Yes it’s true! Praise God for answered prayers! I posted yesterday and asked you to pray for God’s will to be done with the flat (apartment) situation in Prague and God answered your prayers! I got a call from my director, Billy, earlier today and the first thing he said was, ‘Congratulations!” Praise God. I was wondering if He wanted me to leave here or live elsewhere, well I guess we know now! So I’ve added two more pics of the flat that God has provided for me! I can’t tell you how excited I am to know that when I leave O’Hare at 6 pm on September 3rd, I will sleep in my own flat, in my new bed in Prague come the evening of the 4th! So very cool. Sometimes I forget that God is mindful and cares about the “little” things. So once I have an address I’ll let you all know. Blessings…
quote of the week…
It has been awhile since I got a solid quote up. Here is a quote I heard while listen to The Resurgence podcast, A Talk about Nothing: Postmodernism, and the Gospel. It challenged me a ton and I pray it does the same to you!
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with the world that no longer exists.” -Eric Hoffer
The question is, “Are we learners or the learned?” A practical thing this has led me to do is start reading more about Czech history. So Amazon likes me a bit, but I know that learning where they have come from will help me learn where they are going. What are some ways you are being a learner of your culture? Or are you one of “the learned” looking down your nose at culture and society? May we be learners so we can learn to “become all things to all people, that by all means [we] might save some” and follow Paul’s example, amongst others. Let’s see if the response feature on the blog works! Thanks for stopping by!
sunday the 26th…
If you want to come out and say “HELLO!” and hear about Czech I have a great opportunity for you. This Sunday (the 26th) I’m sharing and giving Calvary Baptist in Woodstock an update about my return to Czech on the 3rd of September. The service starts at 10:30 am! Click HERE to find out how to get to Calvary or click HERE for the map!
flat update
So I could use some prayer! I talked with my director, Billy, today and things look good for getting the flat that I mentioned before (here and here) BUT it is NOT for sure yet. See a couple looked at two flats the landlord owns. One is a 1 bedroom and the other is a 2 bedroom (the second bedroom is considerably smaller), so if they want the 1 bedroom I’m good, if they want the 2 we are probably going to start looking again. So can you pray about this for me? The woman liked the 1 and the man the 2, so pray they woman wins! 😉 Pray they take the 1 and we can snag the 2! Really it is all in God’s hands, so I trust Him either way. Thanks!
more goodbyes…
This last weekend I went down to Xenia, OH to say good bye to my friends down there and my church family while I spent time there. Thank you to the Hardys and Garretts (thanks Andy and Chelsey for being great hosts for the weekend as well!) for throwing me a Going Away Party! They wanted to encourage me as they send me off and they came out with something totally creative! They asked everyone coming to bring some candy that made them think about me and use it to encourage me. It was awesome! Even my director, Matt, getting me Nerds! Thank you everyone! I love you guys! Here is the group shot.
I got to say some great goodbyes, here are some more pics…
One of my guys, Aaron, also came to the party and I was so stoked to see him. His life was turned upside down in the Spring when he gave his life to Christ and he is growing like mad! One of his coaches and himself are going to be leading a team Bible study with the soccer team at Wilmington College and he had an offer to play at a big school and turned it down to stay and love on his teammates. Please continue to pray for the lives that were changed during my time in Ohio. For those of you that are ministry partners, be encouraged because your finger prints are all over this young man’s life!
czechs’ spirituality, life change and the Bible…
Saturday morning I was doing some prep work on a support presentation and before I could get to it I checked out a few of my morning reads on the net and found an amazing piece over at the Prague Post, entitled The Gospel according to Czechs. Needless to say, that title caught my eye!
The article highlights Sasa (Alexandr) Flek, his story of life change about how his life was turned upside down by the revolutionary love of Jesus and how now he is working hard to come out with an up-to-date translation of the Bible in Czech. Flek’s heart for the Lord and the Czech people bleeds through in this article.
Sixteen years ago, Alexandr Flek lay upon the floor of the church where he worshiped, and he was in agony. It had been four years since he converted to Christianity and became a preacher, and two years since the Velvet Revolution. And still, there was no project under way to translate the Bible into Czech. In the past 400 years, there had been only two Czech translations one archaic if revered, and the other denuded of its figurative force by the taint of communism. “On the carpet, this groaning and travailing overwhelmed me,” says Flek of that day. “I was desperate. The years were passing. There was no Bible.”
I didn’t realize the lack of the translations that are, or aren’t, in Czech. It makes sense to me though because many of the guys that I encountered and had relationships with in Czech who had read the Bible before acted like it wasn’t relevant to them at all. It was an archaic thing to them that didn’t have any relevancy. Thus there was little to no chance they would ever get in it and let it speak into their life. Little did I know, it was because there isn’t a modern translation that is widely distributed. (WARNING – RANT. This happens to make me sick as an American who can go to a Christian bookstore here in America and choose from more translations than I know what to do with. Here is an idea, how about we stop adding to this and stop spending money on all the Bibles for every segment of our culture (i.e. Young Men’s Bible, Teen Girls study Bible, Adventure Study Bible, and more). I think you get the point; when I did a search there are over 670 study Bibles available here in America. Here is an idea, go to this translation page and make a donation to help a country have ONE relevant translation! Thanks for enduring this small rant.) Here are a couple more quotes about why there is an extreme need for this new translation!
The translation is not a matter of proselytizing, he says. It’s a matter of national education. Because of a series of “historical catastrophes” the suppression of the Hussites, reactionary Catholicization under the Habsburgs, the decimation of the Czech language, communism the country has been cut off from its Judeo-Christian tradition, he says.
Talafant believes the project “has the potential to change this country,” and he considers other Bible translations that are now also close to fruition partners in this effort. “Our competitors are atheism, Islam, and the indifference and immorality of our society,” he says.
I was surprised to read that they included Islam as one of the competitors of Christianity. Because in my time in Prague Islam hadn’t made too many inroads into Czech yet, but it seems like that it is only a matter of time. The competitor that is most obvious is the Czech indifference. Sasa hits on this as the article wraps up.
“For most of us, the existence of God is bad news,” he says. “Because, if God is there, we’ll go to hell, because we’re sinners. So the good news is that there is no God and we will not be punished, so we can live as we want. That’s the Gospel according to Czechs.”
I would encourage you to go and read the whole article, click HERE.
countdown
I’m taking a sabbath today at my grandparent’s in Warsaw, IN today and then heading back up to Lake Geneva, WI tomorrow. I can’t believe there are only 2 weeks left until I leave for HOME! God has been good as of late. I had a great weekend in Xenia, OH. Thank you to all my friends down there! God is slowly but surely bringing support in, but please continue to pray that He meets the needs. Please also pray that those who have committed will continue to give, if they can and feel led to of course. There are a few opportunities that are left and I pray that God would blow the doors off with some things. Oh, a flat (a.k.a. apartment) update! It looks good, the realitor and I have been emailing each other and my director was supposed to talk with them today! So things are looking good that I might be living on the corner of Roosveltova Street and Charlese de Gaulla Street in Prague 6, BUT please continue to pray that God would would give us favor with this. Well, I’m going to have some time with the Lord, read and take a nap. I’m learning more and more why the Lord wants us to take a sabbath. Rest….
enough said…
What more is there to say? Click HERE for another one.
my dear artistic friends…
This was the subject line of an email I sent to some friends. The gist of the email was at one time I loved to draw and art in general, well then I went to high school and tried to suppress the artist in me. Thus I gave up drawing. Since I lived in Prague I’ve got back to the creative side of me and I’ve been dabbling with photography, graphic design, and video but I want to get back to drawing. But I struggle! I struggle a lot with getting started! I don’t know where to start. The easy answer is, “Just draw!” Well, that isn’t the answer I need. Here is a reply from my good friend, Mike Gorter, I think you will enjoy it also! Thanks Mike!
1–think about what it is in your observations in Life, Nature, etc that you find interesting and want to focus on….I personally want to someday explore the idea of painting light and things that emit light (sun/stars/lamps etc). I think it would be a neat study. I dig Van Gogh’s Starry Night for instance (to ref something we’ve all seen). I think it’s a fantastic-ly interesting depiction of light.
2–get some art books and look at works by artists that inspire you. What exactly do you like about them? What styles/methods/techniques characterize the style that you like? Some of my fav painters (off the top of my head) are Rembrandt, Hopper, Munch Van Gogh, DeGas, Vermeer, Cezanne. My favorite artist that worked primarily in b&w drawings/litho/woodcut is Kathe Kollwitz. Def check out her work. Very emotional. If you’re interested primarily in drawing see if you can grab books that have sketches of paintings done by your fav artists. I typically find this free, rough and rapid style of drawing to be pretty sweet. It’s got a lot of spontaneity and action to it.
3–sit outside and sketch. Any scene will do (you should see some of the things I sketched for class…but the profs liked them). Don’t spend hours on a single scene, be efficient and use your artistic instincts. Not every sketch will be a masterpiece (few will actually). Be literal about what you see even if you think that if you draw something a certain way, it’s going to look funny or weird. Practice techniques like crosshatching and depicting various levels of shading and value in the same scene. Practice being proportionally accurate, esp with human figures(if you find an old man on a park bench, sit across the way and sketch him!!). Get a giant sketchbook and don’t be afraid to waste paper (but remember to recycle….what with global warming and all 😀 ).
4–Bring music that inspires you, but don’t be afraid to listen to nature as well…doing artsy stuff like that does actually work to inspire the true artist in you…and of course appreciate the art and creation of God in your surrounding. Notice and acknowledge it as as art with specific qualities of goodness and beauty. A lot of that can go unnoticed, but if you sit and notice it and are thankful for it, the artist in you will want to imitate the Great Artist even more. No fake.
5–DEF get some good drawing pencils (and a sharpener/small utility knife and a kneaded eraser would help too)!!!
could i have a flat?
That is the question that is going through my mind today. I will be honest with you, the whole flat (a.k.a. apartment for all of us Americans) thing has been something my heart has been anxious about. I don’t know why exactly. Prices? Selection? Location? Size? I don’t know what exactly, but God may have a flat lined up even before I leave the country! This would be HUGE! My director, Billy, has been given permission to move on the flat you see below. Please pray that it works out. There are many things about this flat that appear to be a direct and deliberate answer to my prayers! If you want to see more click here! Thanks for stopping by the blog today! Oh I am in Xenia, OH this weekend to say good byes and speak at my church, Emmanuel Baptist, while I lived down here. Please pray that God would show up in some cool ways this weekend!
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