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! :)