New Attenders
Since my last update, Youth Revolution has gained a couple of new regular attenders. Last time, I spoke about a young man, named Richard, who came to visit our group. At the time, I wasn't sure if he was just visiting our group for the evening or if he was looking for a group to attend regularly while he studies and lives in Ostrava. After about a month, it seems as though he has made Youth Revolution his regular youth group, attending every meeting over the last month or so. Another person who has begun to attend on a more regular basis is Maggie. Maggie has attended both Youth Revolution and the Sunday church services off and on during this school year. Previously, she had spent the past year living and studying in the States and before that was heavily involved in YoungLife, but since returning to the Czech Republic has looked to connect to a local church community and begin investing there. Both Richard and Maggie have been positive additions to the group as they have demonstrated a boldness to ask and answer questions during lessons, participate heavily during discussion weeks and pray aloud during our regular lessons. Please pray that their boldness would embolden some of our more timid members to feel more comfortable to actively participate. Please pray also that the group would continue to make them feel more and more welcome by reaching out to them in the love of Jesus Christ.
Progressive Dinner
Three weeks ago, we held our 6th Progressive Dinner here in Ostrava. The event continues to be one that everyone in the group looks forward to year after year. This event is one which gives families from the church the opportunity to show the love of Christ to these young people through care and hospitality and as such, we love to have as many families from the church participate in the event as possible. This allows the youth to meet a greater variety of people from the church and for those families to get to know the youth. This year however, we really struggled to find hosts for the event, managing only four different hosts. This made things a bit tricky, because this year, we had our largest number of youth participating, including several guests and a couple of first time attenders. Hosting eight guests for dinner in your home might be easy for some families in the States, but here it is quite tough, as many families live in apartments that are small for a family of four. Despite the tight fits, hosts made it work and the youth really enjoyed the food, the time with the families and the time with one another. The youth will look to repay the hospitality of their hosts by holding another Appreciation Dinner in the next couple of months. Last year, the youth had the idea for this Appreciation Dinner to say thank you to all of the families who had hosted them and served them during previous Progressive Dinners. Instead of the families preparing the meals, the youth prepare food for the families and host the event at the church. Last year, Táňa handled a lot of the organization for the Appreciation Dinner, but this year it will probably be tough for her to do that, because she is getting married in a few weeks and a lot of things will be changing for her. Please pray that other people from the group would take the initiative to organize this year's event to make it a success once again.
In years past, the Progressive Dinner ended back at the church with desserts and a little dance party, but this year we decided to change things up a bit and do something a little different. Instead of having a dance party, we decided to have an evening of karaoke. Most people took a turn singing a range of songs from beloved Disney songs, to well-known Czech songs, to slightly outdated pop songs. It was great to see different people going up and giving it their best shot and not worrying that they would be judged like it was American Idol. I believe that this stems from the environment of love that we had tried to build within this group. Please pray that this group would continue to grow in their love and care for one another so that it would continue to be a group in which not only the regular members feel loved, but that those who visit the group would experience that same love as well.
A Visitor From Out of Town
Several days after the Progressive Dinner, we welcomed a long-awaited visitor, Stelina, from Italy. Many of you have gotten the chance to meet Stelina when she visited BLCC two summers ago. But for those of you who don't know her, Stelina is a young woman who lives in Italy near Milan. She came to faith shortly after a short-term team from BLCC led a camp in her area a few years ago. She attends a church where Bob and Sue Kummer, two missionaries from BLCC, serve. And last summer, she was part of the team that served at the English camp, which is hosted by this church in Ostrava. During that camp, she built relationships with many of the young people from our youth group and arranged to visit us for about a week. This visit turned out to be a bit more complicated than we figured, because as many of you probably know, Milan is one of the areas of the world that has been hit hardest by the coronavirus. The night before picking her up at the airport, I received a message about screening passengers from Italy for the virus at the Prague airport, but our meeting occurred without a hitch. During her week with us, Stelina spent a lot of time with Klára and Anička, who had visited Stelina this past summer, along with Anička's brother, Martin, after Klára and I returned from the States. Stelina also met up with several people whom she had met during the English camp and attended our English conversation meeting, youth group and Sunday church service. Everyone enjoyed getting a chance to see Stelina again and show her around to some places she didn't get to see when she visited with the team last summer. But just as people are paranoid about the coronavirus in the States, some people in the Czech Republic are paranoid as well. Some of the coworkers of Hanka, Anička's mom, were not happy about Stelina staying with Anička's family or that the principle of Hanka's school allow Stelina to visit on the days. And Jana, who attends the English conversation, was asked to work from home for a couple of weeks, because she came in contact with Stelina. Jana was not at all upset by this, but it goes to show the level of worry that some people have because of the virus. It was even unclear if Stelina would be able to return home last week as rumors of canceled flights to Italy were traveling through the Internet. Thankfully Stelina was able to return home without a problem and her time here was a blessing to her and many others. Please pray that the relationships which Stelina has built with people here would continue to grow and that they would be a source of encouragement toward faithfulness in Christ, both for Stelina as well as for the young people here in Ostrava. Please pray also for the containment of the virus and the health of people in Italy, the Czech Republic and around the world. This virus could effect the short-term mission trips to Italy and the Czech Republic this summer, as well as a much less important trip to Rome I scheduled with some friends for the beginning of May.
No comments:
Post a Comment