Back to Work

Back At It

After the holidays, it was great to get back to my regular schedule.  Although starting work back up after a longer break is always somewhat difficult I was excited because it meant that I would be able to see some of the teens from the youth group again.  We hadn't met as a group for two weeks and some I hadn't seen for almost a month so it was great to see them again this past Friday.  I also began a new series of the heroes of the Bible.  Most of the teens in the group have very little knowledge of the Bible especially the Old Testament so I thought that it might be interesting and helpful to them to take sometime looking at some of the big stories from the Old Testament and how those heroes and stories point to Christ.  I started on Friday with Noah, no not the terrible Hollywood version with rock monsters and weird things like that but the true story of Noah from the Bible.  Some of these Old Testament stories are somewhat difficult to talk about because it is always easier to talk about stories or passages that showcase God's love and mercy and a little more difficult when they include God's wrath and judgment but it is important for people to understand this truth as well especially for unbelievers.  Why would they need a Savior unless there is something that they need to be saved from.  We also had a pretty nice turnout for the first meeting after the holidays.

Some homemade American style chocolate chip cookies.  It is very very hard to find any chocolate chip cookies here in the Czech Republic and most of the sweets here are not as sweet as our cookies and cakes in the states.  It was my first attempt here but they came out alright and the kids got a chance to enjoy a special treat.

Jíři came to our group for the first time.  He is an interesting young man and a believer.  I hope that I get a chance to see him more often.

Talking with Barča and Eliška about different ways of serving within our group.

Catching Up

This past weekend I was blessing as I was able to spend sometime catching up with some people from home via Skype.  This doesn't happen very often so when I was able to speak with Jim Caley, my brother, my parents and Mark, Katie and Wyeth Estes it was great.  I haven't had the chance to catch up with the Mark and Katie for a while so it was really nice to talk to them but I have to say that the best part of it was talking with Wyeth.  He hasn't gotten a chance to see his Uncle Nate in a while so it was a lot of fun to see and talk to that little guy.  It seems like a little thing to talk with people on Skype but it is really nice to hear news from home that isn't from Facebook.

Chatting with Wyeth and how interesting that he was reading about Noah after I had spoken about him to the youth group two days earlier.

Youth Leadership Meeting

On Sunday evening after church I was able to get together with most of the youth leadership team and discuss where we see the group going moving forward.  I was able to get some of the teens to take some extra responsibility within the group and plan some interesting and fun activities over the next 6 months or so.  Pray for this group as they grow in responsibility that they would take it seriously and that our group would be one that they would invite their friends to.  Pray also for me as I continue to try to put lessons together that are both interesting and direct people to Christ.