Nate Hampton In Ostrava: Recovering From Brodfest

Last Week's Youth Weekend

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend Brodfest, which is a weekend when all the youth groups from across the Czech Republic connected with the Církev bratrská church are invited for a weekend of lessons, seminars, concerts and worship. A group of five teens from our group along with myself travelled across the country last Thursday to attend the gathering for four days. I must admit that the sleeping conditions were not as comfortable as I would have liked them to be. Two schools in the town allowed the conference to use their classrooms for seminars and for sleeping so I spent three nights sleeping on a classroom floor with about 20 other guys. In total there were about 800 youth between the ages of 14-25 who attended Brodfest. For me, it was a bit of an adventure because I spent the entire weekend trying to understand group lessons and discussions on evangelism and Islam and other topics in Czech. I didn't want to burden any of the teens with the responsibility to translate for me so that they could focus on growing themselves. By the end of the weekend I was exhausted not only from trying to focus closely on every single word that was spoken but also from not sleeping well each night. I was happy to be able to spend the weekend with the members of our group that were able to attend and was encouraged that both Eliška and Barča found the weekend really encouraging especially when it came to the worship. There is a big difference between worshipping with 10 other people on a regular Friday night and worshiping with 800 other people. They both also had some questions answered over the course of the weekend which helped them get greater clarity when it comes to their faith. I also ran into a few other Americans that I have met previously that have been working in the Czech Republic longer than I have. I got to pick the brain of one of the guys and ask him how he has gone about learning the language. I left the weekend encouraged to see some further growth in Eliška and Barča, challenged to improve my language skills, and really tired. Brodfest occurs every other year. Pray for the continued growth of this ministry and for those that lead it. Pray in general for the young believers in this country, they are up against a culture that sees them as somewhat strange or worse. And pray that it would continue to grow in the future.

The school where I slept and attended several seminars. (This is a very typical Czech grammar school)

The seminar on practical evangelism tools. Great to see a group of 50 young people learning about how they can better share their faiths.

Floorball competition

Some of the beautiful scenery

Talking About Doubt

During the Brodfest weekend I spoke with some of the youth from our group and they expressed some struggles with the very common problem of doubt. Some doubts over the truth of the Bible in its entirety and even the occasional doubts about whether they are truly saved. We had a good talk and some prayer the weekend before but I thought that I should talk about it to the whole group. So on Friday night I spoke about the topic of doubt addressing it in terms of a believer struggling with doubt and a non-believer struggling with doubts about Jesus and Christianity in general. I have to admit that sometimes I leave a little frustrated when I have certain people in mind when I am putting the lesson together and then they aren't there. I know that the Lord has a perfect plan and perfect timing but it is a bit discouraging. Despite the group being small this week we had a great time. The worship time was some of the best that we have had in a while and I also opened up the floor for the teens to ask questions that they have had about the Bible and tried my best to answer them if I could. It was also nice because Matouš was also able to make it for some of the time as he has been busy with dance classes over the first two months of the school year. Pray that the Lord would open up opportunities to talk with some of the teens that weren't able to make it on Friday night about doubts which might help them take one step closer to putting their faith in the Lord. Pray for our youth band. I spent a few minutes this afternoon encouraging them as lead worshippers and giving them a few tips to help to promote worship within the group. Pray also for our group as we have been asked by the Elders here to handle the entire service for the first week of Advent. I would love to have as many of the teens from the group as possible help out with it so that we might have some teens and their families that don't regularly attend on Sundays take part in the life of the church.