In just a few minutes I'll be leaving for IHOP Night Watch. We will be in prayer for the youth of Prague and during the whole night all different bands will be performing and doing worship. During this time I'll be painting... it's actually ALL night, so it will be a long night but I am looking forward to it.
I will report more on this later, as for now I just wanted to leave you with a story.
Lately I've been feeling really low, for lack of a better description. I don't really know how to put it, but here in Prague we just haven't had as many events that we've been able to connect with locals. I have a hard time just walking up to someone and starting a conversation, let alone having a language barrier. All this to say.... I was talking to a friend from home yesterday night about all of this and during it, my teamate/friend Tammy asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I automatically said yes, without hesitation. It was about 10:00pm, and it was exactly what I needed. Sometimes in life you just need someone to listen to you, someone right there in person. We didn't have any grand answers for each other's situations, but to just talk about it without any expectations from the other was so refreshing. I really want to take in those moments, and remember that just because I wasn't ministering to someone from Czech, doesn't mean I'm not doing something.
God was with us last night, and I will treasure it for some time.
I can't say that I'm feeling 100% better... but I know God is doing something in me... and I'm not giving up.
2.29.2008
2.25.2008
Prague
As I said in the previous blog post, Monday was our day of travel to Prague.... and now I believe my laundry is soon to be done.... here are some thoughts of the beginning of our week in Prague...
We've been here for about a week so far and have had some challenging times going through some conflict within the team, etc. It's never easy learning the hard way, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
Actually, the dryer needed two dry cycles to be really dry. It's kind of expensive too, 60 crowns for each washing and drying, but I suppose it makes up for not having to pay for laundry the two weeks in Plzen and not really doing it anyways for the last week and a half. I didn't wash much in Plzen either, because the washer was about 1/4 the size of a normal US washer and there was little room to hang stuff and 7 other people who had to do small loads every now and then in between. So, yes, this outreach has definitely been an adventure!
This past tuesday was a pretty crazy day. We are teaming up with two different churches here. One is called New Beginnings Christian, and the same people run a Highschool outreach program that runs during the lunch times of the students. They are welcome to come down to this cafe type place and have pizza's, coffee, tea, etc. They've got ping pong and music videos going on during the time as well. It's a pretty cool place, but I guess they just run it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was talking to one boy who told me he wishes it was everyday. I haven't had a chance to ask the main guy who runs it, why they can't do it all week. I played ping pong with all the guys, it's that kind where you play all around the table.. I forget what you call it. That way, everyone can play and I actually like it better I think! :)
After the High school thing, we all went back and had lunch at our place. Which I must mention is a tight squeeze. The shower is actually in the "kitchen." We're actually really living in an office of the other church we're partnering with, Prague Christian Fellowship. There are two rooms we squeeze everyone in, the beds are all tight together with no space in between.
During lunch, we had a "family meeting"... and that's how it turned out... like the "typical" one would go... it was not good. We learned lessons about how to approach conflict... that's really all I'm going to say because, well, there's no reason to re-tell it. We came together again for a meeting with all the leaders the next day and things went much better.
Tuesday night we sat in with a youth group and shared some testimonies and heard some testimonies from the youth that attended. It was a small group and they ranged from 16 to about 22. During the time that we were praying at the end, we were pick pocketed! I guess the doors to outside weren't locked and someone came up outside our room and looked through the hanging jackets. They took the equivalent of about 40 US dollars from Laura's wallet and two other pairs of shoes of a couple of the guys of the youth group. (sorry, that was a jumbled mouthful!) Atleast it wasn't any identification documents or anything worse. How odd though, I actually think they took chapstick our of my coat pocket! How stupid, chapstick... I mean, it is good stuff... Chapstick brand and strawberry, my favoriite. But, come on.... how lame. I'm so glad I had the sense to keep my purse with me in the room!! That turned out to be a late night, we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so at like 9pm we went to a Chinese restaraunt for dinner. I had lemon chicken, and regretted it... not quite what I was thinking. Owell.... it was food and mostly edible...(had to be careful of bones).
Wednesday we went to Noah and Andy's place and had our meeting... it was good. We all got on the same page with things... Noah and Andy explained some changes with their leadership, which explained a lot of the confusion and frustration we were having.
The rest of the day we got to look around town for a bit and relax before going to the same youth group place from the night before. This time, it was younger kids, more about junior high ages. It was a lot harder with them, because they have only learned english for about 2 or 3 years... and probably the same kind of understanding that I'd have with french after only studying after two years or something. I still enjoyed observing and trying to communicate... I told them that I used to help out with youth at home and that no matter where you go, youth still all act the same way (you know, like body language, giggles, etc.). I so had wished I could have a good conversation with them, but even the interpreters were a bit hard to communicate with at times.
So... I still have more days to report about... and this is a long blog...
Thursday we had the highschool group again. The people who run it are Jerry and Carol and Jerry's sister and her husband. I forget their names... oops... they both have daughters, so during the outreach time I volunteered to watch them so they didn't get in the way of the kids playing ping pong. They were fun... gets me excited to see my nieces and nephew... I miss them so much. The girls' names were Sophie and Grace, Sophie is a few months older than Grace and talks a bunch. Grace was a bit quieter, but liked to randomly scream out at the top of her lungs.
After it was finished, the musicians practiced and we made and ate lunch at the center. We had some "chill" time and then Julia, Mary Kate, and I went to an IHOP evening of prayer. If you haven't heard of IHOP it stands for International House of Prayer... not Pancakes! :)
We've been here for about a week so far and have had some challenging times going through some conflict within the team, etc. It's never easy learning the hard way, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
Actually, the dryer needed two dry cycles to be really dry. It's kind of expensive too, 60 crowns for each washing and drying, but I suppose it makes up for not having to pay for laundry the two weeks in Plzen and not really doing it anyways for the last week and a half. I didn't wash much in Plzen either, because the washer was about 1/4 the size of a normal US washer and there was little room to hang stuff and 7 other people who had to do small loads every now and then in between. So, yes, this outreach has definitely been an adventure!
This past tuesday was a pretty crazy day. We are teaming up with two different churches here. One is called New Beginnings Christian, and the same people run a Highschool outreach program that runs during the lunch times of the students. They are welcome to come down to this cafe type place and have pizza's, coffee, tea, etc. They've got ping pong and music videos going on during the time as well. It's a pretty cool place, but I guess they just run it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was talking to one boy who told me he wishes it was everyday. I haven't had a chance to ask the main guy who runs it, why they can't do it all week. I played ping pong with all the guys, it's that kind where you play all around the table.. I forget what you call it. That way, everyone can play and I actually like it better I think! :)
After the High school thing, we all went back and had lunch at our place. Which I must mention is a tight squeeze. The shower is actually in the "kitchen." We're actually really living in an office of the other church we're partnering with, Prague Christian Fellowship. There are two rooms we squeeze everyone in, the beds are all tight together with no space in between.
During lunch, we had a "family meeting"... and that's how it turned out... like the "typical" one would go... it was not good. We learned lessons about how to approach conflict... that's really all I'm going to say because, well, there's no reason to re-tell it. We came together again for a meeting with all the leaders the next day and things went much better.
Tuesday night we sat in with a youth group and shared some testimonies and heard some testimonies from the youth that attended. It was a small group and they ranged from 16 to about 22. During the time that we were praying at the end, we were pick pocketed! I guess the doors to outside weren't locked and someone came up outside our room and looked through the hanging jackets. They took the equivalent of about 40 US dollars from Laura's wallet and two other pairs of shoes of a couple of the guys of the youth group. (sorry, that was a jumbled mouthful!) Atleast it wasn't any identification documents or anything worse. How odd though, I actually think they took chapstick our of my coat pocket! How stupid, chapstick... I mean, it is good stuff... Chapstick brand and strawberry, my favoriite. But, come on.... how lame. I'm so glad I had the sense to keep my purse with me in the room!! That turned out to be a late night, we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so at like 9pm we went to a Chinese restaraunt for dinner. I had lemon chicken, and regretted it... not quite what I was thinking. Owell.... it was food and mostly edible...(had to be careful of bones).
Wednesday we went to Noah and Andy's place and had our meeting... it was good. We all got on the same page with things... Noah and Andy explained some changes with their leadership, which explained a lot of the confusion and frustration we were having.
The rest of the day we got to look around town for a bit and relax before going to the same youth group place from the night before. This time, it was younger kids, more about junior high ages. It was a lot harder with them, because they have only learned english for about 2 or 3 years... and probably the same kind of understanding that I'd have with french after only studying after two years or something. I still enjoyed observing and trying to communicate... I told them that I used to help out with youth at home and that no matter where you go, youth still all act the same way (you know, like body language, giggles, etc.). I so had wished I could have a good conversation with them, but even the interpreters were a bit hard to communicate with at times.
So... I still have more days to report about... and this is a long blog...
Thursday we had the highschool group again. The people who run it are Jerry and Carol and Jerry's sister and her husband. I forget their names... oops... they both have daughters, so during the outreach time I volunteered to watch them so they didn't get in the way of the kids playing ping pong. They were fun... gets me excited to see my nieces and nephew... I miss them so much. The girls' names were Sophie and Grace, Sophie is a few months older than Grace and talks a bunch. Grace was a bit quieter, but liked to randomly scream out at the top of her lungs.
After it was finished, the musicians practiced and we made and ate lunch at the center. We had some "chill" time and then Julia, Mary Kate, and I went to an IHOP evening of prayer. If you haven't heard of IHOP it stands for International House of Prayer... not Pancakes! :)
The rest of Plzen... updates
(get comfy, cuz this is a long one!)
Today is Monday, I am currently sitting at a Laundromat in Prague about 5/6 metro stops down from the one by our residence. Prague is definitely a DIFFERENT place than Plzen, not better or worse... for the most part. It is a bit more sketchy around here, you really have to keep watch over yourself for pickpockets, etc.
Quickly I'll re-cap what we finished the week up with in Plzen... I shared about Valentine's night the last time I wrote. ACtually, I forgot to write about the day before... it was wednesday and the artists had the task of finding ways to decorate a "marriage" booth for a Valentine's market in the square. A couple from the YWAM team are involved with an organization that is all about marriage. I don't know how to describe it, but at the last minute they were able to get a booth at this V-day market in the square and they asked us to decorate it. For me, this task was super frustrating because we didn't have a good idea of how things were going to look, etc. Not to mention, we only had a day to plan it, with little resources available. We ended up getting some fabric to match the colors of the logo for the organization. Once we finished with that we went back to the villa and had lunch, and the rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning and practicing, as the musicians had a concert for a cafe night at the Villa. The artists prepped canvases for that night and finished some decorations for the Valentines night as well.
The cafe night went well, although I had a headache the whole time, I painted one of my best paintings. I actually struggled with it the whole time, not knowing what it really "should" be, etc. I've always had a hard time painting while the musicians perform, I think because it also feels like a performance for me as well. But, I fought the urge to just give up on the concept... and at the end as I was just letting myself do my thing, the song title of one of Matt Patrick's songs came into my head. It's not on any of his recordings, but on his myspace page, it's called The Mess Inside of Me. I added words to this phrase and wrote it on the painting. Here's the painting:
Friday was a pretty good day, although the market was still on and the same people wanted the artists to do portrait drawing at their booth. In the cold. Let's just say, only two people had portraits drawn, and one of them was me! Because I don't do portraits on the spot, and we needed to attract the people, so I was the example :). Andy and Laura are fabulous portrait drawers! That evening we went to a Plzen Jr. Hockey League game for something fun to do... it was, except it was very cold and we left the game early in three shifts. Actually, the last group to leave stayed until the end, but I left after the 2nd period.
Saturday was a long day. We had a creative arts workshop to run at 2pm, but had to clean the villa again and then get the rooms ready. There was one room that Laura taught, it was how to draw a portrait with the correct proportions, etc. I was running a session with Andy that we called "creative expression" where you didn't necessarily have to have any talent. The first part of it we had them get a partner and draw them as a "tree." Sounds strange, but it was cool because for instance, I drew Andy and the tree that came to mind was a birch. They are tall, skinny and strong... I drew fall leaves that were changing because I know there are changes and have been changes in her life lately. Stuff like that, others drew trees with big roots if they knew that person was really grounded or had deep connections with people, etc.
The second part of ours involved the musicians... they played three different kinds of music and the "artists" were supposed to paint according to what the sounds made them feel like painting. I really liked this time, it brought me back to times when I'd just paint with my niece and nephew and not really think about anything I was painting, it would just come out.
After the creative workshop we went to our housing and had dinner with a group of catholic young people who were at a leadership training weekend. They asked us about missions, etc. It was a pretty good night, but I was disapointed that we couldn't drink the Pilsner Urquell they offered us (it's Plzen's beer, the brewery is right in the city) because of the no drinking rule of the YWAM Brisbane base. I'm not much of a beer drinker in the first place, but at the same time it was something from their culture etc. that would have been cool to experience. Owell....
Sunday we woke up stinking early and met Kaja (the pastor we teamed with the whole time) at the cathedral in the square at 7am! He goes to the top every sunday morning to pray for the city, which was pretty cool... both the view and his prayer time. It was also STINKIN' cold!! I think the coldest I've been this winter season!! My toes took forever to de-thaw. Immediately following that, we went to a church service at a Methodist church. We did a couple testimonies and I painted... being that I was cold and tired, my inspiration was really lacking and I really have no idea what I was painting the whole time.
That afternoon we went back to the villa and ate lunch and killed time before the second service we were going to run. This one was at a Gypsy Church... it was really freeing and I really enjoyed it. We had a few people share testimonies, two people painted (not me), and then musicians did the worship. During the worship time I set out paper for the congregation to come up and express worship through words or pictures. The mistake I made was letting the kids come up first. I have nothing against kids, but it didn't quite work well because none of the adults really participated and the kids were really loud so it was hard to completely enter into the time. I didn't let it phase me though, because maybe the distraction of the kids was okay...
Later that night we had a fun night with the YWAM team as it was our last night with them. We talked about what we had experienced the last two weeks and what we'll take away... or different impressions or thoughts. I really enjoyed the YWAMers in Plzen, their approach to missions etc, really resonated with me.
Today is Monday, I am currently sitting at a Laundromat in Prague about 5/6 metro stops down from the one by our residence. Prague is definitely a DIFFERENT place than Plzen, not better or worse... for the most part. It is a bit more sketchy around here, you really have to keep watch over yourself for pickpockets, etc.
Quickly I'll re-cap what we finished the week up with in Plzen... I shared about Valentine's night the last time I wrote. ACtually, I forgot to write about the day before... it was wednesday and the artists had the task of finding ways to decorate a "marriage" booth for a Valentine's market in the square. A couple from the YWAM team are involved with an organization that is all about marriage. I don't know how to describe it, but at the last minute they were able to get a booth at this V-day market in the square and they asked us to decorate it. For me, this task was super frustrating because we didn't have a good idea of how things were going to look, etc. Not to mention, we only had a day to plan it, with little resources available. We ended up getting some fabric to match the colors of the logo for the organization. Once we finished with that we went back to the villa and had lunch, and the rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning and practicing, as the musicians had a concert for a cafe night at the Villa. The artists prepped canvases for that night and finished some decorations for the Valentines night as well.
The cafe night went well, although I had a headache the whole time, I painted one of my best paintings. I actually struggled with it the whole time, not knowing what it really "should" be, etc. I've always had a hard time painting while the musicians perform, I think because it also feels like a performance for me as well. But, I fought the urge to just give up on the concept... and at the end as I was just letting myself do my thing, the song title of one of Matt Patrick's songs came into my head. It's not on any of his recordings, but on his myspace page, it's called The Mess Inside of Me. I added words to this phrase and wrote it on the painting. Here's the painting:
Friday was a pretty good day, although the market was still on and the same people wanted the artists to do portrait drawing at their booth. In the cold. Let's just say, only two people had portraits drawn, and one of them was me! Because I don't do portraits on the spot, and we needed to attract the people, so I was the example :). Andy and Laura are fabulous portrait drawers! That evening we went to a Plzen Jr. Hockey League game for something fun to do... it was, except it was very cold and we left the game early in three shifts. Actually, the last group to leave stayed until the end, but I left after the 2nd period.
Saturday was a long day. We had a creative arts workshop to run at 2pm, but had to clean the villa again and then get the rooms ready. There was one room that Laura taught, it was how to draw a portrait with the correct proportions, etc. I was running a session with Andy that we called "creative expression" where you didn't necessarily have to have any talent. The first part of it we had them get a partner and draw them as a "tree." Sounds strange, but it was cool because for instance, I drew Andy and the tree that came to mind was a birch. They are tall, skinny and strong... I drew fall leaves that were changing because I know there are changes and have been changes in her life lately. Stuff like that, others drew trees with big roots if they knew that person was really grounded or had deep connections with people, etc.
The second part of ours involved the musicians... they played three different kinds of music and the "artists" were supposed to paint according to what the sounds made them feel like painting. I really liked this time, it brought me back to times when I'd just paint with my niece and nephew and not really think about anything I was painting, it would just come out.
After the creative workshop we went to our housing and had dinner with a group of catholic young people who were at a leadership training weekend. They asked us about missions, etc. It was a pretty good night, but I was disapointed that we couldn't drink the Pilsner Urquell they offered us (it's Plzen's beer, the brewery is right in the city) because of the no drinking rule of the YWAM Brisbane base. I'm not much of a beer drinker in the first place, but at the same time it was something from their culture etc. that would have been cool to experience. Owell....
Sunday we woke up stinking early and met Kaja (the pastor we teamed with the whole time) at the cathedral in the square at 7am! He goes to the top every sunday morning to pray for the city, which was pretty cool... both the view and his prayer time. It was also STINKIN' cold!! I think the coldest I've been this winter season!! My toes took forever to de-thaw. Immediately following that, we went to a church service at a Methodist church. We did a couple testimonies and I painted... being that I was cold and tired, my inspiration was really lacking and I really have no idea what I was painting the whole time.
That afternoon we went back to the villa and ate lunch and killed time before the second service we were going to run. This one was at a Gypsy Church... it was really freeing and I really enjoyed it. We had a few people share testimonies, two people painted (not me), and then musicians did the worship. During the worship time I set out paper for the congregation to come up and express worship through words or pictures. The mistake I made was letting the kids come up first. I have nothing against kids, but it didn't quite work well because none of the adults really participated and the kids were really loud so it was hard to completely enter into the time. I didn't let it phase me though, because maybe the distraction of the kids was okay...
Later that night we had a fun night with the YWAM team as it was our last night with them. We talked about what we had experienced the last two weeks and what we'll take away... or different impressions or thoughts. I really enjoyed the YWAMers in Plzen, their approach to missions etc, really resonated with me.
2.22.2008
Czech Republic captured on camera...
This is the YWAM Plzen Villa
Before having a jacket... waiting at a Tram stop
The YWAMers had bunnies... salt and pepper :)
This is the spot where I painted my first painting in Plzen... during a concert teaming with the KS church
In Progress...
(honestly, i think I like this shot better than the final product :))
Sorry, I will upload the final later, I didn't get it in this bunch of photosThis is a photo outside a church on a hill... it's near the Teen Challenge center we went to a couple weeks ago. (I'm so behind in my updates... sorry)
This is me... duh... my new hat that i really like :).
Streets in Plzen.
We're now in Prague and had a long week... we had some "family" conflict arise, but worked it through and I believe are stronger now because of it... I hate learning the hard way, but it's learning none-the-less... and that's good.
2.15.2008
Beware of Staples
Note to self: when testing stapler, move finger from spot where staples come out.
Happy Valentine's Day everybody... a day late. Last night the church put on a couples night which had our musicians, the churches musicians, Laura and I painting, and then Czech's stories about marriage. While getting ready for the event Laura and I had to stretch our canvases... we ran out of staples and had to load more in, but when we tried to use it again it didn't work. It wasn't closed right, so I was messing with it to get it shut and managed to stick a staple into my index finger. I didn't realize that the staple actually stuck into my finger until I looked at it. I promptly told Laura to pull it out because I was too afraid to do it myself. I can't imagine what I'd do if I ever got stabbed with anything bigger, I really would have to make someone pull whatever it was out. Strange thought of the day for you. :) It only bled for a short bit, I ran it under cold water and stuck some tissue over it, but then it got a bit bruised. It's feeling better today, but it was just so strange.
I am going to leave you with a short bit of info that Julia, my fellow minnesotan on the team, wrote to our families this week. It's an update, she sends out emails... and does a good job a shortly summing up our activities. I don't have the energy to do it this time. :) (p.s. it is written starting out from LAST friday)
I'll have to share more about yesterday another time. It was a rather interesting day.
Love to you all!
Happy Valentine's Day everybody... a day late. Last night the church put on a couples night which had our musicians, the churches musicians, Laura and I painting, and then Czech's stories about marriage. While getting ready for the event Laura and I had to stretch our canvases... we ran out of staples and had to load more in, but when we tried to use it again it didn't work. It wasn't closed right, so I was messing with it to get it shut and managed to stick a staple into my index finger. I didn't realize that the staple actually stuck into my finger until I looked at it. I promptly told Laura to pull it out because I was too afraid to do it myself. I can't imagine what I'd do if I ever got stabbed with anything bigger, I really would have to make someone pull whatever it was out. Strange thought of the day for you. :) It only bled for a short bit, I ran it under cold water and stuck some tissue over it, but then it got a bit bruised. It's feeling better today, but it was just so strange.
I am going to leave you with a short bit of info that Julia, my fellow minnesotan on the team, wrote to our families this week. It's an update, she sends out emails... and does a good job a shortly summing up our activities. I don't have the energy to do it this time. :) (p.s. it is written starting out from LAST friday)
I'll have to share more about yesterday another time. It was a rather interesting day.
Love to you all!
2.13.2008
last post cont'd
I didn't really finish explaining why I painted a lighthouse... but the vision he had was of a lighthouse... that his church was a lighthouse and that people were drawn to it, so in the picture I painted circles to represent people.. and the circles were different colors.. black, browns and yellows to represent all different denominations.
That was the first time I had something planned to paint... it was good and bad. Good because I had direction and knew what and how to paint it, but bad because it's not really my style of painting... some of it was, but the other part just wasn't working for me (the detail parts). I can do detail sometimes, but I didn't have a picture or anything to go by, so that's what made it harder. Owell, it was a good experience overall.
That was the first time I had something planned to paint... it was good and bad. Good because I had direction and knew what and how to paint it, but bad because it's not really my style of painting... some of it was, but the other part just wasn't working for me (the detail parts). I can do detail sometimes, but I didn't have a picture or anything to go by, so that's what made it harder. Owell, it was a good experience overall.
Outreach post #2
Last post I left off with tuesday night... it is now the following week. We've had a full schedule of events or ministry opportunities. This is a much different missions experience for me because 1. We're a pioneering team (which means, there are no previous relationships built here) 2. We're musicians and artists 3. We're in a Westernized country.... these are all things that make the way I've done missions in the past, very hard. I'm not going into a place where I'm known because of a church that has a relationship with this place. I'm in a western culture where they are independent and don't need your help with physical needs. As artists and musicians, we're meant to use our gifts in some way, so that usually translates into a concert performance. Often it is in a church setting running the service, having the musicians lead worship someone sharing a testimony, someone speaking on a topic and then an artist or two painting in the background during the whole thing.
These have been good opportunities for us to start relationships, but it is hard because sometimes it feels like we are constantly "performing." It's not really "performing" per se because we are seeking God to minister through our creative expressions and He meets us there. I think it's the fact that we are doing the same thing so often, sometimes that wears me out more. I don't want to sound so negative, but I guess that mid week stretch is getting to me.
Last night there was a cool thing that happened. We were running a youth group here, one of the girls lead worship a couple girls shared testimonies and there was a dance in between the testimonies. At the end of the last testimony our leader felt like we should have a time where we spoke words of encouragement over the students. Our team members got into pairs and the youth came in pairs or one by one and we prayed with them and gave them encouragement and words from the Lord. There was this one girl we prayed with who was dealing with depression, and Tammy (who I was partnered with) started praying and God spoke to her about a specific thing in this girl's life... without going into detail it turned out that what Tammy heard was confirmed by this girl. I think we were all encouraged, seeing how God spoke to each of us.
I've skipped a lot of things that went on last week, the one day that sticks out that I haven't written about is Thursday. We met with the pastor of the church we've been connected with and he spoke to us about Czech culture. I really enjoyed this time, because in it we were reminded about the fact that we didn't just come to just give give give what we have, but there is a lot that we can get from them as well. Or, rather there is a lot we can learn from them as well. Although the language barrier is tough to get through, I want to challenge myself in speaking more because though they say they can't speak english they do way better than they think.
Later on Thursday we performed at an event and I painted a picture during that time, of a lighthouse. The picture I got was from a vision the pastor spoke about of his church/the church in general in Plzen. I guess here (not sure if it's specifically plzen or not) churches are not stuck to their own denominations, or there just isn't as much line drawing. The vision Kaja (pastor) had was of many many people coming to the Lord, though not only his church, but through the christian community. I'm doing a poor job explaining his vision correctly, but the main thing is that it really resonated with me.
The rest of the weekend was filled with tooling around the city, etc. It was nice.
I have to go now.... more to come as I can give it! :)
These have been good opportunities for us to start relationships, but it is hard because sometimes it feels like we are constantly "performing." It's not really "performing" per se because we are seeking God to minister through our creative expressions and He meets us there. I think it's the fact that we are doing the same thing so often, sometimes that wears me out more. I don't want to sound so negative, but I guess that mid week stretch is getting to me.
Last night there was a cool thing that happened. We were running a youth group here, one of the girls lead worship a couple girls shared testimonies and there was a dance in between the testimonies. At the end of the last testimony our leader felt like we should have a time where we spoke words of encouragement over the students. Our team members got into pairs and the youth came in pairs or one by one and we prayed with them and gave them encouragement and words from the Lord. There was this one girl we prayed with who was dealing with depression, and Tammy (who I was partnered with) started praying and God spoke to her about a specific thing in this girl's life... without going into detail it turned out that what Tammy heard was confirmed by this girl. I think we were all encouraged, seeing how God spoke to each of us.
I've skipped a lot of things that went on last week, the one day that sticks out that I haven't written about is Thursday. We met with the pastor of the church we've been connected with and he spoke to us about Czech culture. I really enjoyed this time, because in it we were reminded about the fact that we didn't just come to just give give give what we have, but there is a lot that we can get from them as well. Or, rather there is a lot we can learn from them as well. Although the language barrier is tough to get through, I want to challenge myself in speaking more because though they say they can't speak english they do way better than they think.
Later on Thursday we performed at an event and I painted a picture during that time, of a lighthouse. The picture I got was from a vision the pastor spoke about of his church/the church in general in Plzen. I guess here (not sure if it's specifically plzen or not) churches are not stuck to their own denominations, or there just isn't as much line drawing. The vision Kaja (pastor) had was of many many people coming to the Lord, though not only his church, but through the christian community. I'm doing a poor job explaining his vision correctly, but the main thing is that it really resonated with me.
The rest of the weekend was filled with tooling around the city, etc. It was nice.
I have to go now.... more to come as I can give it! :)
2.10.2008
Finally...
This is not as much as I really would have liked to post, but my time here has been busy, and the access to the internet isn't as accessable. (i know bad spelling)... so here is a part of what I've blogged... it's only partially finished...
Hey Blog world...
It has been awhile, hasn't it? My time here in the Czech Republic has been interesting... I love the sites, the buildings and rich history, but it is a cold country both realistically figuratively speaking. The cold temperature doesn't bother me, I bought a great new coat, but the fact that the people here are hard to communicate with is discouraging. It doesn't help that I don't speak their language, but at the same time, it's harder to communicate non-verbally because they don't smile as much. There is a very stand-off-ish feeling, and even when they do speak english you have to be cautious in how you say things.
I'll give a bit of an overview of what we've been doing here so far....
On Monday we had an orientation of how the two weeks were to go while in Plzen with a schedule. Each day we've had some type of event, whether it be a concert or planning meeting, youth group event, etc. Later that day we got settled in at our "home" for the two weeks. I don't know what exactly it's called, but it's a Catholic run place with nuns on a couple floors and a place in the basement where a "youth" group meets on Tuesday nights.
On Tuesday there was a concert at a shopping mall and then just a short while after, we led the "youth" group thing I was just speaking about. That morning the band practiced and upon finishing some tension rose up about not feeling like they were gelling as a team, etc. It was a bit tense during lunch and on the way to the mall for the concert.
Once at the mall, the sound guys were having trouble getting everything to work, so the artists got together to pray. The things we prayed for were unity and peace, because it was obvious that those areas were really being attacked. The sound never really was great, but we also prayed that though it may not sound perfect it really wouldn't matter.. that the heart of why we were there would really come out strong above the music itself.
Immediately following that was the youth night, which we had very little time to prepare.
Hey Blog world...
It has been awhile, hasn't it? My time here in the Czech Republic has been interesting... I love the sites, the buildings and rich history, but it is a cold country both realistically figuratively speaking. The cold temperature doesn't bother me, I bought a great new coat, but the fact that the people here are hard to communicate with is discouraging. It doesn't help that I don't speak their language, but at the same time, it's harder to communicate non-verbally because they don't smile as much. There is a very stand-off-ish feeling, and even when they do speak english you have to be cautious in how you say things.
I'll give a bit of an overview of what we've been doing here so far....
On Monday we had an orientation of how the two weeks were to go while in Plzen with a schedule. Each day we've had some type of event, whether it be a concert or planning meeting, youth group event, etc. Later that day we got settled in at our "home" for the two weeks. I don't know what exactly it's called, but it's a Catholic run place with nuns on a couple floors and a place in the basement where a "youth" group meets on Tuesday nights.
On Tuesday there was a concert at a shopping mall and then just a short while after, we led the "youth" group thing I was just speaking about. That morning the band practiced and upon finishing some tension rose up about not feeling like they were gelling as a team, etc. It was a bit tense during lunch and on the way to the mall for the concert.
Once at the mall, the sound guys were having trouble getting everything to work, so the artists got together to pray. The things we prayed for were unity and peace, because it was obvious that those areas were really being attacked. The sound never really was great, but we also prayed that though it may not sound perfect it really wouldn't matter.. that the heart of why we were there would really come out strong above the music itself.
Immediately following that was the youth night, which we had very little time to prepare.
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