Finishing Things Up

My Final Youth Meetings

Several days ago, we celebrated my final youth meeting here with an end of the school year celebration.  This is something that we have done the last several years, but of course this one had a bit more of a solemn tone.  We were hoping for a nice sunny day to enjoy some sports and games along with some grilling, but about an hour before the meeting began a series of thunderstorms rolled into the area.  Thankfully however, we were protected from the storm by a roof covered patio, so we were still able to grill and enjoy a lot of tasty food together.  We had a nice turnout with several people attending who haven't been with us in months including Terka, Barča, Míla, Radim and Richard.

During the evening, people spoke with one another, enjoyed some food together and some played a little bit of Trivial Pursuit.  It was a bitter sweet evening, because although we did enjoy the time together there was an overtone of sadness, knowing that it was our final meeting together.  I handed out some individualized letters that I have written for them to hold onto after I have gone.  Although I haven't yet finished all the letters I finished the letters of those who I was unsure that I would see again before I leave.  There wasn't much talk about the sad reality however, because we spoke about it the previous week during my final youth lesson.

The previous week, I taught my final youth lesson here.  The lesson was on John 17:6-26, Jesus' prayer for his disciples and for future believers.  I spoke about what this passage means for them and then I connected to my particular thoughts and prayers about and for them.  It was a very emotional week, thinking about the ways in which I have seen them grow and thinking about their individual and group needs in the future.  There were a few tears shed during the meeting, but we also knew that we would still have several more weeks together as well as the camp before I return home.  I'm sure that there will be more tears as the reality becomes more and more immediate.

Please pray for this group, as the future leadership and direction of it is still unclear.  Pray that they would be united with one another and support one another.  And pray that God would protect them from falling into the many temptations of this world.

Táňa's Wedding

The day after teaching my final youth lesson, I attended Táňa's wedding.  The wedding was planned for the end of March, but was postponed for three months as the quarantine was put in place several weeks before.  Although Táňa was disappointed by the delay, she came to cherish the extra time with her family and grew a lot in her relationship with God.  It was a real honor to be invited to the wedding celebration as the Czech wedding traditions are a bit different from the traditions in the States.  Here wedding gatherings are traditionally much smaller.  Instead of inviting every possible family member and nearly every friend and friend of the family, the wedding celebration here is generally reserved for only close family members and close friends.  Because of this fact, I felt incredibly honored to be invited to attend.

The law requires some government officials to take part in the wedding to make it legal, but Táňa also had one of her uncles give a short sermon.  The sermon gave the biblical view of marriage and presented the gospel very clearly.  This was wonderful, because many of the people in attendance, including Denis, Táňa's husband, are not believers.  Later Táňa's mom told me that a lot of people shared with her how unique and beautiful the service was and remarked how nice it was that they chose to wait to move in together until after they were married.  This is very rare, even for some professing Christians here.  It was wonderful to hear that people saw the sweetness of God's way.

There were many things that the wedding celebration included, which were new to me.  There were some things that I expected such as, food, drinks, dancing and a slideshow, but there were some others that I did not expect.  One thing that was new to me was that after the wedding ceremony, the couple takes pictures with the entire group that attended, as well as taking individual photos with each person or family that attended.  The celebration also included several games, most of them were for the newlyweds, but some were for the guests who wanted to participate.  And lastly, the wedding celebration lasted the entire day.  The wedding itself began at 12:30, but the celebration continued into the early hours of the mornings introducing more food, drinks or a new activity every hour.  I must admit, I was not prepared for that last part and was exhausted by the time I left at 10:30, which was before the celebration had concluded.

Please pray for Táňa and Denis as they begin their life together.  Pray that Táňa would not only hold onto and grow in her faith, but that she might lead Denis to saving belief as well.  Pray also for their friends and family who are not believers, but heard truth during the ceremony.  Pray that they would consider what they heard and desire to know more.

My Goodbye Party

Last Thursday, the church held a goodbye party for me.  Although I'm still here for a little more than a month longer, they decided to hold the goodbye party last week before the summer holidays began.  Many people leave for vacations during the summer, so they wanted to make sure that the vast majority of the people could attend.  The party was a wonderful blessing.  There were many friends, church members, youth groupers, people from English camps, and even colleagues from my work at local schools.  There was also a lot of food, decorations and even an unexpected interview.  It was a wonderful evening, but I must say that it was tough to try to move throughout the party and talk with this person and that, while often being interrupted by others who wanted to have a word or give me some small gift.  As you can imagine, I didn't have much time to be able to take pictures during the party, but I was able to take a few pictures yesterday of the remaining decorations.

Together Again Yet Struggling with Tough Questions

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.

Faithfulness In The Midst Of Quarantine

Seemingly A New World

Since the last time I updated my blog, a lot of things have changed here in the Czech Republic as well as back home in the United States.  In my previous post, I shared about the Progressive Dinner and Stelina coming to visit.  Since March 10th however, we have seen major changes to our everyday way of life.  Schools were closed, initially for two weeks, but closings, for the most part, have expanded through the end of the school year.  This left teachers, students and families scrambling to figure out how best continue educating students at all levels, while school buildings we closed.  Several days later, the restrictions were expanded, closing many shops, malls and restaurants as well as requiring many people to work from and for all people to self-quarantine and only go out for essential reasons and to get some occasional exercise, wearing homemade masks every time they ventured out.  

These restrictions also affected churches here in the Czech Republic, as they have in the United States and other places around the world.  Church leaders quickly needed to figure out how to continue to faithfully proclaim the name of Christ, teach God's word, maintain community and uplift one another while being obedient to the authorities that God has placed over us.  Here in Ostrava-Poruba we have sought to do this through virtual communication.  Weekly church meetings, Bible studies, and youth meetings have continued via Zoom.  This has allowed people to not only view, but take part in these meetings, interacting with each other, even if it can only be virtually, at the moment.  This has been a real challenge for special services, such as Good Friday and Easter Sunday services, which usually have an extra special feel to them as well as causing challenges for people who aren't so computer savvy or don't have access to an internet connection.  Not only are there technical difficulties, but as I'm sure many of you know, it can be difficult to remain as focused as usual when there are so many different things that can distract you as seek to study God's word or worship from the comfort of your living room couch, there are so many extra things which can distract us.  Please pray for those who are struggling to find ways to connect with the church and with others during this time.  Pray that the church would continue to reach out to the lost, who view victory over this virus as just a challenge of human perseverance rather than recognize their need for mercy from a loving Savior.

This has caused some difficulties with the youth meetings as well.  As I mentioned before, we have chosen to meet weekly through Zoom, which does allow for face to face interaction, albeit virtually, but it doesn't give the same feel as it would being in the same room with one another and it makes our time for fellowship and playing games a bit more of a challenge.  As you can imagine, most card and board games are immediately taken off the table when it's impossible to share the same deck of cards or board.  We have also found it difficult to connect with some people from the group as they have chosen to take the quarantine as a license to isolate themselves almost completely, either because of laziness or a predisposition toward isolation.  We have also had a bit of a challenge with people even holding onto what day it is, as many of the normal daily and weekly scheduled events or responsibilities are currently non-existent.  Please pray for those who are over isolating or turning completely inward, that they would not only recognize their own need for community, but also recognize their own importance to the community.  Pray that they would recognize that they are loved and recognize their need to show love to others.

Our youth meeting from a little more than a week ago.

While there have been difficulties, we are seeking to remain faithful to the work of God's kingdom.  We continue to consider how we can best teach, reach out to, serve, support and love others in a situation that is unique in our lifetime.  We also seek to move forward in wisdom and faith as the government here is considering easing restrictions in the next few weeks and months, which opens the possibility of returning to regular youth and church meetings and keeps the hope alive to host the summer English Camp.  Please pray for the English Camp, which has been a huge blessing in years past, under normal circumstances and could be a special and unique blessing in a year that has been difficult for so many.  Please pray for not only the logistics of organizing the camp in the midst of this strange time for the Czech church, but the American team as well.  But please pray also for faithful of spirit on the part of the American team as well as the Czech church in taking steps forward in faith when no one but the Lord knows what tomorrow will bring and for obedience to God's will in either going forward with the camp or accepting a cancelation of this summer's camp.

So Many Things in February

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.

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.