Together Again
It has been a little more than three weeks since our youth group began meeting in-person once again. Before that time, we met for about 8 weeks using Zoom, which was a blessing to have, but we were very excited to be able to meet together in-person once again. The first week back, we held a fellowship night, at the home of Robert, in order to give the group a chance to reconnect with one another after more than two months of being physically apart. It was wonderful to see the group playing soccer together, chatting with one another, and teaming up to play a game of Trivial Pursuit.
Since that time we have continued to hold our regular youth meetings at the church. Because there are only few more weeks left of our time together I have been trying to address several issues that I have seen within the group that might prevent them from sustaining the group once I leave or being effective supports for one another in the future. Over the past two weeks I have spoken on the need to be vulnerable before God and others. Many of us struggle to be vulnerable with others, even within the church, fearing that others will judge us or do other things like spread gossip about us. Because of this we have increasingly become more isolated, struggling privately in fear and shame, even struggling to truly express our fears, frustrations and anxieties to our loving God. The difficulty with vulnerability within the Czech culture has deep roots in older generations who lived through decades of Communism and before that, the occupation by Nazi Germany. Because of these deep roots, even the youth, who have never experienced life under Communism, have still learned to protect themselves from injury by not being very vulnerable with others.
The first week was spent focusing on the fact that vulnerability is essential to having real meaningful relationships and that God created us in His image to be relational, but that sin immediately introduced shame and fear into our world. God in His mercy however did not leave humanity in increasing and eternal isolation, but became completely vulnerable Himself and gave His life on the cross in the person of His Son, Jesus, to restore the relationship between God and man and within humanity itself.
The following week, this past Friday, we finished the topic by considering the vulnerability of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he poured out his heart to his Heavenly Father as well as his closest friends and how we should practically live this out within the Christian community as well as with non-believers. We closed our time by considering some particular situations that some in the group had questions about and then breaking into small groups to share with and pray for each other. Afterwards, we had some fun with a scavenger hunt challenge.
Pray for these young people to grow in their practical understanding of what the gospel means for their relationships, that they would not be isolated by fear but emboldened to wisely share their needs and struggles with others and support one another as they seek to grow in love and holiness. Pray also for the Church in the Czech Republic as a whole to be emboldened by the love of God toward them to reach out in shocking love to the communities in which they are found.
Tough Questions
Over the last two weeks I have had to speak on difficult questions that have arisen in both personal and group conversations. During my time here and during my previous summers of service at the English camps, I've heard many people express either a desire to live in the United States, as if their lives would be great if only they were in the US or that they view Americans in general as being very kind, because of the environment that they have experienced at either our English camp or other Christian led English camps. Whenever I hear these things I try to dispel the illusion that the United States is perfect or some kind utopian society or that the environment of love and compassion that they have experienced during Christian led English camps is indicative of anything other than the work of Christ in the lives of the Christians who are helping to lead these camp. These past two weeks of worldwide televised protests in the United States have reached the Czech Republic and led to people asking me, "What is going on?"
These questions have been tough to answer as I speak on it in terms of a result of the ugliness, depth, spiritual blindness of sin. At the same time, I've tried to be personally vulnerable by expressing my own personal experiences and struggles of deeply ingrained anxiety and precaution, even in the most mundane and everyday interactions of society, the temptation to feel that nothing will change, but knowing deep down that God hates the evil and sin of racism and will ultimately abolish all evil, sin and death when Christ returns. As I write these words, I wonder if part of God's plan for me being here at this time is to speak on and struggle with this topic in a way that few others here might be able to. Pray that I would have wisdom in these conversations and use it as an opportunity to point people to Christ, rather than just an opportunity to vent my frustrations. Please also pray for the Czech Republic, which has its own struggles with fear and mistrust of some minorities in their own society. Pray that they would recognize the sin of their own hearts and their own need for the heart changing power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
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