The Holidays and After

The Holiday Build-up

Each year, as the Christmas holiday approaches, everyone's schedules seem to ramp up.  Students struggle to finish projects and study for tests and exams as well as prepare for Christmas concerts and plays before the Christmas break.  Parents hop from work to their children's concerts and plays as well as try to find time to do a bit of Christmas shopping and bake the Christmas sweets that their children desperately desire.  My schedule ramps up as well as I prepare youth lessons, organize Christmas parties and prepare the youth to help lead the congregation for one of the Advent services as well as prepare myself for visiting home to spend some time with family and friends during the holidays.  This year was no different as each day was full of either studying or running around to different activities or getting supplies in preparation for the youth Christmas party.

Regarding the preparation of the youth for leading the Advent service, all of the youth worked hard to make sure that they were prepared to help lead the service.  Eliška, Honza and Anička worked hard to learn how to play the two songs that were chosen by the youth and I.  One song was in Czech, while the other was the classic hymn, "Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus."  Eliška played piano for the Czech song, Anička played piano for the hymn and Honza played violin during both songs.  The other youth prepared by learning the words and practicing for several weeks during youth group leading up to the service.  Bára helped me organize the music, sang along with the youth and prepared to read scripture during the service.  Kuba agreed to be my translator during the sermon.  It was one of my longer sermons, so he had to prepare beforehand in order to make sure that he knew how he would best translate the message.  Klára was not able to attend the youth meetings for several weeks leading up to the service.  Because of this, we decided that instead of having her sing with the group she would be my translator for my greeting to the congregation and setting up the service.  Maggie helped with the service as well, by helping to lead the singing and by lighting the Advent candles during the service.  Robert also helped with the service by leading the prayer time during the service.  I also spent quite a bit of time preparing for the service, overseeing the youth as they prepared the music and reminding them that it was not a performance, but worship.  I spent time studying and preparing for the sermon.  And I spent time just organizing the structure of the service itself so that it would run as smoothly as possible.

Praise the Lord, the service went very well, thank you for your prayers.  The youth did a great job helping to lead worship, Kuba and Klára did a great job with their translations and the sermon came together well, pointing people to Christ and encouraging them to look forward in hope and expectation toward his second coming.  After the service, the Czech congregation got a chance to connect with some of their friends from Elverson, who Skyped in to send some Christmas greeting.  The Czechs shared some classic Czech Christmas songs and the group of Americans sang a Christmas hymn as well.

After leading the Advent service, my attentions turned toward preparing for the Youth Revolution Christmas Party and Movie Marathon.  As has been our tradition, the youth group has had a Christmas party during the final youth meeting before Christmas.  It is not only a chance to just have some fun and celebrate Christmas together, but also an opportunity to have people join us who don't usually attend.  We played a couple of games, which included having a white elephant gift exchange. We enjoyed some snacks.  We had our movie marathon, watching the BBC series of the Chronicles or Narnia.  And we once again enjoyed some tacos, a treat that the youth always ask me to make when we have our movie marathon.  Here are a few pictures of our gift wrapping game.  The final challenge for each team was to completely and nicely wrap a chair from the church sanctuary.

After the conclusion of the movie marathon, I grabbed my luggage and boarded a train to Prague to begin my travel home to Elverson to spend some time with my family and friends during the holidays.

Home for the holidays

This year I was once again blessed with the ability to spend the Christmas holiday at home with my family.  Although I did spend several Christmas holidays here in the Czech Republic with people whom I love, there is nothing like being with your actual family during the holidays.  This year, I was able to use the time to get some much needed rest and recover from almost two months straight of study, organization and activities.  It was great to spend some time with my family, visit some friends and even spend some time with our new neighbors.  It was also wonderful to be able to catch up with several people from BLCC and take part in a couple of worship services during the holidays.  This time at home was very restful and allowed me to recharge before returning to the Czech Republic a little more than a week ago.  I even had the opportunity to take a family picture on Christmas Eve.

Back at it

Upon returning to the Czech Republic, it was right back to work.  Last week I had all of my regular responsibilities including: the English conversation groups and continuing our study of Galatians with the youth.  It was great to be back and catch up with many of the youth, however there were several who were unable to attend the youth meeting because of illness or the need to study for university exams.  Please pray for me as I begin my final push, as this will be my final seven months of service here.  Please pray also for the leadership of CB Poruba and the congregation as we seek to setup a smooth transition as they prepare to move forward in service without me.