Czech Republic Outreach Prayer Requests

In just over 3 weeks my outreach team and I will be embarking on our journey to the Czech Republic. This just blows my mind, the lecture phase has flown by so quickly!
We leave February 2nd... our first destination is Plzen (a city in the western part of Czech) and from there we'll be in Prague for the rest of the outreach... our debriefing will be in a small town in Germany that one of our leader's parents lives in. Apparently it is fairly close to Rothenburg, a town with a Christmas Gift Shop that is open year round and is well known for it's affinity to elf culture. (bahaha... okay, that last line is actually from the movie ELF, I have no idea it's affinity to elf culture :)) I've actually had the honor of knowing about this store because of a valued client at Vision Van Gogh... his name is David Young, a man who can play two flutes and once. It's pretty cool, even though it may sound a bit odd at first. :)

On to the prayer request points:

• Finances- I have my outreach fees taken care of, but the three leaders are still in need of their finances to come in. I'd love for you to join with me in prayer for my team, that the money would be released and brought in. I am taking this on because we are a team, and it's just as if I'm the one needing the money.

• Team Bonding/Unity- We haven't done a lot of "bonding" yet... having times to just hang out and have fun getting to know each other deeper. We're a group of all girls and one young married couple the couple and one girl our our leaders. I feel like we're sort of a mixed bag of artists and musicians. I'm pretty close to two of them... one musician and one artist... the others I know pretty well, but it could be better. SO... I feel I a rambling, so I will leave it at that... the song that keeps running through my head is "Bind us Together"...

• Passion for the people of Czech Republic- I feel like I'm behind in praying for the desire to have a passion for them... to really want to know the history, trials, etc. of their nation. I want to be informed about the place I'm going into... but facts and history have never been my strong point, so research often turns me off. I know it is important though... so yeah... passion for them... and for the Holy Spirit to speak into the places and things we should be praying about.

• Our "Production"- I don't know what to call it yet, but we've just started brainstorming and first beginnings of writing a production that includes music, art, drama... a kind of personal narrative that uses an individual's life story. At this point we're basing it around a girl in our group's testimony of trials and tribulations and ultimately finding God and redemption etc.

This last point is really a big one on my heart right now... I'm excited about it, but nervous because there are only a couple of really strong leading personalities on the team. We're such creative types, so at times it is hard to figure out if everyone is on the same track creatively and working in the same direction. I don't know how to describe it well. But, I just know that this could be very impacting if done right... and it really excites me because it's a tangible way I really know I'll be able to create on the outreach. Before now it was never really explained what we'd be doing with our art, besides maybe setting up and painting while the musicians play at a coffee shop or something, even then I didn't know if that would've been possible. So, we have that production/narrative thing and also we found out we'll be leading an Art Workshop for some artists while we're in Plzen. I know there will probably be other opportunities, so I guess just pray that other opportunities will arise as well.

Thank you all for all the prayers you've been lifting up on my behalf. I am so encouraged to know there are even many others who I don't even know who read this blog. To all of you I say hello and bless you!!