attended the retreat would have a new love and appreciation for God as they see His glory around them.  Pray that Petr's testimony, which caused others in the group to think about their personal relationship with God, would help encourage the youth of our group to grow in their relationship with God and be willing to not only come to youth group, but also seek to meet with God on a daily basis through His word and in prayer.