Hello from my bed at the Hostel Napoleon in Moscow. Yes we are in Moscow for a long lay over for a couple of days before getting back to Prague. The Olympics were great and some cool things happened beyond the medals! More to come but I wanted to post a quick update. Be a revolution!

So I should be writing my prayer letter, but I just read one of Faith’s (my Church here) intern’s blogs about helping with the AIA camps and I had to post part of it here. Kristi’s observations were spot on and I thought it would be good for us to read a young woman’s perspective on Czech culture, instead of my perspective. Check out her whole blog, but let her thoughts about Czech youth culture move you to pray for this place like never before.

My heart was broken for Czech young people. I can’t even describe how much these kids touched me. They are so unbelievably old at such a young age. There were 12, 13, 14 year olds that would smoke and drink alcohol on the sidelines of the fields as we played with them. A lot of them have this dark, hardened sense about them that you just don’t see in most American teenagers. The girls are incredibly sexualized from a very young age. The first day we were out playing sports, a 12 year old girl showed up with cuts all over her arm. At first I thought they might be accidental, but the closer I looked, I realized the cuts formed a name, and it was obviously self-mutilation. Sometimes I just wanted to break down crying in the middle of a game of volleyball. I realized that our simple gospel presentations through our skits, testimonies, and actions would be the most that many of these kids would ever hear about God’s love for them. There’s just nothing for them here…. there’s such hopelessness. I think the concept that Jesus loved them and extended mercy to them was utterly foreign to these teenagers. As the week progressed, the Czech girls with whom I had begun to form friendships would ask me eagerly when we would be performing the drama for the night. I began to realize that some of the teenagers were more excited about seeing our skits than playing sports….some of them would come and sit on the sidelines the whole time, then gather with the other kids to watch our gospel presentation. I could see the longing for hope and truth in their eyes as they carefully watched simple skits that many American teenagers would just laugh at or shrug off. It was beautiful to be able to tell them my testimony through a translator on the last night we were there, speaking words of light into the darkness, proclaiming the love of God in my brokenness against the glorious splendor of the setting sun. I will never forget their faces and my desperate desire to see their lives transformed. We held an outdoor worship service on the Sunday morning after the camp week, and one of the teenagers from the camp who attended asked me if I was coming back next year to their village. I sadly told them that I wasn’t, and she said in a sorrowful voice, “I wish you would come back. There is nothing like what you do here. No one tells us the things you have.” It made me so sad and angry…..the fields are ripe for the harvest, and who will go? Who will tell that girl again that she is loved and beautiful and precious?

Spot on. My heart broke last week at each camp. Interacting a little with these kids was very, very moving. I really believe there is a unique window with the young people here. I see it on our junior team with the Lions, God appears to be moving. Please pray that He does! Please plead with me that many kids would come to saving, life-changing knowledge of Christ, and that there would be solid discipleship in sound, healthy doctrine with these kids! Thanks for being you! Be a revolution of Christ’s love today!

So great to wake up this morning to my blog being my blog and not the “fig leaf” thing that has been up for some time! Thank you Clint for hooking a brother up! Much appreciated! Okay, I have to get this prayer letter done! Time to write!

This afternoon I had a quick iChat (I say quick because my net isn’t cooperating with me as of late! Sorry Phil! UPC needs to get a phone call from me!) with my pastor here in Prague, Phil, who is still in the States for a couple of months raising support, seeing fam, and chilling a bit. I was so happy to know that as he was talking to me on his brand new MacBook that was on his lap! Yah! Who’s next?

So I am comfortably sitting at my desk back in Prague after a long week of driving (over 900 kms!) and connecting with some great people! It was a full week and I’m wishing I could have had more time to connect with the Czech Christians, Dutch, and the camp goers at each of the 6 camps spread throughout the country. I was taken back by two things this week – the spiritual apathy of this country and the faithfulness of the little churches spread throughout the country. It made me a bit anxious to get to where I think God is calling me eventually here, but I was also reminded, over and over, that God is indeed Sovereign and I am where He wants me right now. Well, I will get a new zhtv up more about the trip, but I wanted to share some of my favorite images with you. I haven’t had any time to do any post-work on them, but I thought I’d share them anyway. I hope you enjoy them! (since my page isn’t back to normal and you can’t find the flickr link, click on one of the pics and it will take you to my flickr site, or just click HERE)

I pinched myself several times, marveling at what I do and the place I live. God is so good. Thank you for each of you dear ministry partners who support me financially and/or through prayer! You, through are partnership, brought encouragement to 6 churches in what may be the most atheistic country on the face of the planet! Thank you! That is a revolution.

I usually don’t get into politics here on my blog, because I have dear friends whom are on both sides of the whole two-party system thing that is American politics. Furthermore, I don’t really desire to turn up the volume of politics on my blog. I do however, follow politics and engage thoughtfully. So anyway, I needed to put these videos up, because it is too much and they are from both sides of the divide in our two-party system. How after 15 years can people still call this Czechoslovakia? Especially, people this far up in our government? Come on people, IT’S CZECH REPUBLIC! I hear this mistake a lot and I often extend grace, but it is interesting that some don’t really even know where Czech is. It reminds me of the quote from British Prime Minister Neville Chameberlain in 1938:

How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches… because of a quarrel in a far away country between people whom we know nothing.

Well I hope to help change all of this… Here is further evidence of the same mindset of Chameberlain, but today: