The Last Several Weeks

My Visit to Suchdol

The past several weeks have been a series of ups and downs, as life often is, but the Lord has been faithful throughout.  Over the last few months, I have not had many school visits.  Because of the fact that I told Olgy Havlové that I would not be available this year because of language school, we had to figure out a few things once the plans changed and language school was off the table.  I have told them over the years that I am happy to just come in as a volunteer to help them, but they have insisted on paying me something for my time.  Because of this and the last minute change of plans, they had to wait until the new calendar year to have me come in and sign a contract, so I hope that soon I will begin visiting that school once again on a regular basis.  In the meantime however, Lenka, the mother of Kuba from the youth group, asked if I could come and visit her school.  It is a bit out of town, but about two weeks ago, my schedule was open enough to take the time and visit them.  It was a bit tough, because the school day begins at 8:00 and the only train that would get me there in time left Ostrava at 6:45 in the morning.  To make matters worse, I generally have a tough time falling asleep at a reasonable hour and I knew that I would have to wake up around 4:30 in the morning.  The night before the visit was no exception and I wasn't able to fall asleep until about 1:30, leaving me only 3 hours of sleep.  The next morning, I awoke, groggy and unprepared to spend the day on my feet teaching, but the Lord strengthened me for the day and I was able to not only get through six straight hours of teaching, but I actually enjoyed it.  

Lenka works in a small elementary school in the town of Suchdol.  Because they are an elementary school and they are not in a major city, it is quite rare that they get the chance to have a native English speaker come to their school, so it was a special treat to have me there.  When I arrived there, I met with one of the English teachers at the school and found that she is the aunt of Dominika, a friend of Táňa, who has attended our English camp and youth group several times.  It was another reminder of how small the world truly is.  During the day, I met with three different classes, each for two lessons in a row.  Kuba's brother Tomáš was in one of the classes and helped to translate for some of his classmates, showing what a help our English camps are to students who attend.  I spent the lessons, talking with them a bit about the United States, the city of Philadelphia, the town of Elverson, the Amish, and my family.  They had the opportunity to ask me any questions that they could think of and I tried to engage them in conversation so that they could practice their English speaking.  Although none of the classes that I taught that day were actually Lenka's students, she had me come in and visit her class of youngsters during one of the breaks between lessons.  Her students are all about 8 years old and they were so sweet and enthusiastic.  I came in and Lenka explain to them that I am a believer like her and that I help with an English camp in the summer.  She also told them that I help with the worship at the camp so they asked me to sing one of the worship songs.  It was a bit tough to choose one on the spot and to be honest, I can't remember which one I chose, but I sang a verse or so and then had to head back to the other class to continue with my lessons.  Later on in the day, Lenka came and got me again because her students were going to be leaving school for the day and they wanted to take a picture with me and say goodbye.  I went back to their class and took a few pictures with them and then they all wanted to get my autograph, like I was some sort of rockstar.  It was really cute.  As I was leaving the class to head back down for more lessons with the older students, Lenka's class ran after me and gave me a big group hug.  It was a nice reminder of how sweet kids can be at that age.  I don't know if I will have the time to visit them again, but I am hopeful that it would be a memory that they would remember fondly for a long time and that maybe some of them would visit the English camp this summer with their families.  Here are a couple of pictures from the day, one with Lenka's students and another with one of the older classes that I visited.

Catching up with Youth Revolution

As I mentioned before, the past several weeks have been a series of ups and downs, not only for me but for others as well.  A big part of the difficulties have come from illnesses.  This school year has not been a good one for health.  Many people have been sick with flu-like symptoms, pneumonia and other things, and I have been no exception.  This is also the time of year when the university students are feeling the pressure of studying for exams.  Unlike in the US, university students here have some final exams before Christmas and some afterward, making the Christmas holidays not so much as a time to relax, but a time to stress over studying for exams or feel lazy and unproductive for actually enjoying the holidays.  Because of the combination of illnesses and studying for exams, the youth meetings have been lower in attendance over the last several weeks, but our time together has still been sweet.  Two of the weeks we spent finishing the final chapter of Galatians and the other we spent enjoying some time together bowling.  Three weeks ago, Robert led the teaching of Galatians 6:1-10 as we spoke about living a life of sacrificial love in Christian community.  After the lesson, we spent time in prayer and then enjoyed our gift from the English camp team and played a game of Dutch Blitz with the huge cards.  

The following week, several of us met to discuss which book of the Bible we would study next during our more in-depth weekly Bible study, we landed on Colossians.  Afterward we headed over to a local bowling alley to enjoy an evening of fellowship together.  This bowling alley is the best in town, but quite small, only having 6 lanes.  In order to secure enough lanes for our group, I had to stay up until midnight a couple of weeks earlier in order to reserve three lanes as soon as registration for that date was available on their website.  Because of the lateness of the hour or because I was in a hurry to signup before someone else did, I accidentally signed us up for 3 hours of bowling instead of two and we were all surprised when the we continued to be able to bowl after our planned two hours were over, but we made the best of it.  Although Kuba and Honza were unable to be there, we did have some people that we don't see very often.  Klára and Terka were able to make it along with Ondra.  We also had a bit of a surprise guest as Barča was able to join us for the evening as well as Míla and Radim.  It was great to spend the time together having fun and getting a chance to catch up a bit with some people that we don't see very often.  The big winner of the evening was Klára Navrátilová, who won four out of the six games that we played on our lane and had the top overall score of the night.  This is the second time that she has beaten me at bowling, I must be losing it.

Last week our group once again met for our regular youth meeting, but I was a bit worried about who would be able to attend, because I knew that Anička and Ondra would be away for a class skiing trip, Eliška would be away on a youth retreat with the other CB youth group in Ostrava, Kuba would be away for something and that day was a school holiday, so I figured that people might be away for a long weekend with their families or something, but the Lord provided and brought several visitors to our group for the evening.  Barča once again joined us, as she finally finished her university exams for the semester and had finally had a little free time.  A guy named Richard, who is part of a different youth group from another town, but who had visited our church during a regional youth meeting two years ago, contacted me out of the blue and asked if he could visit our group.  He has been attending a university in Poruba and has recently moved to the area, so I'm not sure if he is planning on attending regularly, but he really seemed to enjoy the time with our group as well as the study and was very open to participate in discussion and prayer.  The last guest of the evening is a classmate of Klára and Kuba.  She usually attends another youth group in her hometown, the same town as Barča, but not the same church.  Klára invited her to join us for the evening and she also seemed to really enjoy it.  Her name is Nasťa and she is originally from Ukraine.  We were all amazed how good her Czech language was after only living in the Czech Republic for three and half years.  She was really interested in joining us again and contacted me a day or so later, asking if she could invite a friend to come and take part in our Progressive Dinner, which will take place in a couple of weeks.  She also seemed very very interested in coming to the English camp this summer as well, so there is a chance that some of you might get a chance to meet her if you are part of the team this summer.  So, even though I thought that we might only have one or two people for the final few verses of our Galatians study, we ended up having a group that was almost its normal size.  We spoke about the critical importance of placing our full faith and hope in Christ for not only our salvation but also our righteous sanctification as well as our need to following the leading of the Holy Spirit rather than our sinful selfish desires each and every day.  We then spent time in prayer and then instead of playing games, we chose to just chat.  I meant to get more pictures of that evening, but was too engaged in conversation to remember.  Klára and Nasťa did however manage to take a selfie before Nasťa had to leave early to catch her train.  However, please keep this group in your prayers as we are in need of some more hosts for our Progressive Dinner in a few weeks.  Please pray that the Lord will provide not only enough homes to host, but that the event would bring visitors and youth that we don't see very often.  Pray also for them as they will have a week off of school for the winter school holiday in Ostrava.  We will not meet that week, so pray that they would still seek to grow closer to God through their own time in His word and in prayer.  Pray also for us as a group as we will begin a new study in several weeks after the holiday and the Progressive Dinner.  We will study the book of Ruth and then the book of Esther.  Pray that Robert and I would prepare and teach these things well, bringing out not only the consistency of God's word but also pointing the youth clearly to Christ through these Old Testament books.  Lastly, pray for the physical health of the group, as I along with others have battled with illness off and on for the last several months.  Thanks for continuing to stay invested in what God is doing here in Ostrava and for keeping us in your prayers.