Greetings from Czech Republic

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Greetings from Tesin Cesky, Czech Republic! We had a concert in Cesik Tesin last night and will have another one tonight so I finally have a chance to sit down long enough to share with you what has been going on and even upload some pictures (the church has wireless!!). I uploaded some pictures to go along with my last blogs.

Team Well-being update
Right now there are only 7 of us traveling as a team. During the first concert in Slovakia Karoline started to have intense pain in her back and could barely walk. She is such a fighter though. Despite all the pain and tears between each song she still performed that concert then collapsed in pain afterwards. She was taken to the hospital but all they were able to do was give her pain killers and tell her to see a specialist. Since the next city we went to in Slovakia was close the Hungary Kaspars K (our team leader) decided it would be best to take both Karoline and Dora to Dora’s house so they could get proper medical attention. We have been in contact with the girls and they are both doing really well. Karoline has to stay inactive for a week and Dora should be able to dance after Easter break. We are headed to Budapest after this evening’s concert and will reunite with them. We will finally be a complete team again!!! Hopefully after Easter we will take the stage as a complete team (that hasn’t occurred since Lithuania).

Slovakia
We had 3 concerts in Slovakia.
Humenne - This is the last city I wrote from. Many of the youth from the school visits came to the concert which was very encouraging. I had a conversation with a woman who didn’t agree with using dance to evangelize. She thought it was of the world and that Jesus would not have done it.

Piestany - We spent the first two nights in this city in the church and slept with sleeping bags on the church benches (two facing each other). It was a little hard but I still managed to sleep well. I enjoyed jogging along the river with Kaspars B and Beat. We went to an orphanage to invite the youth to the concert. During our off time we went to Spa Island. It is literally an island with all sorts of spa treatments. It is really massive with just about any kind of treatment you can think of. It looked as if many older people in Europe travel to Piestany to take advantage of the spa. Talitha and I tried to squeeze in a massage but we were unable to because we had a prayer meeting to attend. We were able to taste the stinky healing water though (it seemed like the same kind of water Meghan and I tasted in Bathe, England). Of course I also had time to check out some cafes. We had the concert in a cinema again - which is always fun. The pastor of the church is a woman and her three daughters were very kind to us. I am now running the team shop since Karoline is in Hungary. A teacher from the local school came up and said many words of encouragement regarding the concert and our mission.

Bratislava - We were blessed to have some free time in Bratislava. It is a very beautiful city! Not only did we get to spend time there but we also got to enjoy wonderful sunny weather!!! We stayed in the flat of an English woman who is teaching in Bratislava. Her flat is a short walk from the castle and the Old Town. She was kind enough to go on a short walking tour around the Old Town. We first went to the castle for a view of the Danube River. From the castle it is possible to look one way and see Hungary and to look another way and see Austria (we were very tempted to hope on a train to Vienna - perhaps someday!). Then we headed to Old Town and had some amazing hot chocolate. It was thicker than our hot chocolate but not as thick as the one we had in Riga. The hot chocolate menu was quite extensive with all kinds of wonderful flavorings that could be added.

For the first time in a long while I was able to get a few hours by myself at a café overlooking a square where many people were strolling by. I started reading “The Four Loves” by CS Lewis. I had to leave the book because it was not mine but I liked the following quote from the book where Lewis is distinguishing between four types of love towards God and woman:

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for God; appreciative-love says, ‘We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.’ Need-love says of a woman ‘I cannot live without her’; gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection - if possible, wealth; appreciative-love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”

“love becomes a demon when it becomes a god’ - CS Lewis

As I was sitting I was thinking, “Why is it that we don’t control the one thing we do have the power to control (ourselves) yet put so much effort in trying to control those things which are outside our power to control (others, circumstances & situations)?”

The concert that evening was in a cinema and it was almost filled to capacity. There were many youth and I met an American from the Midwest who is working with Campus Crusade there in Bratislava. Afterwards we went to McDonalds to socialize with the youth group.

Czech Rep

Uh Brod:
We had a school visit with two classes. I am getting really good about sharing interesting facts about the US and Texas. I even got to share a little bit of my testimony. That night at the concert one of the guys from the school came. He was the last person I thought would come because he wasn’t praying attention when we were talking and was acting like he was too cool for what we had to say. He came to the concert by himself and even say on the first row. When Elisa preached at the end, he raised his hand to receive Jesus but didn’t want to come forward. She spoke with him afterwards and he said he never thought much about God but something struck him while we were speaking at his school and created a hunger to know more. She hooked him up with some people from the church.

I know the following may sound silly to some but since I am in the shop I don’t have much excitement but God still answers my prayers. Since it was the first city in Czech we didn’t have any change in the money box so I prayed that each person would pay with exact change or that I would have the money needed for change later in the evening. Each person did pay in exact change until the very last transaction when a woman paid with 1000 CZK and guess what, the money I had in the change box was exactly the amount I needed to give her as change for the transaction! Not as exacting as healing or salvation but I still appreciated it! Thank God for the big and small.

Hodonin, Czech

We had many school visits so we were split into pairs in order to make all the appointments. Our helper at one of the schools was a law student in Czech. The concert was at one of the schools in a very beautiful hall, much like the one in Estonia. Afterward, while running the shop, a woman in a wheelchair was sitting in front of me. I kept going back and forth in my head on whether I should ask to pray for her. I did pray by myself just without her knowledge. She had not gone forward for prayer but I don’t think it would’ve been possible because of the chairs and people. Before I made a decision she left. Please pray for me to be more bold! It was a very powerful night though. Forty people received salvation, which is more than the team has seen in Czech in the past.

Jihlava, Czech

We had a school visit early in the morning in a café across the street from the school. We did the school dance despite our lack of practice. We then each shared why or how we came to join Jesus Revolution. The contact person said my testimony really touched him - that’s cool. Then we spoke with groups of students individually. Some of the students heard Elisa wanted to see the zoo, so the whole group went to the zoo. That night many students came to the concert.

Prague
I really wish we had more time in Prague. It is a very beautiful city but it was a blur to me because I practically ran through the streets in the short 1.5 hour time that I had free. We saw the famous clock and the Charles Bridge and bought some postcards. The concert was in a cinema and about 80 people attended. At the shop a guy who bought a cd told me the concert really touched him. I said I was glad he like it and he said he didn’t just like it but left a really strong impression on him. He didn’t seem very joyful. He wouldn’t talk much about it but he had fallen away from his walk with God and couldn’t believe he allowed himself to do that. He is going back to church but he still seems very down. Please pray for him, with me, that God restores his joy and that he does not condemn himself but realizes God has forgiven him if he has asked Him to.

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