Life under the Cross

All about the Blood

2011-02-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

Today, in my morning devotions I tripped across a couple of great things that I thought I should share. Enjoy!

But if you say: What, then, shall I do if I cannot feel such distress or experience hunger and thirst for the Sacrament? Answer: For those who are so minded that they do not realize their condition I know no better counsel than that they put their hand into their bosom to ascertain whether they also have flesh and blood. And if you find that to be the case, then go, for your good, to St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and hear what sort of a fruit your flesh is: Now the works of the flesh (he says [Gal. 5:19ff ]) are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.
76] Therefore, if you cannot feel it, at least believe the Scriptures; they will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself. Yea, St. Paul further concludes in Rom. 7:18: I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. If St. Paul may speak thus of his flesh, we do not propose to be better nor more holy. 77] But that we do not feel it is so much the worse; for it is a sign that there is a leprous flesh which feels nothing, and yet [the leprosy] rages and keeps spreading. 78] Yet, as we have said, if you are quite dead to all sensibility, still believe the Scriptures, which pronounce sentence upon you. And, in short, the less you feel your sins and infirmities, the more reason have you to go to the Sacrament to seek help and a remedy.
79] In the second place, look about you and see whether you are also in the world, or if you do not know it, ask your neighbors about it. If you are in the world, do not think that there will be lack of sins and misery. For only begin to act as though you would be godly and adhere to the Gospel, and see whether no one will become your enemy, and, moreover, do you harm, wrong, and violence, and likewise give you cause for sin and vice. If you have not experienced it, then let the Scriptures tell you, which everywhere give this praise and testimony to the world.
80] Besides this, you will also have the devil about you, whom you will not entirely tread under foot, because our Lord Christ Himself could not entirely avoid him. Now, what is the devil? 81] Nothing else than what the Scriptures call him, a liar and murderer. A liar, to lead the heart astray from the Word of God, and to blind it, that you cannot feel your distress or come to Christ. A murderer, who cannot bear to see you live one single hour. 82] If you could see how many knives, darts, and arrows are every moment aimed at you, you would be glad to come to the Sacrament as often as possible. But there is no reason why we walk so securely and heedlessly, except that we neither think nor believe that we are in the flesh, and in this wicked world or in the kingdom of the devil.
83] Therefore, try this and practise it well, and do but examine yourself, or look about you a little, and only keep to the Scriptures. If even then you still feel nothing, you have so much the more misery to lament both to God and to your brother. Then take advice and have others pray for you, and do not desist until the stone be removed from your heart. 84] Then, indeed, the distress will not fail to become manifest, and you will find that you have sunk twice as deep as any other poor sinner, and are much more in need of the Sacrament against the misery which unfortunately you do not see, so that, with the grace of God, you may feel it more and become the more hungry for the Sacrament, especially since the devil plies his force against you, and lies in wait for you without ceasing to seize and destroy you, soul and body, so that you are not safe from him one hour. How soon can he have brought you suddenly into misery and distress when you least expect it!
85] Let this, then, be said for exhortation, not only for those of us who are old and grown, but also for the young people, who ought to be brought up in the Christian doctrine and understanding. For thereby the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer might be the more easily inculcated to our youth, so that they would receive them with pleasure and earnestness, and thus would practise them from their youth and accustom themselves to them. 86] For the old are now well-nigh done for, so that these and other things cannot be attained, unless we train the people who are to come after us and succeed us in our office and work, in order that they also may bring up their children successfully, that the Word of God and the Christian Church may be preserved. 87] Therefore let every father of a family know that it is his duty, by the injunction and command of God, to teach these things to his children, or have them learn what they ought to know. For since they are baptized and received into the Christian Church, they should also enjoy this communion of the Sacrament, in order that they may serve us and be useful to us; for they must all indeed help us to believe, love, pray, and fight against the devil.
You need this! It is given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sin.

-Luther's Large Catechism, Section V: "The Sacrament of the Altar"

Let us then return from the Table like lions breathing fire, having become terrible to the devil; thinking on our Head [Christ] and on the love that He has shown for us... Our Lord says: "I feed you with My own flesh, desiring that you all be nobly born, and holding forth good hopes for your future... I have willed to become your Brother. For your sake, I shared in flesh and blood, and, in turn, I give you the flesh and the blood by which I became your kinsman." This blood causes the image of our King to be fresh within us. It produces beauty unspeakable and prevents the nobleness of our souls from wasting away... It nourishes our souls and works in them a might power. This blood, if rightly taken, drives away devils, and keeps them far from us, while it calls the angels and the Lord of angels to us. For wherever they see the Lord's blood, devils flee and angels run together. This blood poured forth and washed all the world clean. St. Paul uttered many wise saying concerning it in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This blood cleansed the secret place and the Holy of Holies. And if the type off this blood had such great power in the temple of the Hebrews, and in the midst of Egypt, when smeared on the doorposts, much more the reality! The type sanctified the golden altar. Without it [the blood of the sacrifices], the high priest dared not enter into the secret place. It even consecrated priests. It cleansed sins [in the Old Testament]. But if the blood [of the sacrifices] was but a type and had such power, if death so shuddered at the shadow, tell me how would it not have dreaded the very reality? The blood [of Christ] is the salvation of our souls. By it the soul is washed, it beautiful, and is inflamed! This blood causes our understanding to be more bright than fire and our soul more beaming than gold. This blood was poured forth and opened heaven.

-- John Chrysostom

Painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger

It's all about the blood here, folks.

Resume

2011-01-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking for a LONG time that I really ought to resume posting on this blog, retooling it as a blog for sharing with my friends, family, and supporters those things which I am learning in my seminary education, and hopefully transmitting some of the solid education I am receiving here at Concordia Seminary as I'm being formed for deaconess service in the LCMS. I am going to try to post once again on a regular basis, hopefully weekly.

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This morning, the appointed reading from the Book of Concord was the seventh petition of the Lord's Prayer in the Large Catechism, particularly paragraphs 121-124:

It is therefore a pernicious delusion when people pray in such a way that they dare not wholeheartedly add "Yes" and conclude with certainty that God hears their prayer. Instead, they remain in doubt, saying, "Why should I be so bold as to boast that God hears my prayer? I am only a poor sinner," etc. That means that they are looking not at God's promise but at their own works and worthiness, and thereby they despise God and accuse him of lying. Therefore they receive nothing, as St. James [1:6-7] says, "But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter... must not expect to receive anything from the Lord." Look! God has attached much importance to our being certain so that we do not pray in vain or despise our prayers in any way.

Martin Luther LOVES to remind us to pray with certainty, giving our resounding "Amen" to the end of our prayers, knowing that as God's dear children, we can ask our dear Father for whatever we need. And He will hear us, NOT because of who we are-- for we are sinners, it is true-- but because He has promised He will hear us for Christ's sake!

This is something that I think about frequently: If I KNOW that God delights to hear my prayers, why on earth do I not pray with more fervor and more boldly, making outlandish requests of my Father who loves me? What's the worst that can happen if I do? He'll say "no." But that answer doesn't change the fact that I am His baptized and beloved child, so why hesitate?

That connects beautifully to the other Luther reading I had this morning, from one of his baptismal sermons, in LW 51:320-321:

Here [in baptism], says St. Paul, is the Word of the living God which says, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; in other words, here not a man, but God himself is baptizing. For when it is done in his name it is done indeed by the holy Trinity,

because of His word by which He

commands us to baptize in this way, that is, to immerse in water and to speak these words.

Beautiful! I am baptized! Praise the Lord!

Czech Top 10

2010-08-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of brainstorming about my favorite things from the Czech Republic, and here's the Top 10 list with explanation.

10. Alfons Mucha
This man was a Czech painter who studied in Paris and painted all these wonderful, though washed-out, posters of beautiful women, such as the turn-of-the-20th-century famous actress Sarah Bernhardt.

9. Olynth
I'm not sure if this is only a Czech thing, but I've never seen it in the US. It's this incredible nasal spray that clears up nasal congestion within about 3 minutes of use and keeps your airways clear for about 24 hours. It was excellent when I was suffering with a head cold and couldn't breathe.

8. Water cookersIn Czech they're called "rychlovarná konvice" and they're electrical water pitchers. It's a much faster way to boil water for tea or for instant coffee than using a tea kettle on the stove. I used mine every day with my delicious instant Jacob's coffee. Yum.

7. Rohliky and Housky
These are the breadsticks and rolls that everyone buys fresh and eats every day. I'm REALLY going to miss them.

6. KrtekKrtek is Czech for "mole" and Krtek is like the Czech Mickey Mouse. He's the start of an animated cartoon for children. Mole's friends are a mouse, a rabbit, a hedgehog, and a frog, all named for what they are. The cartoon has no dialog, and the only sound is music and a toddler giggling.

5. Vepřo-knedlo-zelo
This is the Czech national dish. It's pork, bread dumplings, and Czech-style sour cabbage. It's delicious!

4. Kofola
Kofola is the Czech cola. During communism, the government didn't allow Coca-cola into the country, so this was the cola that everyone drank. When communism ended in 1989, Coke came in and overwhelmed Kofola, but in recent years, it's been increasing in popularity again. It's main flavor ingredient is anis, which is also the main flavor in black licorice.

3. Přání
Přání is Czech for "wishing," and it's tradition to shake hands, wish beautiful things and give blessings to a person on their birthday or name day, or saying good-bye to a person who's moving away. This is such a lovely tradition and a great way of honoring people and letting them know how important they are to you. The person wishing shakes and holds the hand of the one to whom he or she is wishing, looks them in the eye, and tells them everything they need to say. I had many wishes before I moved home.

2. Prague
The most beautiful, romantic city in all of Europe. I love it, but can't spend more than a couple of days there, because it's full of tourists. :)

1. SCEAV
The Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (pictured is the current Bishop, Stanislav Pietak): This is the church with which I worked during my 27 months of field work as an LCMS missionary. It is by far my favorite thing about the Czech Republic: the church body itself, as well as the people which comprise it.

Stuff I Love, I'm Gonna Miss...

2010-07-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

This is it: Mom and Dad will be rolling into Trinec tomorrow afternoon, and the fact of leaving here will become a reality. I'm kind of a zombie this afternoon thinking about it (and because we just finished our 3rd day of a children's English day camp which wipes me out). I've been thinking for a while that it'd be a good idea to do a series of blog posts about the things which I love most and will miss most about the Czech Republic in general, SCEAV and Trinec in particular.

Some of the things I'll really miss are kind of silly and small. There are some delicious cookies and crackers, amazing chocolates, and even a soft drink that I'm gonna miss. For some reason I was thinking recently about Christmas, and realized how much I'm even going to miss Christmas traditions that I've only known for two years. I'll miss Skoda cars and winding, single-lane, paved backroads. I'll miss seeing Javorovy peak every time I go jogging. I'll miss the big windows at school, gazing out over Trinec and the Beskyd mountains. I'll miss my kids, all my students.

I'll continue this train of thought and include more links, and even some of my own photos later. Tomorrow will be here before I know it. Oh my...

Good-bying

2010-07-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

Last week was XcamP, my last overnight camp in the Czech Republic before I return to the US. XcamP is a week-long tent-camping evangelism event, organized by the SCEAV, which has been going on for 21 years now. It was my third time participating in the camp. Every year I've been the leader of an English language small group at the camp, and this year was the best year of the three.

Everyday, adults from the surrounding communities, many from SCEAV congregations, come to the camp to hear the main evangelism message during the afternoon program. This year I was asked to give a testimony on Thursday before the afternoon evangelism. What follows is the text which I read before the whole group of about 500 people on Thursday night.

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Nearly three years ago I began planning to come to the Czech Republic as a missionary English teacher. I originally intended to be here for only 7 months. At the time, 7 months seemed a long time. Now, after the 27 months I've been here, it seems too short a time.

I came asking the Lord to make me a faithful missionary, that I would proclaim His cross to everyone I met, and to-- at all times-- speak and think and live according to His Word with no compromises. I came hoping and praying to be a blessing to the Church here and to be an encouragement in the faith to all of you. I can honestly say that I've tried, and honestly say that I've failed in these goals many more times than I have succeeded.

However, our Lord Jesus Christ has failed at no point. When I've been unfaithful, He's been faithful. When I've compromised, He's stood firm and unchanging. When I've been a discouragement, when I've despaired, when I've given up, He's always encouraging, hoping, and persevering.

My hope and prayer is still that my time here has been, and will continue to be, a blessing to you. I am sure that I have been the one who received the greatest blessings in the last two years. I continue to be overwhelmed by the gifts Christ has showered me with in your church. Through you, He has given me more encouragement, fellowship, friendship, and overwhelming love that I ever knew before. Through you, Christ has shown me the beauty of a church powered by prayer. He has given me a deeper understanding and appreciation of fellowship with other believers. It has been such a joy to be surrounded by so many Christians who constantly have nothing on their lips but Christ's praises and admonitions to trust in Him, because He is sovereign over everything in our lives.

In your church, the Lord Jesus has given me some of the most incredible friendships of my life, has blessed me with an entire home away from home and a second family.Thank you to all of you for welcoming me with open arms and making me feel at home, rather than a stranger in a strange land. I wish to tell you that I love you and your church very much.

With deep sadness I am returning to the United States in less than two weeks. However, it is my earnest desire and prayer that this not be the end of my relationship with you. The Lord willing, I will be back and continue our partnership in the Gospel.

My goal is the same today as it was at the beginning: to glorify and honor Christ in faithfulness to His Word and to encourage you.

I'd like to close by sharing the great love that I have for you in the words of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace... For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Thank you very much.
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Ready or not, here it comes...

2010-05-30T03:13:00.001-07:00

June starts tomorrow, and what does that mean?

Allergy season! Woot, woo!

The itching and sneezing started two days ago. Only 6 weeks of this left. Praise God for the vocation of pharmacists and His providence in creating antihistamines. I don't know how I'd make it through the next month or two without my Zycam.

This looks nice, but really it's a nightmare.

Praying for Rainbows

2010-05-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

While it's been overcast and intermittently rainy for two and a half weeks, and the rain started in earnest on Saturday night or Sunday. Flooding began in Trinec on Monday to the point that the roads and foot-bridges over the Olsa River are impassible and school has been canceled now for two days. At this point, it doesn't feel like it'll ever stop raining, and the forecast has rain all the way till Saturday. There are rivers in every ditch and lakes in every little low spot.

I walk across this bridge almost every day on my way home from school. The water is now higher, probably up 15 or 20 feet from normal.

This flood on the road under the train bridge is the reason school was closed for us. The city buses can't get through, the children can't get to school.

This is a pedestrian walkway under the train tracks in a nearby village.

This is a view of the Olsa River between the Polish and Czech halves of the city Tesin. Normally, the water is REALLY far below the bridge and you could probably walk across on flat rocks without getting your shoes wet...

This is the pedestrian underpass at the Cesky Tesin train station. There's not really another (legal) way to get from one side of the train tracks (and therefore the city) to the other if you can't walk through here...

Yesterday I was feeling a little exiled in my flat, and it reminded me of competing in Serious Prose as a high school freshman (Thanks Mrs. G!) with a Ray Bradbury piece, "All Summer in a Day", about a little girl who lived on Venus where it always rained, and the waters only stopped for one afternoon, once every seven years. Well, when the day came, and though she'd been waiting to see the sun for nearly her whole life, her antagonistic classmates had locked her in the closet and she missed the one opportunity to see the sun in 7 years. Just feeling SO separated from the joy of pleasant, enjoyable weather reminded me of the poor dear.

On a more scriptural note, I've been wondering what must have been going through the minds of the people outside Noah's Ark when the rain started to come down and didn't stop. Some people claim that before The Flood that it had never rained, that the Earth had always been watered by springs from below rather than rains from above. They must have been VERY distressed when the wet sky started falling down on them. That flooding came on them as a judgment for their massive wickedness. The difference between us and them, is not that we are so righteous that God shouldn't wipe us off the face of the earth as He did with them. The difference is that we live in the time after the Flood and after the Cross.

After the Flood, the Lord gave the rainbow as a sign and seal of His promise that He'd never execute judgment on the whole earth with a flood again. We know, unlike Noah's contemporaries, that this flood will not end all life on earth (though, sadly, there have been several confirmed deaths in all the flooding throughout central Europe) and we eagerly await the time when the sun will break through the clouds. Then a rainbow may appear in the heavens and remind us of God's faithfulness. I'm keeping my eyes on the skies, waiting for the clouds to break and the sun's rays to shine, refracting through the drops and giving the sign of the promise.
After the Cross, we have the further assurance that the Lord is benevolently disposed to us, in spite of our wickedness and rebellion against Him. All of the wrath which He might have poured out on us, He instead directed at His precious Son. And after His death and resurrection, as Christ was ascending to heaven again, the angels told the disciples of another sign for which they could look in the heavens, the promise of God's faithful keeping of promises: Christ returning on the clouds of glory to begin eternity without such things as floods, or tears, or sinning.

For this reason, I turn my eyes ever more eagerly to the skies. I'd dearly love to see a rainbow break through the clouds tomorrow (it's too late for today, the sun has set), I'd love to welcome the return of the sun. But my deeper heart's desire is to see my Lord breaking through the clouds, to welcome the return of the Son.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

God has gone up with a shout (Ps 47:5)

2010-05-13T13:06:00.001-07:00

Happy Ascension Day, everyone!

Up through endless ranks of angels,
Cries of triumph in His ears,
To His heav'nly throne ascending,
Having vanquished all their fears,
Christ looks down upon His faithful,
Leaving them in happy tears.

Death-destroying, life-restoring,
Proven equal to our need,
Now for us before the Father
As our brother interceded;
Flesh that for our world was wounded,
Living, for the wounded plead!

To our lives of wanton wand'ring
Send Your Spirit, promised guide;
Through our lives of fear and failure
With Your pow'r and love abide;
Welcome us, as You were welcomed,
To an endless Eastertide.

Alleluia, alleluia!
Oh, to breathe the Spirit's grace!
Alleluia, alleluia!
Oh, to see the Father's face!
Alleluia, alleluia!
Oh, to feel the Son's embrace! (LSB 491)

"So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Acts 1:6-10

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Lord Jesus, speed your return! Come on the clouds of glory to take your faithful home to you, to live forever in your presence and unending joy!

On the death of a child

2010-04-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

In the past number of months, I've become aware that a number of women I know (and their husbands) have experienced recent, or not-so-recent, miscarriages. My heart has been hurting to know what to say to them and how to say it. Then yesterday I stumbled across a post on Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison, the blog of the director of LCMS World Relief and Human Care. His is one of the blogs I love to read, and the post, which is mostly the text of a short item written by Luther, is a real gem. I'm only including the Luther text, but please head over to Pr. Harrison's blog to check out the full post. I hope you enjoy it, and if you have experienced this heart ache of losing an unborn or born-but-not-yet-baptized little one, I hope you are comforted by it.

COMFORT FOR WOMEN WHO HAVE HAD A MISCARRIAGE

A final word¹—it often happens that devout parents, particularly the wives, have sought consolation from us because they have suffered such agony and heartbreak in child-bearing when, despite their best intentions and against their will, there was a premature birth or miscarriage and their child died at birth or was born dead.

One ought not to frighten or sadden such mothers by harsh words because it was not due to their carelessness or neglect that the birth of the child went off badly. One must make a distinction between them and those females who resent being pregnant, deliberately neglect their child, or go so far as to strangle or destroy it. This is how one ought to comfort them.

First, inasmuch as one cannot and ought not know the hidden judgment of God in such a case—why, after every possible care had been taken, God did not allow the child to be born alive and be baptized—these mothers should calm themselves and have faith that God’s will is always better than ours, though it may seem otherwise to us from our human point of view. They should be confident that God is not angry with them or with others who are involved. Rather is this a test to develop patience. We well know that these cases have never been rare since the beginning and that Scripture also cites them as examples, as in Psalm 58 [:8], and St. Paul calls himself an abortivum, a misbirth or one untimely born [I Cor. 15:8].

Second, because the mother is a believing Christian it is to be hoped that her heartfelt … and deep longing to bring her child to be baptized will be accepted by God as an effective prayer. It is true that a Christian in deepest despair does not dare to name, wish, or hope for the help (as it seems to him) which he would wholeheartedly and gladly purchase with his own life were that possible, and in doing so thus find comfort. However, the words of Paul, Romans 8 [:26–27], properly apply here: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought (that is, as was said above, we dare not express our wishes), rather the Spirit himself intercedes for us mightily with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit,” etc. Also Ephesians 3 [:20], “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.”

One should not despise a Christian person as if he were a Turk, a pagan, or a godless person. He is precious in God’s sight and his prayer is powerful and great, for he has been sanctified by Christ’s blood and anointed with the Spirit of God. Whatever he sincerely prays for, especially in the unexpressed yearning of his heart, becomes a great, unbearable cry in God’s ears. God must listen, as he did to Moses, Exodus 14 [:15], “Why do you cry to me?” even though Moses couldn’t whisper, so great was his anxiety and trembling in the terrible troubles that beset him. His sighs and the deep cry of his heart divided the Red Sea and dried it up, led the children of Israel across, and drowned Pharaoh with all his army, etc. This and even more can be accomplished by a true, spiritual longing. Even Moses did not know how or for what he should pray—not knowing how the deliverance would be accomplished—but his cry came from his heart.

Isaiah did the same against King Sennacherib and so did many other kings and prophets who accomplished inconceivable and impossible things by prayer, to their astonishment afterward. But before that they would not have dared to expect or wish so much of God. This means to receive things far higher and greater than we can understand or pray for, as St. Paul says, Ephesians 3 [:20], etc. Again, St. Augustine declared that his mother was praying, sighing, and weeping for him, but did not desire anything more than that he might be converted from the errors of the Manicheans and become a Christian. Thereupon God gave her not only what she desired but, as St. Augustine puts it, her “chiefest desire” (cardinem desideriieius), that is, what she longed for with unutterable sighs—that Augustine become not only a Christian but also a teacher above all others in Christendom. Next to the apostles Christendom has none that is his equal.

Who can doubt that those Israelite children who died before they could be circumcised on the eighth day were yet saved by the prayers of their parents in view of the promise that God willed to be their God. God (they say) has not limited his power to the sacraments, but has made a covenant with us through his word. Therefore we ought to speak differently and in a more consoling way with Christians than with pagans or wicked people (the two are the same), even in such cases where we do not know God’s hidden judgment. For he says and is not lying, “All things are possible to him who believes” [Mark 9:28], even though they have not prayed, or expected, or hoped for what they would have wanted to see happen. Enough has been said about this. Therefore one must leave such situations to God and take comfort in the thought that he surely has heard our unspoken yearning and done all things better than we could have asked.

In summary, see to it that above all else you are a true Christian and that you teach a heartfelt yearning and praying to God in true faith, be it in this or any other trouble. Then do not be dismayed or grieved about your child or yourself, and know that your prayer is pleasing to God and that God will do everything much better than you can comprehend or desire. “Call upon me,” he says in Psalm 50 [:15], “in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” For this reason one ought not straightway condemn such infants for whom and concerning whom believers and Christians have devoted their longing and yearning and praying. Nor ought one to consider them the same as others for whom no faith, prayer, or yearning are expressed on the part of Christians and believers. God intends that his promise and our prayer or yearning which is grounded in that promise should not be disdained or rejected, but be highly valued and esteemed. I have said it before and preached it often enough: God accomplishes much through the faith and longing of another, even a stranger, even though there is still no personal faith. But this is given through the channel of another’s intercession, as in the gospel Christ raised the widow’s son at Nain because of the prayers of his mother apart from the faith of the son. And he freed the little daughter of the Canaanite woman from the demon through the faith of the mother apart from the daughter’s faith.¹⁰ The same was true of the kings son, John 4 [:46–53], and of the paralytic and many others of whom we need not say anything here.

Prayer for a Homeland

2010-04-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

"These all [Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah] died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland... As it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:13-14, 16

Abba, let us look for the city, the homeland You have prepared for us in the life to come with greater desire and joy and anticipation. Let not our hearts cling too tightly to any earthly home or promise of comfort or carefree days in this life. Help Your blood-bought children remember that we are citizens of the heavenly, eternal city, let us be mindful of that, and let us be the best ambassadors for the Kingdom of Heaven while we are here than we can. Let us strive with all your might for the service of all the residents of this world. Let us proclaim your excellencies that they might obtain citizenship in Your kingdom. Thank you for making us your own people, for calling us out of our rebellion against you, as you called our forefather Abraham out of Ur. You have done as you promised, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to crush the head of the serpent who deceived us and brought us death. You have destroyed death's dread grip on us and given us eternal life through the resurrection of the Lamb who was slain! Make us mindful of who we are and give us strength to battle against the many daily temptations which assail us in this our land of pilgrimage as we await entrance into the homeland which you have prepared for us.

Waiting for the true Promised Land

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." 1 Peter 2:9-11

Alone

2010-03-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

It wasn't good for Adam, and it's not good for me, though not necessarily for the same reason. I'm not hurting for companionship or pining for a husband-- at the moment, anyway (like Nebraska weather, if you want it to change, wait five minutes). No I'm thinking about the self-deception that comes from being alone.

I have a number of teen friends here who talk about how they feel like their biggest challenge to being Christians is having to live in homes with unbelieving parents. I've realized that one of the biggest challenges to my spiritual health as a Christian is actually not living with anyone else.

Living at home with family, with parents and siblings, is the kind of environment that is frustrating. There is conflict, everyone has manifold opportunities to hurt others and be hurt by them. This kind of frustration with family life, I think, causes many people to think that their families cause them to be bad Christians. I used to think that too. But now I've changed my mind. I'm just as bad of a Christian when I live alone as I was when I lived with my family.

The real difference is that when I live with my family, I can't hide from the fact that I'm a sinner in need of forgiveness. I routinely hurt others, get angry with them, and generally create all kinds of badness with my mind, tongue, and hands. All of that badness is still in me when I'm alone, but it's hidden. When I am sheltered from my own wickedness by so much alone time, something much worse than sinful human interaction happens. It's called pride.

Because I can look back at my track record and see that I haven't hurt or angered anyone for a matter of hours/days/weeks or haven't myself been angry with anyone for that time period, I start to think that I'm becoming a better person. I begin to fall back into the sin of thinking that I'm getting the hang of being a good Christian, that "I can just take over from here Jesus, thank you very much for your help to this point."

Some might say that it's preferable to be sequestered away from other people where we don't have the opportunity to sin against them or to have them sin against us in these ways, I respectfully disagree. Of course I'm not a proponent of doing damage to my loved ones. Instead of promoting family conflict, I'm saying that to not sin against people simply because one hasn't the occasion to sin against them does NOT make one more holy than the one who has the occasion to sin against others and succumbs to the temptation.

A bigger and better life, one more meaningful and more useful for growing up as a Christian, than living alone and being "good" is to live with people who are frustrating and difficult, to live in repentance and forgiveness with one another. Love decidedly does NOT mean never having to say you're sorry...

So I pray that the Lord will give me a roommate or roommates when I'm back in the US with whom I can practice Christian restraint and charity, humility and forgiveness, and that He will bless me in the long term with a husband and family who will challenge my pride and never let me forget that I'm a sinner who needs Him. May He do the same for you, too.

ALL

2010-03-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

What a word. So small, and yet enormous. All. So much in the Christian life turns on that word and one like it, 'whole'. The one that is biting at me now, as I read Mark 12 is "all your heart" "all your soul" "all your mind" and "all your strength." We are to love the Lord our God in this way. With ALL our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Really? All? As in "all" all? Yes. 100% is required of each of these elements of our human being.

What a word of law! Have I ever loved God, even for a moment, with all? With my whole heart? My whole soul, mind, or strength?

Not a chance.

Have I ever done ANYTHING full out, have I ever done anything with my whole heart, soul, mind, or strength?

Thinking...

No. Never. Except maybe love myself. Blech.

No, 99.44 % pure won't float with God's law.

"All" isn't exclusively a word of law. Neither is whole. 'All' and 'whole' in the following passages are great words of Gospel comfort:

"On this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. And the priest who is anointed and consecrated as priest in his father's place shall make atonement, wearing the holy linen garments." Leviticus 16:30-32

"For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever." Hebrews 7:26-28

"Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God." Romans 6:8-10

"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John 2:2

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21: 3-5

So, therein lies my hope. I can't muster myself to love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. But Christ, one who can and did love the Lord with his whole being, and loved His neighbors as Himself, 100% love, does the loving in my place. He has atoned for my lovelessness, for my utter lack.

All glory be to Christ Jesus who loves with all in our place!

Sleepless Night

2010-02-27T18:54:00.000-08:00

I'm experiencing the extremely unusual for me: a sleepless night. I really ought to be sleeping like a log or a baby, or anything else which sleeps deeply or soundly (I guess most babies don't sleep that way, do they?) because a new friend of mine and I went on a two and a half hour walk this afternoon. I blame my utter sleeplessness on indigestion caused by consuming too much cheese pizza and Coke at 10:30 PM. That's what happens when you go out with friends on a Saturday night.
I keep thinking of the Psalm that says:

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep. (127:2)

and of course the sleepy, grouchy, little girl in me is pouting and feeling unloved by not receiving the gift of sleep from her Abba tonight. I suppose that I fall into the category of those eating the bread of anxious toil, however, and so perhaps it makes sense that I'm not sleeping.

I've had some things chewing at me for a few days, and I figure if I'm not sleeping, I ought to make the most of this time and do a little research to calm my anxious thoughts. A few days ago I had a conversation with someone who has been studying theology at a 'liberal' seminary and who has been steeped in the teaching of the JEDP method of exegesis. Basically, this is a method of Biblical interpretation developed largely in Germany during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which assumes that Moses didn't actually write the Pentateuch (granted it is pretty difficult to believe that he himself wrote 34:5-12 of Deut., because those verses take place after his death...), but rather some other editor compiled the five books of Moses from 4 other sources, designated the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly writers. While most Biblical scholars today have greatly challenged or outright rejected this understanding of the Pentateuch, that hasn't stopped it from still being taught in some schools, including the one attended by my friend.

Just as in most times when things I have always thought or understood to be true have been challenged, I have been launched on a quest to learn the background of what I 'know' and what my friend 'knows' and which is the truth. I don't want to prove that I am right, I want to learn the truth. So, I am going to dive into research on several questions that arose in my mind as a result of our conversation and hopefully gradually write on what I have found here.

I pray that the Lord, who is in Himself the Truth, will grant that I find His truth as I search. May Christ be glorified in all and above all!

On Repentance

2010-02-22T02:55:00.000-08:00

This being the season of Lent, the season of repentance, prayer and fasting, I've been thinking and reading a lot on those three subjects. Last night I was reading a bit of the Smalcald Articles (part of the Lutheran Confessions found in the Book of Concord), and came across two particularly great paragraphs that are definitely worth cogitating on for a while, and good to share, too.

This is really what it means to begin true repentance. Here a person must listen to a judgment such as this: "You are all of no account-- whether you appear publicly to be sinners or saints. You must all become something different from what you are now and act in a different way, no matter who you are now and what you do. You may be as great, wise, powerful, and holy as you could want, but here no one is righteous, etc." SA III:3

This repentance is not fragmentary or paltry-- like the kind that does penance for actual sins-- nor is it uncertain like that kind. It does not debate over what is a sin or what is not a sin. Instead, it simply lumps everything together and says, "Everything is pure sin with us. What would we want to spend so much time investigating, dissecting, or distinguishing?" Therefore, here as well, contrition is not uncertain, because there remains nothing that we might consider a "good" with which to pay for sin. Rather, there is plain, certain despair concerning all that we are, think, say, or do, etc. Similarly, such confession also cannot be false, uncertain, or fragmentary. All who confess that everything is pure sin with them embrace all sins, allow no exceptions, and do not forget a single one. Thus, satisfaction can never be uncertain either. For it consists not in our uncertain, sinful works but rather in the suffering and blood of the innocent "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" [John 1:29] SA III:36-38

May we, as we embark on the first full week of the Fast, remember these things as we seek to live lives of repentance: Everything with us is pure sin, even those things which look to us, and to others, like righteous deeds.

Christ have mercy and forgive it all!

Worship good for the soul

2010-02-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

Who knew that sitting down at the piano and singing some great hymns would be so GOOD for me?

I've been in more or less of a funk for quite a while (and I don't pretend to think at this point that it's over just because I'm in a good mood for the moment). I decided this evening that I really NEEDED to take my hymnal downstairs and just sing and play for a while. This is always a good idea, and after tonight I can't figure out for the life of me why it isn't an idea that occurs to me more often.

I can't also figure out why I haven't (at least for a long time) paid attention to my need to worship the Lord in English. Of course, all corporate worship service I've had the ability to attend to for a very long time has been in Czech (or Polish), and I simply haven't taken time in SO long to have a hymn-sing in the basement. For some reason, I think I have deceived myself into thinking that my Czech is good enough that I don't need to sing in English (and what a fool I am for falling for that deception...).

So much of what we do in corporate worship, in opening our lips to speak the Confession, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and all the hymns, are times when our own lips are speaking Christ's Word into our very ears, when the Lord opens our mouths that we might minister to ourselves on His behalf. I just a week ago for the first time spoke the Lord's Prayer in Czech in worship, and I still don't quite have the Apostle's Creed down, so at least I'm always speaking those in English. I follow along with the Scripture readings in my Bible, but faith comes by hearing, and what I am hearing is still largely foreign to my ears. And the hymns? Forget it.

Well, I thought it about time to get some of the Epiphany and Transfiguration hymns sung (especially my favorite, 'Tis Good Lord to Be Here, LSB #414), before Ash Wednesday comes, Epiphany has passed, and it's "too late."
I was really struck again by the words of "Songs of Thankfulness and Praise" and what a walk through the season of Epiphany it is. I also discovered a new favorite, #416: Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory

Swiftly pass the clouds of glory,
Heaven's voice, the dazzling light;
Moses and Elijah vanish;
Christ alone commands the height!
Peter, James, and John fall silent,
Turning from the summit's rise
Downward toward the shadowed valley
Where their Lord has fixed His eyes.

Glimpsed and gone the revelation,
They shall gain and keep its truth,
Not by building on the mountain
Any shrine or sacred booth,
But by following the Savior
Through the valley to the cross
And by testing faith's resilience
Through betrayal, pain, and loss.

Lord, transfigure our perception
With the purest light that shines,
And recast our life's intentions
To the shape of Your designs,
Till we seek no other glory
Than what lies past Calv'ry's hill
And our living and our dying
And our rising by Your will.

Amen! May the Lord transfigure our perception by His light, the pure light of His Word, may He shape our lives by it that we look to and long only for the upside-down glory found in His death on the cross. May our glory be all in His righteousness imputed to us! May we boast only in His cross, because we have nothing else of value in which to boast, as everything else we have is only filthy rags. And may this boasting and glorying in 'unworthy' and 'inglorious' things be done in songs of thankfulness and praise to our dying and rising Savior!

Future Plans

2010-01-31T12:26:00.000-08:00

It was around this time last year that I wrote a blog post announcing my decision to extend my time of service in the Czech Republic. I cited the reasons why I thought I ought to stay and the process which I was about to begin in preparing to make that happen. I was filled with uncertainty about my future here, but I knew that's what I wanted to happen. I entrusted it to the Lord, and He made it happen. I'm so grateful and so glad. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I love it here, I've learned so much of the language, fallen in love with the people, and had many incredible opportunities to share Christ with those who don't know Him. But after two years, it's time to move on. That's why this year I'm not making plans to stay. I'm planning to return to the US and to continue my education, to get some really solid theological and human care training so that I can become a deaconess in the LCMS.

I've completed my application to Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and am planning on sending it to the admissions office tomorrow. Last year I was hoping to still be in the Czech Republic in August, this year I'm hoping to move to St. Louis at the end of that month. Just like last year, I've got all kinds of uncertainty about it. I don't know that I'll get accepted to the deaconess program, but as before (as always) I'm trusting it into the Lord's care. Should I be accepted, excellent, praise God. Should I not, okay, praise the Lord.

Please join me in praying that God would have His way and that I will trust Him, come what may.

Weeping with those who weep

2010-01-17T02:46:00.000-08:00

Oh Haiti! My heart mourns for your disaster, for the utter devastation that the earthquake has wrought. The pain and the loss and the questioning "why?" I weep for you as you search the rubble of a razed city, seeking desperately for survivors, hoping to recover more alive than dead. This surely is a season for mourning, the season for dancing will not come till long from now.

Haiti, how I long to come to you, to show you sympathy and to comfort you. But I am able to look at you only from this far off place. I don't recognize you, your face distorted now like the face of dear old Job, which in his affliction was unrecognizable to his friends. Like his friends, I long to raise my voice and weep, to tear my robes and sit with you, dust on our heads, crying to heaven. I would sit with you silently a week, speaking nothing, for I know that your suffering, too, is very great.

But when our week would pass, I would not open my mouth to accuse you of your sin. I would not presume upon God's purposes to explain that your forlorn condition is your fault. Of course, sin is the cause of all wickedness and suffering in the world. But I know that those whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices, and those on whom the Tower of Siloam fell were no more wicked than I. So I presume not your guilt in your adversity.

Though I would not accuse you, I am still as wicked a friend as Job's. Your affliction is not new. Your troubles have assaulted you for many days. And I have done nothing. I have not had compassion, I have not had a care for you. Have I prayed for you? Have I made your plight known? Have I done anything within my small might to assist? No. Please forgive me, even in the midst of your present anguish. I repent.

Would that I could set it all right, that I could wind back time and somehow prevent such horror from befalling you, even the first horrors you experienced before this week. I cannot undo what has been done. But I do know One who is making all things new, whose task it is to restore all things to the peace, glory, and perfection of Eden, even better, to bring them to fullness in the kingdom of God, the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.

Cling to Him in your trouble, the only Christ who has suffered for you even as you are suffering, who died for you even as many of you are dying. Jesus lives for you, and because of Him, you will again see life. He will turn your suffering into hope. Let this be my wise counsel and word of comfort to you.

And I will mourn with you, but not as one without hope.

Thought for the New Year and a Resolution

2010-01-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

On New Year's Day I read this marvelous long quotation from C.F.W. Walther, the founding president of the LCMS during my devotions using the Treasury of Daily Prayer. It's long, but I think it's worth it. Enjoy!

"Should the christian stand all day long at the grave of all joys which he enjoyed in past years? Through Holy Baptism a great stream of joy has been conducted in his heart, which does not drain away, but streams forward with his life until its waves carry him into the sea of a blessed eternity. Should the Christian be reminded all day long that the flowers of his youth fall more and more? He stands planted by God in the water of his Baptism as a palm tree which becomes greener and greener and whose leaves never wither. Yes, his Baptism makes death for him like a short winter's nap, out of which an eternal spring-- an eternal youth-- follows.

"For Baptism is a bath that washed me not only once when I received it-- washed me pure with Christ's blood-- but it continuously washes me clean even daily for as long as I hold it in faith. For just as that same water of the flood drowned the sinners, but Noah with his relatives were brought to salvation and carried to Mount Ararat, so also did the water of my Baptism drown my sins, but my soul was brought to the eternal mountain of divine grace. And just as once those same waves of the Red Sea, which swallowed up Pharaoh and his army, were a protective wall for Israel, so also has my baptismal water swallowed up all of my damnation and is for me a sure wall before God's wrath and punishment...

"Now then, all of you who believe in God's Word, let your watchword for entering the new year be this: 'I am baptized!' Although the world may laugh at this comfort, the enthusiasts vex its confidence... nevertheless, abandon any other dearly held pledges and speak only throughout the entire year to come, in all terrors of conscience and necessity through sin and death: 'I am baptized! I am baptized! Hallelujah!' And you shall prevail! In every time of need, you will find comfort in your Baptism; on account of it Satan will flee from your faith and confession; and in death you will see heaven opened and will finally come into the joy of your Lord to celebrate a great year of jubilee, a year of praise, with all the angels forever and ever. Amen!"

So, I've decided that my New Year's Resolution is this: to remember daily the promises I've been given by God because I've been baptized into Him, to daily drown my old nature, to flee from sin and to Christ, and to live a life of service to my neighbor because of the great love Christ has shown me. May God grant it!

Hold on to What You Have

2009-12-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

This Monday was the Trinec SCEAV church staff Christmas party. Our theme verse was Revelation 3:11, and I was asked to be the main speaker on the verse. So, below is my lengthy talk on the verse. I thought that you might enjoy it (and I've been feeling like I've been neglecting my blog, so it takes care of that, too).

“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.” Revelation 3:11

Christ is coming soon! Alleluia, Amen.

I was asked to talk about this verse, about what else the Bible has to say about the ideas touched on here, and to talk about how we in Trinec can improve things as a Church of Christ. So, I’d like to start talking about our verse by reading the letter in which it’s contained to get some context, to see what our verse is really talking about. In order to know what any verse says, we’ve got to know the surrounding context…

READ Rev. 3: 7-13

So, we see a bit of the character of the church to whom Christ was speaking through the pen of the Apostle John. They were known by Christ. They had little strength. In spite of their weakness they had kept his word and not denied him. They had been enduring patiently.

Christ has also made promises to them. He had placed before them an open door which could not be shut. It was the door of faith in Christ. This door indicated that no one could take from them the promise of salvation in Christ. He promised that those Jews who denied that the Philadelphians were God’s people would one day confess that Christ did love this church. He promised to keep them in the hour of trial to come on the world. He promised to establish them, in their faithfulness, in the temple of God: heaven. He would claim them as His own by putting His name on them.

The only command Christ gives to this faithful church is to hold on to what they have, so that no one could take their crown. He says: Hold on to what you have, for I am coming soon. If you hold to what you have, no one can take your crown, but if you let go of what you have, your crown will be taken away.

So, what is it the Philadephians have? What are they commanded by their Lord to hold on to and not lose or let go? We can get a glimpse of our answer if we look back to verse 8. “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” This shows us that what the church in Philadelphia has is Christ’s word and His name. They are keeping, guarding, obeying, living according to His word and are proudly wearing His name, confessing before men that they know Him and are His.

Christ’s command to them to hold on to what they have is not an additional, burdensome command they must keep, but an encouragement to keep up the good work. It’s an admonition to do what they’re already doing.

How have the Philadelphians been keeping Christ’s word and name? According to verse 8, it’s in spite of their small strength. They are not able to keep Christ’s word and name because they are a mighty church, nor because they are personally very faithful people. It’s not because of anything else of worldly impressiveness about them. They are weak. They are sinners! They have held Christ’s word and name because He himself gave them faith, gave them His word and entrusted His name to them. He gave them His own strength to enable them to hold on.

Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown!

If the Philadelphians continue to keep Christ’s word and His name, they will keep the crown of eternal life that they have in Christ. Their endurance in faith in Christ is winning for them this eternal crown of victory. If they don’t hold on to what they have, if they let go of Christ’s word and His name, they will lose their promised crown. It will be taken from them and they will be disqualified from eternal life in Christ. If they abandon Christ’s word and His name, and then don’t repent of their rejection, they forfeit their crown.

We in Trinec aren’t the church in Philadelphia. This short letter is not addressed to us. However, Christ’s promises, commands and warnings do not depend on the recipient or anything in them, but on Christ alone. Therefore, this letter can and does speak to us and to all the church throughout the world.

Christ is indeed coming soon. This is the promise that we have been eagerly anticipating throughout the last 22 days of Advent, a promise that the church has been hoping in for two millenia. Though it feels like a long time to wait, it is nearer now than at first, and indeed is much sooner than we can know. We in Trinec, just like the church in Philadelphia have been given faith in Christ’s word and we have His name on us, applied to our foreheads in our baptism. We have the same priceless treasure they did. We have the word of Christ and we have His name. Just as Philadelphia did, as the true church always has, we hold on to these treasures not in our own strength, as though we had any strength to boast of, but we hold on to them only in His strength and by His grace.

READ Ps. 118:14

It is in Christ’s word and in His name that we have our hope of eternal life. If we hold to them, and do not succumb to the temptations of other ‘gospels’, we too will have the crown of eternal life after which we strive.

However, if we do not hold firmly to all the teaching of Christ’s word and to His name, our crown, too, will be taken from us. If we, Christ’s sheep, listen to any voices but the voice of our Good Shepherd, we will go astray. If we put up with any teaching which is not of Christ’s word and which does not clearly proclaim the center of our faith: Christ Jesus crucified for sinners, we are in danger. Any other ‘gospel’ is no gospel at all, it can bring us no good news of Christ’s forgiveness. The Apostle Paul condemned all teachers of such other gospels (Galatians 1:8-9). If we were to abandon the true gospel for any ‘gospel’ that says we must do something to earn our salvation, which doesn’t point us to belief in Christ, we are losing our crown of salvation.

So, how can we in Trinec improve? What can we do to be doing the works that God requires? The answer is not new, but old. It’s not innovative and different, but ought to be very familiar to all of the Lord’s people. When Jesus was asked by some people what they must do to be doing God’s work, our Lord replied, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:28). So, we hold on with fervor, and in Christ’s strength, to that which we have, the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). According to 1 Corinthians 15: 1-5, we hold to the Gospel which Paul preached, which we received, in which we stand and by which we are being saved: Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and he appeared to many witnesses before ascending to heaven. To grow stronger as a church, to be pleasing the Lord, we must simply, faithfully hold on to what He’s given us, what He gave the earliest church.

We in the Church often think that large numbers, obvious physical growth in the church, is the goal of our existence. It’s not. Right now many congregations across the US are growing very rapidly, but sadly, many of them are doing so by abandoning Christ and His gospel in favor of talking about anything but Him, anything that it takes to attract non-Christians to their pews. Just as Paul prophesied in 2 Timothy 4:3, they preach to itching ears instead of putting up with sound doctrine.

The church here, and everywhere throughout the world, in order to improve things, must set itself to simply be the church. The best example of this in Scripture is of the church right after Pentecost. They dedicated themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers (Acts 2:42). We hold on to what Christ has given us: all of scripture and it’s authority as God’s word, the proclamation of the Law for repentance from sins, the teaching of the Gospel for the forgiveness of those sins, fellowship with one another, wherein we encourage one another in the faith: we encourage one another through mutual conversation about the Lord and things of the faith, proclaiming to each other the wonders of what He has done for us in Christ’s cross, we encourage one another through our very presence in worship and other church meetings. The breaking of the bread in Holy Communion is vital for the life of the church, because that is where Christ’s forgiveness, life, and salvation are delivered to us personally. There we are reassured that Christ died not just for the world out there, but for the individual receiving the sacrament. We pray fervently and continually because prayer is our means of communicating our praise, repentance, thanks, and needs to our loving heavenly Father.

As the church, these are the things we do in holding on to what we have. As God’s forgiven and redeemed people, we desire to listen to God’s word and we ought to require of our pastor to weekly declare to us the depth of our sins as well as the great mercies of God in His forgiveness of our sins through Christ.

Just as the church has something it should hold on to, so does our pastor. His job, as found in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, is to “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season, correct, rebuke, and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” His job is to deliver to us, Christ’s people, the condemning words about our sin to drive us to repent from our wickedness that we can receive Christ’s forgiveness weekly, because we sin daily and much. When our pastor drives us away from our sin and back to Christ, he protects us from losing our crown. The life—temporal and eternal—of our church depends on this, holding on to what we have.

Furthermore, because of the great forgiveness and freedom Christ has given us, we want to bring others along that they too might have salvation in Christ, that they might join us in the victory he’s given us over death. Christ has commanded this of us, that we go and make disciples of all nations—including this one—baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything he has commanded us. In order to increase the Church, we must simply proclaim the same thing outside our walls as inside: repentance and the forgiveness of sins found in Christ Jesus. From there, we trust Christ to give the growth, because he has promised that His word is effective, that it’s His word which creates faith through the working of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, we are spurred on to this proclamation of repentance and forgiveness by Christ’s promise to the Philadelphian church.

He said, “I am coming soon.”

Let us trust Him, let us hold on to everything that He has given us. We have been entrusted with the very words of our God. We have forgiveness of our sins in His name.
Let us hold on to these things so that no one can take from us our crown of eternal salvation!

Compared to Christ

2009-12-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

On Monday morning, I read the following section from Philippians, and I've been cogitating on it all week:

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." (3:7-11)

Paul was comparing all of his own merits (circumcised on the 8th day, an Israelite, Benjamite, Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, zealous defender of Judaism against Christian teaching, blameless under the law), the laurels he had which recommended him among his people, to the merit of Christ and the righteousness we have in Him by grace through faith. He called them utter garbage. All of the outward signs that he had which would indicate to other people that he was on the right track, that he was pleasing to God, that he would gain heaven: all worthless. Less than worthless compared to Christ.

It's really incredible that, even though Paul did have all of these wonderful things in his life to commend him to men, he said they were nothing. They had no real worth in his eyes, since only Christ and His righteousness had any lasting value. Paul says that he counts all of his merit as waste that he might: know Christ, share in his sufferings, become like Him in His death, and to attain to the resurrection of the dead. If Paul, oh-so-impressive Paul, considered that he had to lay aside all his own merit and trust in Christ alone for salvation, for the resurrection, then so do I. I must consider all my own merit as worthless and hope rather in Christ alone. Okay, fine. I know that I have no hope for salvation apart from Christ, that there is nothing for me to do, nothing I can do to be forgiven and be saved.

There is a difference in trusting in my "merit", however, and liking the way it looks/feels/sounds on me. I know that I can do nothing for salvation, but I also know there are things I can do solicit praise from men. I value these little trinkets, the laud of men, and even self-glorification. This is the point at which this passage has been working on my heart this week. I trust in Christ alone, but I still place a high value on other things, things which I might formerly have put my trust in. What would life look like if I, like Paul, truly thought and believed that all of my own supposed righteousness was nothing-- NOTHING? What would it be like to truly count everything which could commend me before men as rubbish? What would life be like for me to truly realize the vast gulf between Christ and these little, foul nothings?

Christ is so much more than these things. From here to the moon, to the sun, to Pluto-- so vast is the gulf, the gaping abyss between them and Him. Christ is infinitely more to be adored, honored, thought of, treasured, glorified. And should not the heart leap within me to think on Him; His beauty; and His suffering, dying, and rising love?

---
Lord, forgive me for loving and treasuring little bits of trash more than you. So order my values that You outshine all other things like the sun outshines a single, pitiful twinkle light. Let all my satisfaction be met in You.

On the Eve of a Baptism

2009-11-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow awaits the joy of the addition to the family of God another lovely daughter in the Czech Republic! What a delight it is to be able to celebrate with a friend of mine, Lucie, her baptism. She first believed the promises of Christ's resurrection this summer, and it's been marvelous to see her love for Christ grow, and the level of spiritual maturity that the Lord has given her in such a short time is amazing. Our God can do anything!
It is right and proper that whenever a Christian witnesses a baptism, he remember the promises Christ gave to him at his own baptism. We remember that it was at that time that the Gospel which had been preached to us in Word was delivered to us personally, applied in the water traced in a cross on our foreheads in the name of our Triune God. It was at that time, when the pastor spoke on Christ's behalf that we (yes, us indeed!) were recipients of Jesus' promises, we were united with Him in His baptism, that we were likewise united with Him in His death, and so too, united with Him in His resurrection to new life!

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him." Romans 6:3-8

The beauty of the Gospel being applied to us in baptism is that when we sin, when we fall or are faint of faith, we don't despair of our salvation. We cling to Christ's promises that He gave at our baptism. When the devil attacks, we are able to tell him to go hell, that he has no right to molest or accuse us, because we are baptized, sealed by the Holy Spirit! We are Christ's and Satan has no longer any power over us. And we are more than sure we are Christ's, because He claimed us individually.

What does Baptism give or profit?--Answer: It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.
Which are such words and promises of God? Answer: Christ, our Lord, says in the last chapter of Mark: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Luther's Small Catechism, IV, 2)

The other wonderful beauty which I expect on Lucie's baptism is that it's the first Sunday of Advent. During Advent, we speak of John the Baptist preparing the way for the coming of the Lord by doing his work of baptizing people for repentance. Christ's baptism, which we receive, is greater than John's baptism, but it's an interesting connection that Lucie's baptism, in Advent, will prepare her and giver her confidence for the coming of the Lord. Lovely.

On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
Announces that the Lord is nigh;
Awake and hearken, for he brings
Glad tidings of the King of kings!

May you have a blessed Advent, and may you be prepared for the coming of the Lord: the coming in His birth at Christmas, our remembrance of His coming into Jerusalem to finish the work which He set out from before time to accomplish, and our hopeful gaze toward the skies as we eagerly anticipate his glorious and imminent return.

Enough

2009-11-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

After being on the mission field in the Czech Republic for 18 months, with only 9 to go, I'm looking ahead to what will be after I return to the States. I'm fairly settled (like 95% sure) that I'm going to go back home, and I've got these dreams floating around in my head. All of them involve abandoning my previous pursuit of science altogether to become a worker for the Church and for Christ. This is not me denying secular vocations the Christian, but rather being convinced that the desires of my heart and my passions are changing (have changed) from the pursuit of a secular vocation to a sacred one.

And I'm worrying, doubting myself, and asking all kinds of questions:

Will I be enough to get accepted into this or that program?
Will I impress the powers that be enough to get in?
Will I be good enough at it?
Will I be faithful enough?
Will I learn enough?
Will I work hard enough?
Will I be able to sacrifice myself enough for the service of others?
Will I be willing enough or strong enough to pursue this to the end?
Will I be "holy" enough to get a position after I've been trained?

I'm nothing. I'm not some kind of evangelism genius (if you'd met me, you'd know...). I'm not a particularly effective missionary. I'm not an inspiring teacher. I'm not great at caring for people. I'm more likely to be concerned about myself: my comfort, my reputation, my wants, my needs, my happiness, my, my, my, me, me, me. Ugh.

All of that is my sinful, old nature which I must daily drown in the waters of my baptism. I know this. Service which is pleasing to Christ is not done by the most genius evangelists, the most effective missionaries, the most inspiring teachers, the most caring people. The service rendered to Christ is done by one who can self-identify as a "chief of sinners" who recognizes that, though he or she is not enough, Christ is.

How can we possibly fail at service to Christ if we throw ourselves after Him with all that we as His redeemed people are, delighting to know that though all our deeds are like filthy rags, through His redemption, they are clean and white like snow.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
(2 Cor. 12:9-10)

May you and I be able to rest in our Lord, acknowledging, and boasting in our weaknesses as the Apostle Paul did, knowing that His power is made complete in them. We are not enough. We never will be. But He is enough, He always has been. And He is able to keep us faithful to the end.

Hymn of Comfort

2009-10-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

I need Thy presence ev'ry passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's pow'r?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for ev'ry plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, they victory?
I triumph still if Thou abide with me!

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies.
Heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

For a Time such as This

2009-10-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have heard a few wise pastors say that Christianity is about preparation for death, that the culmination of the Christian life is a Christian end. And so it is that Christians can approach a time like this with sadness lightened by hope, the load of grief lifted by God's promise, looking at our death through the lens of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This afternoon, Pastor Kadlubiec, one of the two pastors of my congregation in Trinec died. Two weeks ago, during one of the regular weekly meetings he had with the seniors from the church, he suffered a brain aneurysm. He'd been in the hospital ever since and made quite rapid improvement from the aneurysm, not even ending up with any paralysis. In the hospital, the doctors discovered an irregularity in his heartbeat, but that also seemed to have corrected itself during the course of his hospital stay.

Pastor Kadlubiec was slated to return home to Hutnik (the parish hall building where I also live) today. I have been told that he was here around noon today. After that, the details get a bit fuzzy for me. Around 1:00 I saw an ambulance from my window, but didn't know what to think of that, because a lot of hospital-related practices here are still a mystery to me. There wasn't any frenzied activity happening, and I hadn't heard any sirens, so I wasn't too concerned. At that time, I needed to go visit Sarka (Pastor Klus' wife) and on my way walked past the Kadlubiec's door. Some other people who work at the church were standing around the open door, and I asked if Pastor was home. One of them answered yes, but that the doctor was seeing him now. So, I put off saying "hi" and went to see Sarka. I returned to my apartment after half an hour, and about an hour later, my roommate knocked on the door and told me that Pastor had died. We were both so shocked because he was supposed to be healthy and coming home to stay.

Anyway, at this time, I still don't know the exact cause of death. His brain was supposed to be okay. His heart was supposed to be okay.

In my thoughts, and those of several of the church ladies I've spoken with, has been the inevitable "you never know when it'll happen." Pastor had just turned 60 in May. We have NO control over the two major events of our lives (birth and death), and very little control over many of the events that happen in between those two. Why do we think that we do? God only is the one who numbers the hairs on our heads and the years of our lives.

I've also been struck with the futility, stupidity of a lot of the things in life that we waste our precious time on (surprise-- not... I'm actually struck by this frequently). Death puts the value of Christ into stark relief against the "value" of other things: games, television, clothes, beauty, knowledge, money, happiness, and any other of the precious little idols that we set up.

I have the scene between Martha and Jesus in Bethany after Lazarus' death playing out in my head, but in the scene, I'm Martha.

Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world." John 11:21-27

Unlike Martha, I suppose I wouldn't tell Jesus that He should have been here. I know that He was. But just like Martha, I know that whatever the Son asks from the Father, the Father will give Him and that my brother Pavel will rise again on the last day. Though Pr. Kadlubiec has died, he shall live, and though I die, so shall I too live again. You too, dear reader: believe and live in Christ Jesus, and never die.

---
Please pray for Irena, Pastor's wife. Pray also for their four children, their spouses, and for the grandchildren. Keep this congregation and all of SCEAV in your prayers, as Pastor's death is a great loss to the whole Silesian Evangelical Church.

The Desires of a Heart

2009-09-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

(Caution: the post to follow is a long, probably quite boring and possibly even able-to-be-interpreted-as narcissistic view into my ponderings about the future. Because we know nothing about the future except that the Lord's return is imminent, this post could be a waste of both your time and my energy. Consider yourself fairly warned.)

Trust in the LORD, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him, and he will act.
Psalm 37:3-5

I've been hoping and waiting for the Lord to put His desires into my heart, that I might do with my life what He would have me do. I suppose that coming from a Lutheran, that seems a little... odd. That's not exactly the way we talk about vocation. Even as I think it and type it, it feels strange, at though the next thing I'm going to say is that I've also been praying about what I should wear tomorrow. Okay, no. That's not what I mean.

The Lord lead me on this crazy journey into volunteer English teaching in the Czech Republic, lead me to be a missionary here. I should also clarify that by crazy, I only mean that 3 years ago, I probably had not a thought in my head about mission work, as far as actually doing it myself. I had no desire for that. I did not really think that it was the kind of thing that I could do. Not because I didn't (in pride) think that I was capable of it, but because I just didn't think that was the kind of thing that I was cut out for. I definitely was not (am still not...) "holy enough" to do it. Missions is the kind of thing that those other, syrupy sweet Christian girls-- one of which I decidedly am NOT-- do. It was something one had to be groomed for her whole life. Not me. I felt groomed for school, studying, teaching (wait a second... that's what I'm doing with a lot of my time...). In my mind's calculator, plugging in "Ashley" plus "missions" always returned "ERROR" or "undefined quantity" like dividing by zero.

Funny thing about God, though. He doesn't let a little thing like our silly notions about mission work or about our own innate capacity for doing His work get in the way of calling us to do what HE wants us to do.

Since I am planning for only another year in volunteer missions in the Czech Republic, I have been trying to figure out the answer to the "what next" question for some time. A year ago at this time I was toying with the idea of returning to entomology or possibly getting a M.S. in Biochemistry, possibly even going into some kind of medicine, but I had a growing interest in working for the Church rather than pursuing a secular vocation. I really can't see myself being personally fulfilled (or as being useful to others) in entomology, or in pretty much any other secular role. Weird. I never thought I would want to be a church worker.

At home this summer, I took a few days to visit Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and chat with the good men there about a possible future studying with them to pursue a career in Deaconess ministry. After speaking with them, and having an interview at the Nebraska District office for admittance into the program, I'm thinking that's still an option, but I feel like I know very little about the possibilities there (note to self: look up rostered, called deaconesses and ask questions about their work). I am really attracted to the idea of studying for a Masters degree in theology at CSL, but don't simply want the degree for the sake of having it.

At any rate, another of the ideas floating through my head for a while has been in the area of Bible translation. It's a bit of a surprise that it's become something that I'd want to even consider. When I was at the U, one of my best friends and her boyfriend were talking about joining Wycliffe after graduation and a wedding and becoming linguists. I thought they were crazy and couldn't understand why they wanted to do that. Now, as I look back, I'm saddened by the hardness of my heart at the time, and amazed that God has made such a change. And what a change.

I've been thinking and praying about the possibility of joining Lutheran Bible Translators for a while (okay, a handful of months) now. Last night before bed I hit up the LBT website. I read for about 45 minutes and just felt like I'd had the wind kicked out of me. In a good way. I seriously was so moved and in me a yearning to become a translator was so stirred that I felt nauseated in a good way (is that possible? If it is, that's what I felt). I couldn't believe it. Then my "it's bedtime now, go to bed" alarm went off (yes, I actually have a clock set in my room to go off at bedtime), and I hit the bed and pulled out my Treasury of Daily Prayer (highly recommended!). The overwhelming emotion (no, I know I'm a Lutheran and we don't operate on feelings, but this one was hard to ignore, and it wasn't something a Pepcid could cure...) didn't go away, but grew as I read the Psalm for the day, #46. It outlines the incredible majesty and power of our God, the mighty works He does and His unwavering sturdiness (the first verse of this psalm is remarkably, but not coincidentally, like the first line of the Reformer's most famous hymn), how because He is with us, we won't fear even the most terrifying disasters. Just incredible. So here's verse 10 which just stopped me in my tracks:

"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

I guess another thing to know about my thinking in the last year is that I've been constantly brought to a screeching halt in my Bible reading when I come across God being exalted among the nations. I can be reading along and enjoying myself, but then every time I read any text which is directly speaking about God being known and worshiped by all the peoples of the world, it catches me like a snag. I had all of a sudden a mental image of our Good Shepherd, as I wander after my own ovine thoughts, catching me by the neck with His crook and saying "look at this and ponder on it my lamb."

I say all that in order to say that the Lord is giving me desires and massaging them into my heart, desires for a future in mission work, desires of working for the translation of the Bible into all the languages of man, that all people on earth would have access to His saving, life-giving, inspired Word. I am working on delighting myself in Him, but when He places before me such captivatingly beautiful gems of a future, it's no work at all to be utterly delighted.

Okay, enough stuff about me. Please pray that God will raise up His people throughout the earth who want to do the work of missions, of evangelism, of Bible translation, of unglamorous, behind the scenes work; for His cross to be proclaimed to all the world.

Flight OS94 to Vienna

2009-09-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

I arrived safely back in Trinec on Sunday evening, September 13th. My flights back here weren't quite as eventful as my many, interesting flights home to Nebraska. I didn't even really get to talk to anyone on 3 of the 4. My seat 'buddy' on the trans-Atlantic flight ignored me for the first hour or so of the flight, which I have to admit that I was pretty bummed about. I was really hoping for as much excitement and Jesus talk on the way back to the field as I was blessed with on the way home. Once he finally started talking to me, he told me WAY more personal stuff about himself than I probably would ever have solicited. However, that led him to ask me about myself and what I do in Europe (bingo! just the question I look forward to). I asked about his church background, and he told me he was raised left-handed Catholic (which apparently is code for Episcopal... I was confused and thought he meant that they were just bad Catholics), but that he, in the course of growing up "learned better" and discovered the wisdom of Celtic religion and describes himself as a druid. Whoa.

I had no idea where that was going to lead us in conversation, so I just asked what that meant that he believes. He said you could also call it wicca (and I thought "oh boy... he's a witch..."). It turned out to be this kind of pantheistic kind of "life force in all things" kind of idea. He told me that it basically boils down to him being a tree hugger and probably one of the "greenest" people that I've ever met, thinking that care for the environment and leaving it better when he dies than when he was born (reminds me of so many school field trips with lunches in public parks... "pick up your trash kids!"). Interesting. I asked him why he cared if the world was a "better place" when he dies, why it matters for him to work to clean up the world. He couldn't give me a much better answer than something about it being the right thing to do, or doing it for his grandkids. Oh.

I told him that God certainly does want us to take care of the earth, that when He created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden, that He told them to care for the plants, to cultivate the garden. I also told him, however, that I would like to leave the world a "better" place when I leave it than when I came, but I can't. Everything I do, everything I touch, every relationship I enter and person I interact with I mess up. I break stuff, no matter how hard I try to do the right thing.

He said that that was a pretty pessimistic view for a Christian to have of things.

I told him that that was pessimistic, but that it was only the first half of the story. I said that God created me and him, loves both of us, but He's holy too, and all of that "messing up" in our lives is called sin (remember he'd told me a LOT about himself already) and banishes us from God's holy presence or utterly destroys us if we try to be in His presence. That's the pessimistic first half. But the optimistic second half is that Christ Jesus, God's Son, was sent into this world to live perfectly, leaving the place truly better at His death.

Now, that's a tree worth hugging!

Jesus died without deserving it, willingly, to take our punishment, our banishment, our destruction so we could be with God. I also told him that when Jesus returns at the end of time, He will restore all of creation to perfection, all people and all of nature. My friend really perked up at that point.

Until I finished telling him all this, he simply stared into the middle distance and listened hard. I could tell that that the wheels in his head were turning. He had the same look on his face as my Slovak and Jehovah's Witness acquaintances had had on the opposite direction flight just a month before.

It just so happened that we both had VERY long layovers in Vienna and were both planning on going into the city. It also just so happened (to my single, vulnerable, and alone young lady's dismay) that we managed to be heading for the train to the city at the same time. So, I was "stuck" wandering around Vienna with him for about 6 hours. The wandering also gave me more chance to speak with him about Christ and to give him an apparently much needed listening ear.

Praise God for the blessing of those many hours with my new friend, for the opportunity for me to tell him about Christ, for the opportunity for him to hear the Truth!

---
Please pray for "Rob", that the Holy Spirit will pursue him tenaciously, not ceasing in his pursuit until He catches another child for our blessed Father in heaven, loosing him from his bondage to sin and death, and freeing another worshiper for our blessed Jesus Christ, a worker for the Kingdom of our God.

Kyrie eleison!

Children's English and Dorost Camp

2009-08-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

The final week of July-- the 27th through the 31st-- was my final English camp for the summer. During this week, a few women from the church in Trinec, a few American volunteers, some Czech youth volunteers and I worked together to do an English day camp for children at the parish hall of our church. For 5 days, from 9 to 3, we basically had a VBS in English for the Czech kids, ages 7 to 12. Some of the children were from our church, but a lot of them were from non-Christian families who have a strong desire for their children to know English. Our activities included singing, story time, Bible story time, snacks, crafts, 2 English lessons, lunch, and outdoor sports everyday. We used last summer's CPH VBS materials (the leftovers from my home congregation), and so our theme was all about friendship, what kind of friend Jesus is for us, and how we can be good friends for others because of Jesus' friendship for us. My favorite part of the day was working with my students to learn their Bible memory verses every day.

For me, the greatest blessing of the week was getting to know one of the women on the American team. The American team was composed of three people, two were my World Mission field coordinators, David and Radka Fiala. The third was a dear Mrs. Carlton from Michigan, the widow of an LCMS pastor who has an extensive background in overseas missions and who has spent the majority of her summer in Poland and the Czech Republic, serving her neighbor in Jesus' name at English camps and laboring for Habitat for Humanity in Poland. This woman was such an encouragement and blessing to me in so many ways, and her love for her Lord and the people He died to save was inspiring.

---
Bright and early on Saturday morning after the Children's English camp ended, I was on the road to go to a 7 day youth camp with the youth group from the Trinec congregation. About 5 adults, 25 youth, and I went to a sort of retreat center just outside of the village of Čim, which is about 50 km south of Prague. The area was surrounded by woods and hills, with a creek flowing through the camp's grounds to a nearby lake. We spent the week hiking, swimming, boating, and running around after dark playing games in the woods. We also spent part of one morning rolling down a hill in our sleeping bags and playing other great sleeping bag games. Two times a day we met in small groups for discussion of our daily topics, Bible reading, and prayer. In the evenings, we had a speaker each night to teach us from Scripture something related to our camp theme.

The theme was "Two Ways" and we talked about this in two contexts, the first, the difference between the Two Ways that people live, with and without faith in Christ. The second context was in decision making in the Christian life and what kinds of things in our lives we often struggle with that can either draw us nearer to Christ or draw us away from Him. The topics included laziness, peer pressure, loneliness and fear, among others.

The week was a great time for me to get know the youth better and make great friends of a few of the girls [younger sisters, at their request :) ]. It was also a good chance for me to deepen my friendship with some of the teen leaders of the youth, as well as expand my Czech vocabulary. It was also a very fun, relaxing week, a good one for my last week in the country before a month-long vacation at home in the States.

---
Please pray:
-for the kids who learned about Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and promised return for the first time during the children's English camp: pray that the Holy Spirit will grow the seed of the Word which was planted in them during the camp, giving them faith in Christ and salvation in His name
-for the youth group: that these young people will continue in their faith, growing and following Christ, not being distracted or discouraged from the Lord by the things of this world. Pray that the young men will grow up to be strong men of faith, understanding what it means to be a man of God, spreading the Gospel to those all around them, growing to be leaders in the Church. Pray for the girls, that they will grow up in their faith, finding joy in the Lord and strength from Him, and learning who they are as women in Christ.

Xcamp

2009-08-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

Xcamp was from July 18 to the 25th. It is a huge youth gathering organized by people from my church here, SCEAV. It is a big tent, week-long evangelism meeting. The teenagers stay over night and have small group discussion/Bible studies, attend fun workshops and seminars on different Christian topics in the mornings. In the afternoons adults (and young people not staying on-site) come to hear the evangelist speak, to sing, to have supper, and then attend a concert in the evening.

Xcamp by night.
The teens slept in the tents in the background.
All the meetings happened in the big tent on the right.

This year was my second year at the camp, and I have to say it was far superior to last year. This year I wasn't lonely because I'd spent the whole year getting to know people who were at the camp. It was a lot easier for me this year, because my Czech has really improved, so I wasn't lost all the time. The evangelist was an American, too, so that didn't hurt, to be listening in English (and also paying close attention to the translation, too).

Xcamp by day.

This year was wonderful for meeting new friends, and I was especially blessed to have some pretty extensive, deep, hard conversations with some non-Christians. The most memorable was talking with a young man who'd been invited to the camp by one of our mutual friends. We spent a very long time talking about God, what kind of a being He is. My new friend, R., is the most honest non-Christian I've ever met. He knows and believes that God exists, that He sent His Son to die for the sins of the world, but for him none of that matters because he hates God. That's right, those are his words. He admitted it. It's important to note that most people who hate God (i.e. everyone who hasn't been given the gift of faith in Christ Jesus-- the Bible describes all of us before faith as God's enemies) won't come right out and say it. They'll say they don't believe He exists, that He's just a fairytale. Or they'll say that they don't know. Or they'll say that they hope that they are well behaved enough to get into heaven, even if it probably doesn't exist (figure out THAT logic...).

No, R. is honest. He knows God exists. He also knows that because of his own rebellion against God, he deserves hell. He kicks against this, it chafes on him, because he knows that there are only two options: believe, trust and worship God or go to hell. He doesn't want either one. He says, "It's not fair. God didn't ask me if I wanted to be created, and now I have to love Him or suffer." He says that God is evil because in spite of the fact that He knew before creating the world that there would be sin and that His creatures would not believe Him, that they would go to hell, He still created them. And He still created them with the possibility of sin. "Why didn't God just create everyone in heaven with no sin to begin with?"

As you can imagine, it was a very long, very difficult conversation to explain to someone who hates God, who thinks Him evil, that He's really good, that He defines good. And how to explain the "WHY" questions: Why did God still do it? Why is there evil? Why did He create ME, knowing that I wouldn't want to exist? I had my work more than cut out for me. My concern for R. and that God would shower His grace on him, snatch him out of his sin and rebellion and hatred for God, has been hard on my heart in prayer. It pains me that someone can confess that my God is but so COMPLETELY miss who He is and what He has done, the nature of His altogether lovely and irresistible wonder, goodness, and holiness.

*Interesting note that God's nature is so hidden from and unknown to R. This year's Xcamp theme was "K neznámému Bohu" or "to an unknown God," from Paul's visit to Athens in the Acts of the Apostles. We spent the whole week talking about God's various attributes...

I had another conversation with a girl, B., who sort of grew up in the church, but now she doesn't think she really needs "that kind of thing." She was at the camp because she had been visiting her grandmother, attended church with her, was caught by the kids in the youth group and insistingly invited to come.

Of course I had a number of talks with fellow believers which were of untold encouragement, conversations which magnified Christ's goodness and glory, the wonder of His atoning death. In short, it was a great week and I'm looking forward to attending the camp again next summer!

My Xcamp group
Ashley Angerman (center, in white), the other LCMS missionary in the Czech Republic, and I led it together.
The photographer wasn't concerned with making us look good...

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Please please PLEASE pray for R. and for all other people like him who are at such all out enmity against God. Pray that God would make His own glory great by conquering such a rebellious heart and making him to be a worshiper of Jesus Christ. If the Lord can save a sinner like me, He can surely do the little thing of rescuing R. from his sin and rebellion! May the Lord open R.'s eyes to His own infinite mercy, goodness, and love to him through Jesus Christ and give him joy in living eternal life before the throne of the Almighty!

Please also pray for B. that she will see her need for the Lord and believe that Jesus has died for her sins, to make her His own and to be her treasure.

Y?:

2009-07-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

English Camp

This summer's English Camp in Smilovice, a nearby village, was July 6-12. This was such an incredible camp this year. Last year was good, of course, but this year was incredible. It felt to me as though this year was really focused on what is important, that is, that this year the point of the camp was to tell the teens in attendance about Christ, and English was simply the means to do that (last year I felt as though the camp was more concerned about "fun" and teaching English).

Just as last year, an American team came from two congregations in San Jose, CA (and one man from Iowa). The team of 12 people (3 women and 9 men, 4 teens and 8 adults) arrived in Trinec a few days before the camp started in order to have a day for the American and Czech teams to bond and to create one English Camp leadership team. This was a great addition to the camp, as it really allowed the teams to unify, to get to know one another, and to get on the same page, that this year we were going to be about sharing Christ first and teaching English second. We also had a lot of fun, having a photo scavenger hunt at a local castle during the day, and cooking dinner for each other in the afternoon.

English Camp T-birds

During the camp, every day we had English classes, Bible studies, and discussion topics. There were also activities such as a hike up a mountain to the location where Protestant Christians from the area would meet to worship during the persecution of the counter reformation, lots of sports and outdoor games, crafts, and free time. In the evenings, we had several different programs, such as a campfire, an Oldies party, a talent show, and a very complicated scavenger hunt with a puzzle and text message clues, which we played throughout the whole of the village of Smilovice.

One of my favorite parts of the camp was getting into deep discussion with another of the leaders (our wonderful, German photographer) about how we are saved, whether God or man does the choosing (which of course, God chooses us and man is completely incapable of making any kind of "decision for Christ": we are DEAD in sin and trespasses before the Holy Spirit calls us and gives us life through the Word). This was a very lively, passionate conversation which had many rounds and lasted a couple hours in total. For me it was wonderful, because it was the first time I've really had a chance to get into a debate with someone about anything in over a year. It was so refreshing for me to be able to go deep with this brother of mine, to completely disagree with one another but to still have great friendship and mutual respect, still being able to enjoy one another's company. Wow it was great.

Finally, the theme of the camp this year was "Y" and we, every day, took on one of the difficult "Why" questions of life (my dad always says "you can't answer 'why' questions"; nevertheless, we still labored to give answers to life from God's Word to the kids in attendance).

Good things have already come from the camp for God's kingdom. L-- a non-Christian girl who came with her Christian friend, B, to camp-- said to B last weekend, only a week after the end of English camp, and said, "By the way, I'm a Christian now." Hallelujah, God be praised for adding people to His eternal kingdom!

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Please pray that the students from English camp who learned about Christ, but who have not believed in Him yet: that the Holy Spirit would do His work in their heart though the Word of Christ which they have heard. Also pray that the students who already knew Christ before the camp would persevere in their faith and that they gladly seek out opportunities to tell other about the forgiveness which they have in Jesus Christ, our wonderful God and Savior.

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"God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved." Ephesians 2:4-5

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." John 15:16

Words and Memory

2009-07-02T13:43:00.001-07:00

A waste of time for you, fun for me

I've spent the better part of this week studying for the GRE, which I will take when I am home in August. I spent 2 whole days refreshing my math skills (it's been 6 YEARS since I've had a math class!) and another whole day working on vocabulary. As I was reading through the hundreds of words and definitions that I found in an online GRE study guide, I actually went on kind of a trip down memory lane.

It's said that smell is the sense that's most strongly tied to memory. That may be true, but for me, certain words this week have brought up some pretty vivid memories, too. For some of the words, I remember exactly what was happening when I learned them, for others, there's some incident which strongly attaches itself to the word, which I had learned long before. I'm including a list here for your reading pleasure, assuming that you're interested in my memories and how I have learned some of my vocabulary. You're probably not, but you would rather read this and waste your time than do something more important. ;) I'm not going to include actual definitions here (just allusions to them), so you'll have to look them up on your own if you come across a word that's new for you. Sorry.

I actually don't like this painting
(it's what my dad, and I, would call "weird"),
but I thought it fit with today's theme

acumen: from listening to Edgar Allen Poe on tape when I was... 12 years old (?) My mom bought a cassette tape boxed set of Poe and this word occurred in my favorite tale, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

anemia: learned from a bright Senior trouble-maker who wrote for our school newspaper when I was in 8th or 9th grade. He had created a cartoon which questioned the wisdom of an already pale, blond, fellow Senior participating in the blood drive.

apogee and perigee: 8th grade shop class? I'm not sure why we needed to know this, but I remember having a really hard time getting my mind around the concept (you mean the moon's orbit isn't actually a circle?) and remembering which was which.

bacchanalia: thanks to my second semester freshman Classics 180 professor (Greek Mythology), who, for a full month before spring break referred to the impending bacchanalia in EVERY class session I'll never forget this word.

benevolent: first day of 7th grade English with Mrs. Gautreaux. We had two assignments right off the bat: to write our autobiographies (which became graduation gifts 6 years later...) and to figure out what "benevolent dictatorship" meant, because that's what we were getting ourselves into in her class.

bullion: from 4th grade when we read Snow Treasure, a book about school children in Norway sneaking the country's gold to safety on their sleds, right under the noses of the Nazis

cache: I'll never forget this word after the private embarrassment of not knowing what the proctor was talking about when he read this word in the Saline County spelling bee when I was in 7th grade. As far as spelling bee embarrassment goes, it was worse for me when I misspelled "superintendent" at County... I sometimes still second-guess myself on this word (sorry to let you down, Dad).

cogent and copious: favorite words of a very smart ex-boyfriend

colloquium: Senior year of high school, the Honors' Colloquium was one of many wonderful UNL-related excuses to get out of school... I had to find out if I REALLY wanted to go there, to miss as much class as possible, and to have fun speaking informally with other potential UNL Honors freshmen

diorama: learned from a project created by boys in my 6th grade class. I was secretly embarrassed that these boys new a word that I didn't know (of course I didn't let them know that I didn't know...)

doldrums: second semester sophomore year at university we read Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in my "Brit. Lit." class. and the whole poem took the wind out of my sails.

eugenics: from my sophomore year genetics text book. I'm glad I'd never even heard of this word before then, now wish I'd never had to, terrible stuff...

expedite: this word will probably be forever linked in my mind with bribing the government to do its job. Did you know that it doesn't REALLY take them 6-10 weeks to process a new passport?

gait: learned from helping my mom work with some of her less ambulatory patients

hypochondriac: this word was cemented for me in high school when one of my classmates-- who shall remain nameless-- was constantly worried (hoped?) that she had appendicitis or some other tragic and interesting health problem

ignominy: from my summers of light reading... this word was almost embarrassingly-- shamefully-- repetitive in The Scarlet Letter

inconceivable: forever in my mind linked with Wallace Shawn's lisping Vizzini in The Princess Bride ("I don't think that word means what you think it means")... Another great word from this movie: putrescence (boo! boo!).

insipid: another word learned from learning Spanish... one day during lunch with my host family in Mexico, my host mom and I had a lengthy discussion about our sopa insipida (insipid soup), as she tried to figure out what should be added to the broth. As she was wont to do, she took the insipid theme and extrapolated it out to a lot of fun word play... oh, Rosa.

mangy: from Papa making fun of my brother's favorite stuffed animal, a fox puppet, which he constantly-- to my brother's displeasure-- referred to as a "mangy squirrel". Still makes me laugh. :D

menagerie: from Disney's Aladdin, the song "Prince Ali," when Aladdin comes parading into town to impress the sultan and win his beautiful daughter's hand (this song also taught me the words genuflect, hoards, coterie, amorous, and fakirs).

morbid: from reading Jurassic Park in 6th grade (my first Crichton novel... ahh).

pestilence: Mrs. Gautreaux's middle son had a brief obsession with this word-- saying it like 5 times in one day-- when my 8th grade Sunday school class was talking about the 10 plagues in Egypt.

predilection: solidified for me through my study of Spanish... predilecto is another word for "favorite" in that language.

pyromaniac: oddly, I learned this from our church's vicar in my 7th grade confirmation class in Crete... during a discussion of the 6th commandment. Figure THAT one out (okay, it comes from the name of a band called "Porno for Pyros" and he was trying to be hip in talking about the commandments with my reprobate classmates).

slovenly: I was a bit hurt, but undaunted, when I learned this word for the first time, since it was used about me. My grandma said it because I wasn't wearing nylons to the prom.

subsidiary: this word was embossed with the name of the toilet paper company (which I don't remember...) on the toilet paper dispenser in the Nemaha Valley High School girl's room. Inside my mind is a strange place to be, remembering THAT.

surreptitious: When you're as much of a fan of 19th Century British romance novels as I am (Austen and the Bronte sisters), you're always coming across people sneaking these secret peeks at their objects of affection

vagabond: Disney songs ARE educational. This one comes from The Lion King's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight." Interesting that when I was in high school, one of my best friends misused this word, thinking it was some kind of designation of royalty. When I asked him why he thought that, he cited The Lion King... He was pretty excited about it, though, when I explained that it basically means "hobo." He likes the word "hobo."

verbose: learned from my high school guidance counselor, Mr. Gallagher, the LAST time I was preparing for a standardized test.

warren: Just about the only thing I remember about Watership Down which Mom read aloud in its entirety during a family vacation roadtrip when my brother and I were kids. I never thought that rabbits were all that interesting...

I have more words that stirred up memories for me during my recenty vocabulary study, but I'm sure that 30 is more than enough to include in this list.

Good-bye

2009-06-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

I've been saying a remarkable number of good-byes in the last week or so. I said my temporary good-byes to most of my students during class over a week ago (I didn't have to teach at the school during the last week due to myriad non-classroom school events happening, such as a track and field day, etc.). This past Monday I said good-bye to my preschoolers, 5 or 6 of whom will be my first-graders in the fall.

On Monday I also said good-bye to my dear Eliska in Navsi. She's the only member of the English conversation club which Pr. Chodura and I started at the elementary school there. It may have been a permanent good-bye, I don't know. What a dear girl. She was a ninth-grader, and so next year she's going to high school in a different town, and in fact, her family is moving there so she doesn't have to commute. I'm sad to have to say good-bye to her, because I want so badly to be able to continue to tell her about Christ. She claims not to believe that God exists. When we said good-bye, in our final "club" meeting (just the two of us :) ), I had a teacher from the school take our picture together, and I gave her an English Bible as a gift (Contemporary English Version, a not great, but easier-to-read translation). I had spent time highlighting several passages that I hope the Holy Spirit will use to open her eyes (though He can certainly use whichever passages He wants!), and I told her that, in spite of the fact that she doesn't believe God exists, there are many good reasons to read the Bible. I explained that idea to her, and talked to her about which book she should read first (The Gospel according to St. John, of course). I sincerely hope that she will read it and continue to wonder about that crazy American who came to speak with her every week, to be her friend and to introduce her to the love of Christ.

On Monday and Tuesday night, I had an end-of-the-year party with my evening classes. We ate fabulous ice cream and played games. It was, for me, a very wonderful way to wrap things up, bring them to a close until the fall-- probably October-- when I can start up again. It warmed my heart that so many of my students asked when we'd start again, and when I told them, they balked at the word "October" and asked why it would be so LONG before they could have class with me. Many of them told me that they loved my classes and that they would really miss having English every week. What a wonderful thing to be told.

On Wednesday evening, there was a party for the 9th-graders, their parents, and all the teachers from our school. These kids are going to all go their separate ways in the fall (two of them to bilingual Czech and English high schools!). It was a lovely evening with clever skits, presentation of gifts and flowers, and even a quiz game competition between the three groups present (parents v. teachers v. students; the teachers won! right on!). There was no shortage of emotion on the part of the 9th-grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Heczko. He was working hard not to cry as he said "thank you" and "good-bye" to his kids. It was even sad for me, though my contact with the 9th class this year was somewhat limited (this year the Czech government decided that English conversation shouldn't be required for 9th graders, because they already had too many classroom hours).

On Friday afternoon, there was another going away party with the school, as the vice director of the school is retiring after 40 years of teaching. I'm going to miss this lovely lady next year. She doesn't speak more than a few words of English (thank you, you're welcome, hello... you know, the basics), but her tender, precious heart came across even to me.

Of all the good-bying, Thursday afternoon was the most significant for me. The three other LCMS girls in this area got together for "tea time" to chat and to say good-bye to Stephanie, who is leaving now after two years in Cieszyn, Poland. Thinking about her departure is really a sad thing for me, as she's been my closest friend here. I can't imagine what it would have been like to come here and not have her only 30 min. away from me. From the first time we met, we really hit it off, already being able to joke around with each other and relate well to one another from the very start. I'm so grateful for the listening, sympathizing ear that she gave when I started to experience my culture shock, my thoughts of "what in the world have I done in coming here?", and all of the adjustments that I had to make. Without her already culturally adjusted influence just across the Polish border, ready to laugh and to listen and to share words of wisdom, I probably would have gone crazy. It was so precious to me during my first months here to meet with her nearly every Friday afternoon to just talk about what was going on and to have our Book of Concord reading club (however short-lived :P).

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Please pray:
-for Eliska, that the Holy Spirit will work through His Word, to open her eyes to the Truth, and to mercifully give her faith in Christ Jesus, who has died for her.
-for all the students and teachers, that they would have a safe, happy, and restful summer
-for Stephanie, that her last few days in Poland would be productive, that her return to the States would be safe, and that she would quickly and joyfully adjust to life in America without too much heartache over leaving her beloved Poland.
-that our dear Lord Jesus Christ would continue to make His Word known throughout the nations of the world, and that He would continue to use us, His small, weak instruments, to do the eternally majestic and glorious work of telling of His wonders and mercies-- His Cross-- to all He's pleased to put into our path.

A Purpose-Driven Life

2009-06-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today I was listening to a back-issue of Table Talk Radio on podcast and this was one of the questions (and answers) in the game "Are you smarter than a first-year seminarian?":

Q: What in the world does God have me here on the earth for? What's my purpose in life?

A: You're on the earth so that Jesus can love you and forgive you all of your sins. It's not a question of what you're doing, but a question of what Jesus is doing for you. Instead of being burdened with things to do, with the law, the purpose is simply to receive the gifts of God.

I particularly liked it, with the craziness of these days, everyone running around and trying to do stuff to please God, trying to figure out what we're here for. The question was asked and answered in the context of an elderly person who is ill and suffering, not able to be out and about, "doing useful things," for the Kingdom. Even though it was asked in the context of age and failing health, the answer is true regardless of age, health, or any other of the variables of life. It's true that God has prepared good works in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10), but they aren't our ultimate purpose. After all, it's the case that the good works were given for us to do, not that we were created so that good works might be done. We are here so that Jesus can love us and forgive us our sins. Awesome.

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"It would be better if you had never done a good work in your life so you had nothing to trust in but Jesus." Bryan Wolfmueller (Table Talk Radio, episode #46)

Reading Rainbow: May

2009-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

I have read 5-- yeah, that's right 5!-- books in the month of May. Three of them I'm going to advertise here. The other two I'll mention, but not necessarily advertise. The two: "Prey" by Michael Crichton (may he rest in peace), and "Daisy Miller" by Henry James. I've been reading Crichton for 12 years now, and he's never failed to steal my attention from just about anything else when I'm reading him. James' novella was alright, but not anything really spectacular. Okay, that covers the honorable mentions. Now down to the meat (in order of reading).

Book 1: "Let the Nations be Glad" by John Piper (by the way, if anyone knows how to underline on blogger, let me know... my inner English teacher is screaming that I can't properly underline a book title here...) Subtitled "The Supremacy of God in Missions," this book took me a long time to really get rolling in, because it feels like nearly every sentence is another thesis. However, it was VERY good in that it very clearly outlines the remaining need for missions throughout the world. Mr. Piper lays out the case for pioneering missions, citing manifold verses from throughout Scripture which say that every nation, tribe, people and language will be represented before the throne of God in the new heaven and new earth. If every nation, tribe, people, and language are to be represented in heaven, then our primary task in missions is to reach every nation, tribe, people and language. As each of these different types of groups is reached, then the newly established churches ought to work to reach all the individuals in their purview.

Some might assume that the task of pioneering missions isn't that great, thinking, "What's the big deal? The whole world knows about Jesus." Wrong. According to the Lutheran Bible Translators webpage, of the 6,912 languages spoken on planet Earth, only 429 have a complete Bible in the language. This means that 6,483 languages have only partial access to the Bible. In fact, there are 4,486 languages with NO TRANSLATED PART of the Bible! And in English we have more than 20 different translations. Of course Bible translation isn't the only point of pioneering missions, but if they have no access to Scripture, it is quite difficult to know Jesus and His saving work. How many of those nearly 4,500 languages without Scripture are also languages where our Savior's name remains unspoken?

Book 2: "Peace Child" by Don Richardson. Mr. Richardson was a missionary to Netherlands New Guinea (today Papua New Guinea) in the 1960s. He went to tell about Jesus to a tribe of "stone age" people. These people, the Sawi, were cannibals in whose society, the highest virtue was treachery and "fattening with friendship." This refers to the high honor given to those who were able to deceive their enemies into trusting a friendship, and then, when the victim's guard was down, to strike, killing and cannibalizing the victim. Because of their vengefulness and deceit, this people was broken into many small villages which had long standing feuds between them. The only way to stop the warring and treachery was for a "peace child" to be given. This meant that one man from each village had to give his son in exchange for a son of the other village. The fathers would exchange names and this peace child would be protected more fiercely than the biological children of the village, because maintenance of peace depended entirely on the life of the peace child. If the child died, his parental village had the right of vengance.

The incredible way which God prepared even such a barbaric people for the Good News of the ultimate Peace Child, Jesus Christ gripped me as I read. WE were at war with God, and He gave us His Peace Child, His ONLY Son. And we even killed the peace child, an offense which, for the Sawi, would mean retribution. But with God, it meant the guarantee of peace. Because He had given us His Peace Child, the war would NEVER start again-- He kept His word, even when justified in taking His retribution on His enemies: us. INCREDIBLE book. How many other unreached peoples are out there, into whose cultures God has already woven the material needed to clearly point to His Son and His salvation?

Book 3: "Shadow of the Almighty" by Elisabeth Elliot. Mrs. Elliot compiled journal entries and letters of Jim Elliot with letters written to him in order to give the reader a fuller picture of her husband who gave "what he [could] not keep to gain what he [could] not lose" (the most famous quotation from Mr. Elliot, quite possibly the most famous missionary of the 20th century). The passion which Jim exhibited throughout his life for the Lord, for obedience to His will, and for Gospel proclamation to those who had never heard of his Savior is simply overwhelming. I pray that I might have even a fraction of Elliot's passion and single-mindedness in following his Lord where He led.

I am currently reading yet another missions book, "Chasing the Dragon" by Jackie Pullinger. I'm only a few pages into it, but I have a feeling that it's going to be another story in which God's power for saving people is put on display. I'm sure that it will make my jaw drop and my heart beat faster for the cause of those who don't know my incredible Savior. I sure hope so.

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Please pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send out laborers into His fields! They are, after all, ripe for the harvest! Pray that Christ will continue to do His work of saving for Himself an inheritance from all the nations, tribes, peoples and languages of the earth. Pray that He will continue to make peace with His enemies and snatch lost and dying sinners from the clutches of sin, death, and Satan.

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"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" Revelation 7:9-10

Three that testify

2009-05-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

On Friday night last week, we had quite possibly the best mládež group (the word means "youth", but the demographic translates culturally as "college group") meeting that we've had since I've been here (a whole year). Our topic for the evening was "Assurance of Salvation" and our speaker was Pastor Taska from the congregation in neighboring Oldřichovice. Pr. Taska had chosen for his text 1 John 5:5-12:

"Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life."

Pastor Taska began his talk by assuring us that it isn't arrogance, as some assume, to be sure that we are saved. He gave examples of people he's been to visit who, though being believers, say they aren't sure-- and possibly don't feel that they should be sure (the arrogance thing)-- if they're saved, if they'll go to heaven when they die. He said, rather, that God our Father wants us to be sure. He also said, that because we have faith in Christ, that we have eternal life right now, that we don't have to wait till we die to have eternal life. He told (something like) the following story as an illustration.

There was a little girl who thought her grandmother's vase was very beautiful and asked her grandma if she could please have it, because she liked it so much. The grandmother replied that the little girl could not have it right now, but that it was hers; that when she would be a little older, she could keep it herself. Every time the little girl came to visit Grandma and see the vase, she would ask her grandma if the vase was really her own. The grandma would always reply, "Of course it's yours." The little girl brought a friend of hers one day, pointed to the vase and said, "You see that vase? That's mine!"

We are like the little girl: Eternal life (the vase) IS ours, right now, though it may not look like it. The Lord (like the grandmother) wants us to know that it's ours, and we can ask Him over and over again, the answer is still the same: "It IS yours!" Likewise, we can point to eternal life and tell others: "You see that eternal life? That's mine!"

After this illustration, Pastor Taska posed and answered the question: How do we know that salvation-- eternal life in Christ-- is ours? The answer was verses 7 and 8: "There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree." How do we know that we have salvation? The Holy Spirit, speaking through the Word tells us that we are the children of God. The water of baptism delivers to us our salvation by applying to us the water and the words of baptism in the Name of our Triune God, giving us faith and naming us "Christian"; God claiming us for His own. The blood of Christ, which we receive through the cup in the Lord's Supper, with His body in the bread, truly delivers our Lord to us, and where our Lord Jesus is, there is forgiveness, life and salvation. So, as God comes to us in His gifts of the Word and the sacraments, these things testify that we indeed belong to Christ, and therefore have assurance of salvation.

When Pastor Taska had finished his formal presentation, in the discussion, one of the young people present said that after a long day of ups and downs-- starting the day with the Lord, then going to school and doing other things of "normal life," not thinking about God, and then, trying to end the day again with the Lord, but assaulted by the memories of his various sins throughout the course of the day-- he often wondered if he really was Christ's if he had lived in this faltering way. Someone said that he ought, in those times, to remember the time when he first believed and was saved. Pastor Taska, brilliantly, interjected something so important at that point. He cautioned us not to look to the moment we first believed for the assurance that we are saved, because the moment we believed took place after we had been saved.

He said that he himself had been saved on a Friday afternoon around 3:00, around the year 33 (at this point I was a little confused, because I thought he was referring to 1933-- I was listening to the whole evening without translation-- and Pr. Taska definitely isn't that old). He said that he was saved, and we were too, not when we believed, or "accepted Jesus into our hearts," but when Jesus cried out "It is finished" and died. He told us not to look to our own decisions or lives for assurance of our salvation, but to look to Christ.

When all the discussion about the topic was finished, I broke into spontaneous applause (yeah, it was that good). I couldn't help myself. I had been nodding, smiling, crying, and whispering amens throughout the talk. It was so good because it was ALL JESUS, all the real Gospel for Christ's true people; pure gold! I wanted so much to express my deep appreciation to Pr. Taska, but couldn't fully. Though I listened without translation (and honestly understood probably 90% of the words, not just 90% of the thoughts, but words!), I certainly am not capable of expressing myself adequately-- yet-- in Czech.

May we all remember that we can know we're saved because of the testimony of the three which agree: the Spirit and the water and the blood. Let us not give up remembering this and seeking Christ in these three, where He delivers Himself and His salvation to even sinners like us!

---
Please pray for Pavla, that she would read through John and send me her questions, as she promised. Though she's gone to youth group for a long time, she has never believed, and says that it's impossible to believe, and yet is willing to hear about Jesus and to read the Word herself. May the Holy Spirit give her faith through the life-giving Word!

Happy Anniversary

2009-05-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my arrival in the Czech Republic for my service here as a missionary and English teacher.

Looking back, I can't believe it's been so long, because it feels like it has just flown by. I imagine I'll feel that way this time next year, as I finish my second and final year here, to return to the United States and the Lord knows what else.

---
Heavenly Father, our times are in Your hands. Look with favor on me as I celebrate this anniversary. Grant that I may continue to grow in wisdom and grace. Strengthen my trust in Your goodness and bless me with Your abiding love all the days of my life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Easy(er) to Find

2009-05-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

Since establishing my new blog address and title, I've learned that it's actually LESS convenient for people, since you can't find my blog any more by typing my name into a google search. This is my attempt to give google searchers a hand:

Ashley Effken

Christ in the Flesh

2009-04-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

It turns out that to learn more about a problem, all I have to do is keep reading. This morning I was reading the appointed Book of Concord section, from the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord (I'm turning into a really Lutheran nerd: not a bad thing), and I found this. No thoughts of my own, today, just those of some old Lutherans:

"Our basic arguments, on which we have always stood in this matter since the outbreak of the dispute regarding this article, are the same as those that Dr. Luther set down in the following words initially against the sacramentarians. (Dr. Luther in his Large Confession concerning the Holy Supper): My reasons upon which I rest in this matter are the following:

1. The first is this article of our faith: Jesus Christ is essential, natural, true, perfect God and man in one person, inseparable and undivided.
2. The second, that God's right hand is everywhere.
3. The third, that God's Word is not false, nor does it lie.
4. The fourth, that God has and knows of many modes of being in any place, and not only the single one concerning which the fanatics talk flippantly, and which philosophers call localem, or local.
Also: The one body of Christ [says Luther] has a threefold mode or all three modes of being anywhere.
First, the comprehensible, bodily mode, as He went about bodily upon earth, when, according to His size, He vacated and occupied space [was circumscribed by a fixed place]. This mode He can still use whenever He will, as He did after the resurrection, and will use at the last day, as Paul says, 1 Tim. 6:15: "Which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed God [and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords]." And to the Colossians, 3:4: "When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear." In this manner He is not in God or with the Father, neither in heaven, as the mad spirits dream; for God is not a bodily space or place. And this is what the passages how Christ leaves the world and goes to the Father refer to which the false spirits cite.
Secondly, the incomprehensible, spiritual mode, according to which He neither occupies nor vacates space, but penetrates all creatures wherever He pleases [according to His most free will]; as, to make an imperfect comparison, my sight penetrates and is in air, light, or water, and does not occupy or vacate space; as a sound or tone penetrates and is in air or water or board and wall, and also does not occupy or vacate space; likewise, as light and heat penetrate and are in air, water, glass, crystal, and the like, and also do not vacate or occupy space; and much more of the like [many comparisons of this matter could be adduced]. This mode He used when He rose from the closed [and sealed] sepulcher, and passed through the closed door [to His disciples], and in the bread and wine in the Holy Supper, and, as it is believed, when He was born of His mother [the most holy Virgin Mary].
Thirdly, the divine, heavenly mode, since He is one person with God, according to which, of course, all creatures must be far more penetrable and present to Him than they are according to the second mode. For if, according to that second mode, He can be in and with creatures in such a manner that they do not feel, touch, circumscribe, or comprehend Him, how much more wonderfully will He be in all creatures according to this sublime third mode, so that they do not circumscribe nor comprehend Him, but rather that He has them present before Himself, circumscribes and comprehends them! For you must place this being of Christ, who is one person with God [for you must place this mode of presence of Christ which He has by His personal union with God], very far, far outside of the creatures, as far as God is outside of them; and again as deep and near within all creatures as God is within them. For He is one inseparable person with God; where God is, there must He also be, or our faith is false. But who will say or think how this occurs? We know indeed that it is so, that He is in God outside of all creatures, and one person with God, but how it occurs we do not know; it [this mystery] is above nature and reason, even above the reason of all the angels in heaven; it is understood and known only by God. Now, since it is unknown to us, and yet true, we should not deny His words before we know how to prove to a certainty that the body of Christ can by no means be where God is, and that this mode of being [presence] is false. This the fanatics must prove; but they will forego it.
Now, whether God has and knows still more modes in which Christ's body is anywhere, I did not intend to deny herewith, but to indicate what awkward dolts our fanatics are, that they concede to the body of Christ no more than the first, comprehensible mode; although they cannot even prove that to be conflicting with our meaning. For in no way will I deny that the power of God may accomplish this much that a body might be in many places at the same time, even in a bodily, comprehensible way. For who will prove that this is impossible with God? Who has seen an end to His power? The fanatics indeed think thus: God cannot do it. But who will believe their thinking? With what do they make such thinking sure?" (Article VII: The Holy Supper, paragraphs 93-103).

I certainly don't pretend to understand all of this, but at least it's an explanation of a problem that has been vexing me for some time now.

Also, how wonderful it is that the Book of Concord may be read in its entirety on the internet! http://bookofconcord.org/

Humble Pie

2009-04-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here "enjoying" a big slice of that bitterest of pastries...

The Good Lord showed me today in a real way that I'm not as smart as I thought I was. These gentle, or not so gentle, reminders of my sin and my need for Him should be cause for me to repent and thank Him for His mercy to me for Christ's sake, to show me my sin rather than to simply destroy me and have done with it. Its a further indication of this quagmire of sin that I know I should be thankful that my Abba is disciplining me, but I'm finding that hard to muster. My old sinful nature cries out, "Ow, that hurts! I am content thinking that I know it all and I do not welcome your suggestion that I'm not as together as I think I am. Leave me alone in my comfortable sin."

So it's time to go back to the font for a good, old-fashioned, daily drowning once again... let the kicking and screaming on the way to the waters begin.

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

"I am with you always, even to the end of the age"

2009-04-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

I've been very confused and dismayed-- although I'm not sure that is the correct word to describe the feeling-- by two conversations I've had lately-- lately isn't exactly accurate, either... one conversation was yesterday, the other back in January. While both conversations were simply chats with Christian friends and otherwise unrelated to one another, a troubling statement was made by my friends in each. They both claimed that Jesus is no longer a man, that He no longer has a human body and now is only God, as He was before the incarnation.

This of course, set off all kinds of warning bells and whistles in my mind. Jesus not a man? What are you talking about?

Unfortunately, I didn't really get a chance to press the issue either time, the first because the flow of the conversation quickly departed and I wasn't exactly sure what to say, how to respond. The second time a response was not possible because the language barrier could not allow for it.

So I wanted to process through this here. I also hope that some of you could give me some wisdom in this.

I wonder where these friends of mine think exactly happened to Jesus' body between the Ascension and today. And what about His promise to return bodily at the Last Judgment? I facetiously wonder if they view it as though Jesus took off His "man suit" after He arrived in heaven at the Ascension and that He's going to put it on again right before He cues the archangel to blow the horn just before He comes on the clouds of glory...

The main issue for me is the nature of the Incarnation. Did not the eternal Son of God irreversibly take on human flesh when He deigned to be made in human likeness?

I decided to consult my library on this issue...

Question number 120 in the Explanation of the Small Catechism asks "How do you know that Jesus Christ is also true man?"

Because the Scriptures
A. clearly call Him man;
401 1 Tim.2:5 There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

121. What two natures, therefore, are united in the one person of Jesus Christ?

The divine and the human natures are united in Jesus Christ. This personal union began when He became man (incarnation) and continues forever.
410 Col. 2:9 In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form

Both of these Scriptures speak about Christ in the present tense as being man, God in human flesh. So, as long as there is a day called Today, these statements are true about Christ Jesus.

Also, as Hebrews 2:14 says, it was necessary for Jesus to share in our humanity in order to make the appropriate sacrifice for the sins of mankind and to destroy the devil, who held the power of death over us. Romans 6 discusses that we have been united with Christ in His death by our baptisms so that we will also be united with Him in His resurrection. Doesn't it follow that, if Jesus had to die in His human body to win our forgiveness of sins, had to be resurrected in His human body to give us the promised resurrection, shouldn't He have to maintain His human body to maintain the promise? After all, Jesus promised in John 14:19 "Because I live, you also will live." And why would He abandon His human body temporarily before He returns, bodily, on the Last Day to separate the sheep and the goats?

What about the relationship between the two natures, the human and the divine, present in Jesus Christ? The Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Article VIII. Concerning the Person of Christ (paragraph 18):

Christ is and remains for all eternity God and human being in one inseparable person, which is the highest mystery after the mystery of the Holy Trinity, as the Apostle testifies [1 Tim. 3:16]. In this mystery lie our only comfort, life, and salvation.

So, this settles it for me about the question of whether Christ is still human as well as God. The next question is "Where IS Jesus, then?"

The easy answer is what we confess in the Apostle's Creed: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Before He died, He told His disciples that He was going ahead of them to prepare a place for them in His Father's house (John 14:2-3).

Lutherans (and Catholics, and maybe Anglicans, too-- I can't remember) also believe that Christ is truly present bodily at His Supper every time it's celebrated. How is this possible? Well, the same article in the epitome, paragraph 16 says that:

He did not reveal his majesty at all times but only when it pleased him, until he completely laid aside the form of a servant [Phil. 2:7] (but not his human nature) after his resurrection. Then he was again invested with the full use, revelation, and demonstration of his divine majesty and entered into his glory... not only as God but also as human creature, as he himself testifies, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" [Matt. 28:18], and St. Paul writes: He ascended "above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things" [Eph. 4:10]. As present everywhere he can exercise this power of his, he can do everything, and he knows all things. Therefore, he is able-- it is very easy for him-- to share his true body and blood, present in the Holy Supper, not according to the manner of characteristic of the human nature, but according to the manner and characteristic of God's right hand. This presence is not an earthly presence, but at the smae time it is a true and essential presence, as the words of his testament say, "This is my body," etc.

Arguments against this say that it's not possible for Him to be present everywhere in His body because that is apart from the attributes of his human nature. But it is plain in scripture that Christ's exalted, glorified body breaks the "rules" of what we consider to be true human nature when he appears to the disciples in the middle of the locked upper room in the evening of Resurrection day (John 20:19), or when he disappeared from the midst of the other two disciples after breaking bread with them in Emmaus (Luke 24:30-31). If Jesus can, in His human nature, appear and disappear from places, behaving in a way which we don't normally consider to be human, then it's not a big leap for us to accept that He would be able to be in all places where His Supper is being received by His Church.

I suppose I'm done processing. Ideas? Comments? Questions?

Words Engraved in the Rock Forever

2009-04-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Then end of the first week of Easter is here, and still no comment from me here yet? Unbelievable. My soul has been crying within me of the joys of my Savior. How wonderful it is that I have been baptized into His death, and that I am now united with Him in His resurrection! Because of the manifold joys in my soul, my mouth has no choice, nor any desire, but to sing the praises of my Risen Lord. Because the best way to worship my God is to speak His words from Holy Scripture back to Him, I cry and confess with blessed Job:

"Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!" (Job 19:23-27, ESV)

The benefit that I-- that we-- have in living after Christ's resurrection that Job didn't have, is that we know that his words ARE engraved forever, in God's Holy Scripture which stands forever (Is. 40:8), far better than any earthly rock that we know will be destroyed with fire in the last day (2 Pet. 3:10). We know more fully the truth that our Redeemer does in fact live, because we know the details of the history, as recorded in the four Gospels. Though we know more details than he, our faith is the same as his, because our hope is the same. We know that because our Redeemer lives, that we too shall live. And we hope to see Him with our own eyes. I can barely wait for that blessed day, when we will bid good-bye to all tears and sinning!

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

---
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." Rom. 6:3-5

Holy Week

2009-04-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

My absolute favorite week of the whole year is HERE!!!! I love everything about it. I love Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I love the image of the people lying down their cloaks and palm branches to carpet his path, of them proclaiming "Hosannah!" to the king that they didn't really understand. I love that Jesus spent the week teaching in parables in the temple, that he cleared the temple of the crooked moneychangers and merchants, that the woman anointed him in Bethany.

How beautiful that Jesus celebrated the Passover seder with His disciples on the night before He was betrayed by Judas. He showed His disciples the full extent of His love by washing their feet, He instituted His last will and testament, which we believers still receive, receiving not only the bread and wine, but the body and blood of our Lord as He promised we would, whenever we eat it.

Jesus prayed that night for His disciples, for those who would believe in Him in coming generations, and for Himself, that if it would be possible for the cup He was about to drink (of death) to pass from Him. It wasn't possible. In spite of His intense duress, He was still full of grace when His captors came to arrest Him in the middle of the night, full of love for those who mistreated Him, which He showed when He restored the ear to the high priest's servant after brash Peter sliced it off with his sword.

Like a sheep before His shearers, He was silent when He was subjected to His unjust trials, blindfolded and abused, mocked by the guards. The people demanded His blood, crying to Pilate "Crucify him!" and He underwent flogging, being crowned with thorns, and carrying His cross up the hill to Golgotha. By that time, exhausted and nearly physically destroyed, He couldn't muster the strength to continue carrying the cross Himself, and so Simon of Cyrene was forced to carry the cross for Him.

Once on the top of the hill, His hands and feet were pierced, nailed into the cross, and His body was lifted up and He hung there for three hours, enduring the concentrated, entire wrath of God the Father, and completing the payment for the whole of human sin throughout all of time, past, present and future. And after suffering on the cross for three hours, He breathed His last and gave up His spirit, having put an end to the necessity for sons and daughters of Adam to try to make restitution of their own sin.

On the third day, He rose again from the dead, conquering the grave once and for all.

Because of Jesus' perfect life, death and resurrection, we no longer have to fear sin, death, and the devil. Because of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, we are no longer in slave to our sin, no longer objects of God's wrath. We have been reconciled to Him and we have the promise of our own resurrection to eternal life with our God in the new heavens and earth.

As a Christian, how could I not be so excited about this week?

---
"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Romans 3:21-26
---
image: "The Crucifixion" by Gustave Doré

Out of Touch

2009-03-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

This is how I am feeling right now. Out of touch. Not with reality, no. I think I'm actually more in touch with reality than I've ever been in my life, given how my understanding of Christ, of His sacrifice, and of my sin has grown and developed in the last few months.

I'm out of touch with my friends. And this in spite of facebook, which is supposed to help people to keep in touch with one another. Last week I learned that of my friends, two couples got married this past winter. That was only a surprise in that I had forgotten when they were getting married. I had known that they were engaged. But, I also learned this past week that a friend of mine got engaged... in NOVEMBER. I would have thought that I would be among the first people to learn about his engagement. I also learned just TODAY that one of my college roommates (we were good friends: I was her #2 bridesmaid... came back to the States from my study abroad trip in Mexico to be in the wedding) had another baby... at the end of January. I didn't even know she was pregnant!

I know that in life, no matter how hard one tries to keep up-to-date with everyone, somehow there will be relationships that wane. I know that this is not because the friends don't want to keep in touch, but because life happens, people change, and friends just drift away.

I can't help feeling that if I was at home instead of here, I would have known about all these things. Now, I don't want to be at home instead of here. By no means. I just don't like the feeling that with me and these friends, absence hasn't made the heart grow fonder. Rather, out of sight has meant out of mind. It's just stinky.

My consolation is that, no matter how far I manage to drift from my Christian friends, we will have eternity together in the presence of the Lord. As much as I'd love to be with them now, and never lose track of the major events of their lives, I know that with them I will actually share the most significant event in our lives: blessed worship in the face of our God. I don't know all that much about what will go on in Heaven besides eternal worship of the Lamb, but I hope that we'll get a chance to catch up with one another and never have to worry about drifting away from one another again. That's not stinky, that's good.

Two Nice Days

2009-03-23T08:17:00.001-07:00

I'm not referring to the weather. That has been generally unpleasant: when it's not raining, the factory decides to emit this stench that you wouldn't believe...

I guess this is another case of "small things" in life bringing me joy.

The nice started yesterday when a friend of mine moved to sit by me during church because he thought I looked lost. I have to admit, after not being in Czech-language church for two weeks, it was a little more difficult to understand what was going on. Anyway, it really warmed my heart that I was cared for in my need.

I went for lunch to a nearby restaurant with a friend of mine. She's been here teaching English in the public elementary school (which is in the same building as my Christian elementary school) for a little over a year and she's returning home to Ontario, Canada this coming Monday. We thought it would be good to get together one more time before she left. I've been to this particular restaurant about 5 times now, and always with an English speaking friend, and so the two waitresses have gotten to recognize me. When we walked in and sat down, our waitress came to the table, already with their one English menu. It made me smile so much. The meal with Amanda was good, and we enjoyed a lot of good conversation.

This morning started rough, like most Monday mornings. I always seem to not be able to get ready for the day at the same rate on Mondays as on other days, and always seem to be running behind. That was definitely the case today. So, I left for preschool VERY late, and was blessed with being able to walk there in the wind and rain (I am torn as to my opinion about umbrellas after battling my in the elements this morning). When I arrived, feeling really badly for being so late, and beginning to sweat for having walked so quickly, I was able to rapidly forget my own emotions, when the preschool teacher was busy and one of the little girls broke into tears. It was so wonderful to hug her and whisper to her that it was okay and not to cry.

When I returned home, I had an hour to make chocolate chip cookies for one of my students (her birthday was yesterday) and get on the bus to go to see her in Navsi. I used applesauce instead of shortening, and the cookies turned out SO chewy and moist and wonderful.

The bus ride to Navsi, which is usually uneventful, today was a great joy. I was sitting, reading my book when the bus stopped at the second major stop. A young woman sat down next to me, and asked if she could sit there. I acknowledged her request without really looking at her. Half a moment later, I looked at her, and did a double take. It was my waitress from lunch yesterday. We recognized one another at the same time, and we both started to laugh. As the bus away, she leaned over to me and asked if I'd like anything to drink. I said "no thank you." I resumed reading, but after a page I thought that I needed to talk to her while I had the chance.

It was a delightful ride, with me struggling to use my Czech, with her being so kind and patient with me and encouraging me in my usage. We talked a little bit about traveling, and she shared that she'd been to Spain and so speaks a bit of Spanish, and pretty soon we were having a choppy, trilingual conversation. It was wonderful. I was sad when the bus arrived at my stop, and I wished that I'd had more time to speak with her. I just hope that I run into her again outside of the restaurant. It would be very cool to make friends with her.

The day isn't over yet for me, as I've got my two adult beginner classes yet to go, starting in an hour. Last week I was so glad to see them after being apart from them for such a long time. I hope that this week is as much of a delight as last week was.

---
Prayer requests:
-praise and thanksgiving for two so delightful days
-for Amanda, that our Father would encounter her and give her faith by the power of His Holy Spirit
-for my waitress-friend, that I would be able to see her again and be able to share Jesus with her
-for my student in Navsi, Eliska, that she would stop denying God's existence and that she would know Jesus
-for H., that God would continue to rescue her from her addiction to dangerous drugs and give her new life through His Son.
-for me, that I would learn discipline during this Lenten season, and that I would be strict with myself in maintaining regular times for prayer and Bible reading; that I would also exhibit discipline in preparing myself for taking the GRE this summer and preparing myself in general for graduate studies when I return to the States.

Mom and Dad!!!

2009-03-21T03:33:00.001-07:00

What a wonderful time the first two weeks of March were! My parents arrived in the Czech Republic on Friday, February 27th and left again on March 14th. In the interim, they came to Trinec to meet my friends, neighbors, and members of the congregation. After Sunday worship and dinner, the three of us took off for a two week tour of the Czech Republic and Germany. We saw beautiful cities, churches, castles, and countryside.

The most interesting things we saw in the Czech Republic included the "bone church" in Sedlec (the interior of which is completely "decorated" in human bones... suffice it to say that they had run out of space in the cemetery),

about 45 minutes east of Prague, Prague castle,

and the beautiful little city of Cesky Krumlov.

In Germany, we spent the majority of our time exploring "Luther Land," and my favorite was Luther's house in Wittenburg,

which was quite possibly the most extensive and fascinating museum I could have hoped for on the life and times of Martin Luther. We also went to Eisenach, the location of Wartburg Castle,

where the Elector, Prince Frederick protected Luther when he was under the Papal Ban, and where Luther spent nearly a year translating the New Testament from Greek to German. Nuremburg's Old City was absolutely enchanting, and we finished up our tour in Munich, going to the Hofbrauhaus and two of Ludwig II's castles, including the world-famous, Neuschwanstein.

Those two weeks were a wonderful time together with my parents, a wonderful spring break for me, and when all of the traveling had come to an end, I was ready to be back in Trinec, refreshed, and ready to dive right back in to teaching and telling people about Jesus.

The Little Things

2009-02-18T02:58:00.000-08:00

It's so true that it's the little things in life that bring the most pleasure (or annoyance). Here are some little things that I've experienced or observed recently that have brought me such pleasure (or annoyance).

On Monday I saw a group of high school boys during a school break playing soccer. This was pleasurable because their field was knee-deep in snow. I would never have thought of playing that game in this weather, but they did, and they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. I smiled.

Yesterday at lunchtime I made a batch of chili soup using my mother's recipe. Somehow the 2T of chili powder in the soup ended up to be entirely too much, a problem that never seems to occur when my dad makes it. The little thing about making the soup was the onion. Somehow on my left hand the potent odor of the onion remains, even though 24 hours, which included a shower and several hand-scrubbings, have lapsed. I don't know WHAT is the deal with these onions I bought... erg.

It is so common to see women walking from place to place pushing strollers. Because of the profusion of snow, I imagine that the strollers' wheels fail to do their jobs, so I've seen many women in the last week, instead of pushing strollers, pulling sleds laden with toddlers. It's really cute.

The parish hall here is in a constant state of construction, as part of the building has yet to be renovated from when the building reverted back to the ownership of the church after being a movie theater for many years under the former communist government. Today I am dearly looking forward to the conclusion of the construction, as there has been a constant stream of hammering coming from the "under construction" portion of the building for the past 4 or so hours.

As I was walking back from the preschool on Monday, behind me in an instant I heard a shriek of terror which quickly melted into giggles of delight. I turned around to see a little boy at the bottom of a steep hill seated on a tiny plastic sled at his grandmother's feet, and his father at the top of the hill. I couldn't stop laughing for probably 2 minutes.

Snow update: It's day 7 of the great Snow Siege of February... :D

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Please pray for safe travel on the roads this weekend for Pastor Michal and his family as they are driving to Prague for the weekend and there is no sign of the snow stopping any time soon.

On Love and Repentance

2009-02-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

Living here, away from the seemingly all-powerful greeting card and chocolate companies, I almost missed St. Valentine's Day. If not for my roommate, Karin, giving me a chocolate bar, a hug and a kiss on Saturday, I wouldn't have even remembered that the day was here. That's probably why it was two days ago already and I'm just now getting to writing my thoughts about love. That's not entirely true, as yesterday, at Bible Hour I was inspired to write about love based on a thought that one of the speakers shared.

First however, I want to share a little about the saint and why we celebrate a day with his name attached to it at all. The Treasury of Daily Prayer says this:

"A physician and priest living in Rome during the rule of Emperor Claudius, Valentine became one of the noted martyrs of the third century. The commemoration of his death, which occurred in AD 270, became part of the calendar of remembrance in the Early Church of the West. Tradition suggests that on the day of his execution for his Christian faith, Valentine left a note of encouragement for a child of his jailer written on an irregularly shaped piece of paper. This greeting became a pattern for millions of written expressions of love and caring that now are the highlight of Valentine's Day in many nations."

We see from history that the love of the saint himself was not eros, but rather it was charitas, the love of Christ, which he shared in the form of encouragement. I imagine that Valentine wasn't just writing "Cheer up, Friend" to the jailer's child, but that he was either sharing the Gospel a final time or that he was trying to build up the already existing Christian faith of his jailer's child. The love which we ought to share with one another on this saint's commemoration day is that same love which Valentine showed, the love of Christ. We should love our neighbor because the Gospel compels us. And how do we share this kind of love? We do it through the proclamation of the Gospel, through the mutual encouragement of the saints, through acts of service to our neighbor.

Now, about the inspiration gleaned from yesterday's biblické hodina. The topic for the meeting was "The Church." We talked about what the Church is, and one of the men who spoke made citations from Luther (which made me REALLY happy, of course). Ephesians 5 was also cited, from the portion on marriage, about how the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, and how the husband is supposed to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. It was then discussed as to how the members of the Church are to interact with one another: with love.

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling (1 John 2:9-10).

We the hearers, members of the Body of Christ, were exhorted to let the only thing between us be love, and to try to always out-love one another. How incredible would that be, to have a competition in love. This exhortation to out-love one another of course brought to my mind Romans 13:8: "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law."

All of a sudden, when this scripture popped into my mind, in combination with John's words about those who fail to love their brother still living in darkness, I was launched before the juggernaut of the Law. Everytime I read or hear those words in the second chapter of 1 John, I always am slain by the Law, rather than renewed by the Gospel. I don't know if that is what John intended, for his words to have that effect, but they certainly do on me.

Now, I know that many people think that the command to Love is a nice, warm, fuzzy, and possible one to keep. But "love" is Law. It's the fulfillment of the two greatest commandments (see Matthew 22:36-40). I don't love my fellowman the way I ought. And I don't love God because I don't love my fellowman. I am continually entrenched in this sin, and therefore have failed to fulfill the law. And it grieves me. I want so badly to love God and to love my neighbor. But I can't because I'm a sinner. I can't love God or my neighbor in my own strength. Nothing in me can please our righteous God. This knowledge of my utter inability to please God is disheartening to say the least.

This disheartening effect is as it should be for a sinner faced with her failure before the righteous Law. And when I'm confronted with my utter wretchedness, my first-- and wrong-- reaction is to look for some semblance of good in myself. This is not as it should be. This only causes more dispair. The only right reaction to sin must be repentance. Intriguingly enough, this was explained so well in the Book of Concord readings appointed for St. Valentine's Day:

"This repentance [which St. Paul proclaimed in Romans 3] teaches us to recognize sin: namely, that we are all lost, neither hide nor hair of us is good, and we must become absolutely new and different people.

"This repentance is not fragmentary or paltry--like the kind that does penance for actual sins-- nor is it uncertain like that kind. It does not debate over what is a sin or what is not a sin. Instead, it simply lumps everything together and says, 'Everything is pure sin with us. What would we want to spend so much time investigating, dissecting, or distinguishing?' Therefore, here as well, contrition is not uncertain, because there remains nothing that we might consider a 'good' with which to pay for sin. Rather, there is plain, certain despair concerning all that we are, think, say, or do, etc.

"Similarly, such confession also cannot be false, uncertain, or fragmentary. All who confess that everything is pure sin with them embrace all sins, allow no exceptions, and do not forget a single one. Thus, satisfaction can never be uncertain either. For it consists not in our uncertain, sinful works but rather in the suffering and blood of the innocent 'Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world'[John 1:29]

"This repentace endures among Christians until death because it struggles with the sin that remains in the flesh throughout life. (Smalcald Articles III:35-38, 40)"

So, I regret and repent of my sin, which is the only thing that I have. I have nothing to offer God but my sin. No good deeds, nothing with which to please Him on my own. But God the Righteous Judge, for the sake of His beloved Son Jesus Christ, in whose blood I am covered, sees only Christ's righteousness when He looks at me. Now about real love: God's love compelled Him to rescue us, and it's His love that compells us to love our neighbor. It is not out of fear or of a need to earn salvation or favor with God that we love our neighbor, but out of gratitude and a recognition of how much we've been loved, that we love our neighbor. "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

I have a lot to learn about how to love. I will fail, and do, constantly. However, when I acknowledge that everything I have of my own is sin and cling to the Cross in repentance, then I'm given everything that is Christ's, and holy, wholly sinless. And then I can freely love my neighbor, without fear of failure. Praise be to God for this wonderful gift!

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"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John 2:1-2

Winter Wonderland

2009-02-16T02:17:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, I thought spring might be here. Boy, was I wrong.

The snow started on Thursday morning. And it fell all day and night, and Friday and night and Saturday until around 5:00 (and I got to help scoop snow on Saturday afternoon: WOOT!). At that time, we'd gotten about 18 inches. This indicates, of course, that it wasn't falling hard. It hasn't been falling hard, just very persistently. It started again Saturday night, and falling with less determination, but hasn't stopped since then. I think we've got about 20 or so inches by now.

This morning was the first time I left to walk somewhere since the snow started, and it was incredible. With the scooped piles on the sides of the streets and sidewalks, the snow was for me, on my 15 minute walk, between knee and thigh high. Wow. I haven't seen this much snow since... I can't remember. And neither has anyone here. I've been told many times that this is the first real snowy winter that has occurred here in 3 years. In fact, I have been told that last winter it only snowed once in November, and after that, nothing. Wow.

Illness and Aging :D

2009-01-30T02:19:00.000-08:00

Today marks one full week of me battling some kind of changeling illness. It started with body aches and fever then morphed into sore throat and gallons of freely flowing phlegm. Then I woke up a mute on Monday morning with a headache. I spent several hours sleeping it off on Tuesday late morning to early afternoon. Wednesday evening my throat was so scratchy that I couldn't take a breath without coughing, which made it REALLY difficult to fall asleep. I didn't fall asleep until after 2:00 AM and then again spent several hours napping on Thursday. When I woke up, my left eye was sealed shut with goop. Late Thursday night the explosive sneezing started. Today, Friday, I'm still struggling with it, and as it's semester break (January is part of first semester here), I'm probably going to try to sleep much of the day today and kick this thing. Oh yeah. I've drunk about a gallon of orange juice, which is great for vitamin C, but terrible for a scratchy throat. I need a major dose of Nyquil, but I have none...

This past week I celebrated the 24th anniversary of my birth. While the fiesta my parents gave me for my 21st (complete with my 30 best friends, enchilada pizza, and a piñata) birthday will always have the honor of being the best birthday ever, this year was probably the second best of my life (or at least in memory). It is beyond me how much love was poured on me this past week. On Sunday after a church lunch, the congregation members sang Happy Birthday to me (so cute for these wonderful Czech and Polish speakers to sing this song in English!) while they brought out a cake (with a fire cracker in place of a candle!), a flower arrangement, and a food gift basket (with pineapple juice, instant cappuccino, and menthol-eucalyptus hard candies-- VERY important to me this week!-- among other things). One of the elders, a good friend of mine, got up and said a few words about how important it is for them to show me this love because of the sacrifices I've made of being away from my family and working hard to serve their congregation and the community. He also said that he wished for me the blessing of Psalm 37:3-5

"Trust in the LORD, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him, and he will act."

I was overwhelmed with happiness almost to the point of tears. I really felt SO loved. And that wasn't all. On Tuesday morning, the delightful 2nd graders (see last week's post) sang Happy Birthday to me before prayer time, they thanked God for me in their prayers, and they even had gone all together to get me a small birthday present. The gift was delivered to me by one of the boys, Pastor Klus' eight-year-old son. When he handed me the gift, he shook my hand and said to me in English "Happy Birthday. Jesus bless you." So cute. During the rest of the morning, so many of the children and all of the teachers wished me a Happy Birthday. I received more chocolate bars on Tuesday... The most incredible thing of all this is that I had no idea how they had all learned that it was my birthday, as I hadn't been advertising it.

Ashley Angerman took me out for lunch, in the afternoon the Klus family showered me gifts and words of blessing, and then it was time for my conversation classes. My teenagers each gave me one long-stem rose and as a group they gave me a Czech Republic soccer scarf. Two of the girls together had bought me a beautiful little necklace. The adult conversation class gave me a bouquet of flowers and brought a honey cake (YUM!!!) with 24 candles to class.

It was overwhelming how much people poured their affection over me on Tuesday. I just can't believe how blessed I am and how it could be possible that they would love me so much.

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Please pray that:
- the Lord would heal me of this illness, and that He would also grant health to all who are sick with colds and with other, more serious ailments
-I would be as much of a joy in the lives of the people I'm here to serve as they have been to me, that I may serve them with all the strength that the Lord will give, and that I would faithfully proclaim to them the words of His Gospel.

Faith of a Child

2009-01-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

I love Tuesday mornings. Today was not great (I had a lot of roadblocks in my way: late to bed, late out of bed, had to prep for school instead of shower... bad stuff), but in general, I love Tuesday mornings. I have 2nd Grade English during first hour. These kids are great. At our school, each teacher begins the day with his or her class with a devotion and prayer. Usually the kids are great: they patiently sit and listen during the Bible reading and then nearly everyone in the class contributes during prayer time, praying thankfulness for being able to go to school, to attend a Christian school, for ill classmates and family members and so on. Today was a different story.

The brief reading this morning was Matthew 10: 32-33: "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven."

Just as the main teacher was opening the Bible and getting ready to read, one of the boys jumped out of his chair and ran to his backpack on its hook across the room. He grabbed something and raced back to his desk and started opening it: a little plastic bag with a blue book in it. The teacher said to him, "It's time to read. What are you doing?" His only response was to say "I know" and finish removing the book from the bag and flip through the pages. He asked for the reference again, and at this point, she and I both realized that it was a Bible, and that he was getting ready to follow along on his own. She repeated the reference and invited him to read to the class, and he did.

After this, she asked the students if they had ever told anyone about Jesus. One boy shared a story about telling a non-believing cousin about Jesus, a girl told about talking to a friend, and another boy shared that he talks to his Dad about Jesus, because only his Mom is a Christian. After this, the teacher asked for prayer volunteers, and hands shot up all over the room. So we began to pray. Probably 10 of the children said little prayers for their friends and family members. I took my turn to praise Christ for the faith which He has so graciously and amazingly granted to these beautiful children, and to plead that this faith will be sustained and increased as they grow older, that they might be given more opportunities to acknowledge Christ before men.

May these children continue to be faithful witnesses throughout their lives.

Sticking Around

2009-01-18T08:17:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas I made up my mind that I want to stay in the Czech Republic another year, and God willing, that is what will happen.

I talked about it with Pastor Michal to see what he thought about the possibility. When I had decided that staying is what I wanted to do, I emailed my volunteer coordinator, David, to let him know. All that being said, the ball is now rolling for me to stay here, teaching and telling people about Jesus for another school year. The next steps which much happen are: David must get the go-ahead from Pastor Michal that he in fact wants me to stay for another year. Then, the people in St. Louis have to rustle up some paperwork for me to fill out and must do some number crunching so that I can know what kind of support I will need for the coming school year.

Even though the course of events necessary for me to stay here has begun, it is still possible that I won't be here anymore after August. Yes, I have decided that I want to stay here another year, but I do not know that this will happen. I hope it does. I am praying that it does, that God will provide for me to stay here.

Please join me in praying that God's will be done in this case: if it be for me to stay, good; if it be for me to return home, His will be done.

Someone Else's Thoughts on Calvinism

2009-01-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

I've never heard it put quite this way....

http://strangeherring.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/god-hates-you-and-your-little-dog-too/

Is it Christian?

2009-01-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

If something-- a sermon, a book, a person-- proposes to be Christian, it had better actually be about Christ, right? If someone talks about God, which God are they talking about? He had better specify.

Christians should never talk about God without mentioning Jesus. Without Jesus, God the Father is completely inaccessible to us men. God the Father, apart from Christ is for us as in the days of the Israelites wandering in the desert, camped at the foot of Sinai. This was a mountain they could not touch, could not approach, without death coming surely and swiftly upon them.

"God talk" is nothing unless it's about Christ crucified for sinners.

Also, talking about God and His righteous demands, without talking about Christ's fulfillment of them has nothing to distinguish it as Christianity from Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, and a host of deist and theist cults.

Paul resolved to know nothing but Christ and him crucified when he was with the Corinthians. Why don't we Christians do the same?

Back to It

2009-01-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas is over. The wonderful days spent with families not my own, enjoying their company, playing with the kids, talking to the adults and being loved beyond what I could imagine, given that I was away from home, are over. My week in England is over. The Christmas tree is down, the floor vacuumed, the armchair is back in place and the gifts are all put away. Classes have started again. And now it's time to get back into the daily cycle of waking up tired, teaching, planning, and staying up too late.

News
I've been semi-coerced by one of the men in the brass band at the church into being the new director, because our current director-- after years of threatening to retire-- is finally retiring. I've told him that I can't do it because I don't really speak Czech and none of the men in the band really speak English. He insisted that I could just say when things sound bad (which is most of the time :s) and when we need to try again. I don't want to be the director of the band. I'm not even qualified for that. I just want a chance to play my trumpet occasionally.

Every month when I go to send my newsletters to my supporters, something goes wrong or weird, and December was no exception. In fact, it was the worst. Usually I just forget to attach the document before sending, but this month I actually attached someone else's newsletter. And I received all kinds of email from friends and family wondering if I'd changed my name or if I'd eloped and who this "Daniel" fellow is. Oh my. No, I didn't change my name, I haven't eloped (or met anyone worth eloping with, for that matter-- I'll let you know if I do :D), and Daniel is the other person's supervisor.

The Best of the Break
Worship Service: Christmas Eve, 9 PM. It was so beautiful, and I cried a little. One of my friends, an incredible musician, had organ duty and it was incredible. Also, I was asked to share with the congregation about God's goodness in my life. I made a point of not talking about life's circumstances, but about the only way we can really know that God is good: He sent His Son to take the punishment for our sins and reconcile us to the Father.

Meal: This is a tough call. It was either the carp on Christmas Eve (delicious, though bony, fish), or the duck on the 26th. Wow. Duck is good.

New Christmas Hymn: A Polish one whose title is roughly translated "Let's all go to the stable" Very fun tune. There's a Czech one that I really liked that is about the presentation of Jesus at the temple (it talks about Simeon and Anna), but unfortunately I can't remember the title.

Snowball Fight: Another toss up. It would be either the one I had on Advent 4 after church or the one I had in the mountains on the 26th. The Advent 4 snowball fight started between me and three little brothers (a set of 6 year old twins and their 8 year old brother). While those three were ganging up on me, three of my grown-up guy friends (in their 20s) snuck up on me and started throwing snow at me too (NOT a fair fight, but very fun, and I definitely held my own). The one on St. Stephen's was between me and another 6 year old. His family and I were sledding at his grandparent's house (on the side of a mountain. Gorgeous), and of course it all broke down into throwing snow. It was great because he would throw snow at me, and then I would chase him and tackle him and scoop snow onto him. Great fun.

Place Visited in England: The B&B where we stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon was wonderful. The proprietors were a couple of... crazies. They were very warm and welcoming and funny. But also out of their gourds. We were sad to only stay with them for 2 nights. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament were the best thing to photograph in England, I would say. Bath was my favorite city of the trip: beautiful architecture and interesting history.

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Pray for:
-Peace! Pray that the current war in Palestine will come to an end.

-all the missionaries who are heading back to their posts after visiting home for Christmas, for safe travel, for encouragement and motivation in fulfilling their tasks and in speaking to people about Jesus. Also that they would be fed with the Word of the Lord and renewed in their faith.

-new missionary Terri who will be coming to Poland in about a week to start teaching English, and possibly Spanish, at a small Bible school, for courage, patience, and calm as she comes to a new place knowing so little about what her role will be.

-strength and patience for all of us teaching, that we will faithfully and joyfully, with love and determination, carry out our responsibilities as teachers

-the spread of the Gospel to all the ends of the earth, to every tribe, and nation, and language

Blessed

2008-12-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

How do we know when God is blessing us? Are we blessed when we live in peaceful times? Are we blessed when we have no worries about paying the bills, buying groceries, clothing our families and heating our homes? When we have no worries about crime, no worries about being able to assemble freely to worship? Or worse yet, are we blessed just because we happen to live in (or be citizens of, rather) of a certain North American nation? So what about those people who live in war-torn countries, who are miserably impoverished, living under constant threat of terrorism, or who must worship the Lord secretly? Are they not blessed?

Or would you say that the real blessing is where the Church is increasing exponentially, where people would go to any length to hear the Word preached, where people actually READ their Bibles, where Christians are publicly proclaiming their faith and refusing to be silenced by, or conformed in any way to, the surrounding pagan culture?

I've been struggling for a long time with the idea of praying for God to bless... anyone or anything. That probably seems strange. But I've mostly been struggling because I wanted to make sure I knew what I thought I was asking for, and what I really was asking for. Blessing seems like such a generality. "Dear God, please do something nice for this person or situation" (nice being one of the most insipid words EVER). For such a long time, the idea of "blessing" in my mind has been linked to "God Bless America." That is, what I described in my first paragraph: peaceful times, but spiritual warfare; bounteous times, but a famine of hearing the Word; times of liberty, but enslavement to sin; the ability to make one's own choices, and having every choice be made only for the self. If that's what I have in mind when I'm asking for blessing, then why pray for what people already have in spades? And when one has something in that much plenty, how can more of it be anything other than insipid? Nice.

It really hit me today when I was listening to someone talk about how many blessings we have in this part of the world. And I guess if that material stuff counts as real blessing, then we're blessed. But these things are a part of God's general grace, part of that rain He sends on the fields of the wicked as well as the fields of the righteous. That is, this kind of blessing isn't real: it doesn't have anything to do with Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the sins of the world.

No, I want to pray for REAL blessing. And what do I think that will probably mean? It will mean asking for what's described in the second paragraph: people WANTING to hear the Word, loving to hear again and again the story of the Cross, looking forward to Bible-reading and devouring the Word when the time comes. Real blessing would be having the Word spread and the Church grow like wildfire. Real blessing hinges on Christ and His work for us on the cross.

Unfortunately for the fat, happy, prosperous lot of Westerners, the first kind of "blessing" and the second (read: real) blessing don't seem to go hand in hand. When we live in peace, when we have freedom to worship, when we have enough material blessings to not worry about tomorrow, we generally don't care a rip about God (or if we care about God, we can easily describe him apart from Christ). But when circumstances are tough and downright dangerous for the Church, things start to get really interesting. That's when God's work is accomplished for real (John 6:28-9).

I know there isn't a single new insight in this post. I could tell you that about anything and everything that happens under the sun (see Eccl. 1:9). The point is that I think I finally figured out what it means to pray that God will bless. Praying for God to bless the Church the way that God wants to bless the Church (i.e. growing her up and making for Himself a faithful people) is to ask something very hard. There is nothing bland about truly praying for blessing. To pray for blessing must be to pray that God will do what it takes to grow the number who will enter His kingdom. It seems from today's headlines, and a brief glance at Church history, that for Him to really bless the Church, the Church will necessarily experience difficulty and suffering.

I therefore resolve not to pray bland prayers for general "blessing and niceness" to occur to people. I resolve not to pray for blessing that doesn't require Jesus Christ dead on the cross. I resolve to pray that God will do what it takes, regardless of the discomfort, regardless of the tears, regardless of the opinion of sinful man.

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Lord, grow your Church! You did the most unfathomable thing to save us, so rescue Your people, whatever it takes! Keep us captive to Your Word. Come back soon. Amen

Rough Day

2008-12-18T06:08:00.000-08:00

Whoever said teaching junior high students is easy was a big, fat liar.

Being Santa

2008-12-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

Today is the saint day of Nicholas of Myra. A little background on him: He was a pastor in Myra, Turkey in the 4th century and was known for his generosity and care for children. Santa Claus as a character was inspired by him. I've known this for a long time ("Jolly old Saint Nicholas, lean your ear this way..."), but I have been so confused as to how he got the name Santa Claus from St. Nick and why he comes on his own day in Europe, but intrudes on Christ's day in the U.S. Turns out that Santa Claus comes from the Dutch name for Nicholas: Klaas. Problem 1 solved. Problem 2: because gifts are given by family members on Christmas-- or Christmas Eve, rather-- and because St. Nick brings gifts too, maybe it was just easier to combine the two days in the minds of some Americans. This is just pure speculation. I prefer the way they do it here, so that the massive consumerism which surrounds Christmas is dampened a little, and no one thinks the day is about some fat, old man, but they know it's about the Christ-child. (However, some of the teachers at my school told me this week told me that there is a notion creeping in that Baby Jesus, clad in a white fur-lined red cap, brings the presents to put under the tree for the Christmas Eve celebration. I'm left wondering which problem is worse).

Because St. Nicholas Day is celebrated here, we had a party for children and parents at the parish hall today with all kinds of fun. One of the features of the party was yours truly playing the role of Santa Claus (not Nicholas). Here there is actually the notion of Santa and Nicholas being different people, and Santa is apparently always portrayed as a foreigner, so I fit the bill. I got to say "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas" and a few lame phrases in Czech to the crowd of people and then hand out candy to the kids after making them "earn" it by singing some English songs for me. At the end of the party the "real" Nicholas came (one of the men from the congregation dressed in the real Nicholas costume: priestly garments) and he and I had our picture taken with all of the children who wanted (or some whose parents wanted: there was more than one young child who, within a yard of the two of us started backing away with fear and tears in their eyes).

Happy Child

Unhappy Child

It was a lot of fun for me to get fat for the party (I had seven towels under my clothes, front and back). When it was all over and I was chatting about it with Karin, telling her how funny it was to have all the towels under my clothes and be so BIG, she said her only thought was that I would be beautiful pregnant. Thanks? Even with the beard?

Photo-op with Rudolph before meeting the kids. We look GOOD.

So, a Happy St. Nicholas Day to you all! May we remember the blessed Saint Nicholas on his day and worship the Holy Child only on His...

Errands, Chores, Odds and Ends

2008-11-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Today was a day of doing the things I had put off all week. There are some that I have success-fully left incomplete today too, like baking pumpkin pie. And dusting my room. And writing my Christmas cards (they have to be done within two weeks, and I can't work on them during the week...) However, I did get the bathroom clean, the floor vacuumed, the really dirty window washed, my newsletter written, and a little thrift shopping conquered (winter slippers, two long-sleeved tees and a pull-over fleece for $16. Awesome). I also spent a good portion of the day in the kitchen, making chicken salad and, my favorite, hamburger lentil soup. At this rate I won't have to cook again until Christmas (it's a LOT of soup).

Last weekend I spent the weekend in Vienna with Stephanie from Poland, the other Ashley from the Czech Republic, and Rachel and Sarah from Hungary. What a great weekend. It was so cold and it snowed for a good part of Saturday. What a BEAUTIFUL city. We spent a lot of time at the Christmas markets, at St. Stephen's cathedral (wow!), at some of the Hapsburgs' buildings. We attended an English-language church on Sunday, but we were NOT impressed by the pastor, who preached about Americans, Christians, and Michael Jordan among other things, but only managed to say "Jesus" 3 times in his 16 minute sermon. Suffice it to say, listening to Issues Etc. has spoiled me for bad preaching. The man turned the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats into: "It's the little things in life that count in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Yeah, the pastor actually SAID that).

I was privileged to be invited to eat Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday with an American pastor, his Polish wife, their son, and a number of other guests composed of Polish wives with North American husbands, a Czech couple (missionaries to Ukraine), my flatmate, and Steph and Ashley. It was a delightful evening and a very authentic Thanksgiving dinner.

That same day I picked up my Christmas tree at Stephanie's Thrift Store (what we've dubbed the pile of junk that has accumulated over the last decade of LCMS volunteers living in her flat in Poland).

All week I told my students about Thanksgiving (every class knew there was turkey, but not much else about the day) and made them write or speak about what in their lives they are thankful for. The 8th grade was very heartening for me. Usually that's my least favorite class, but they were so GOOD, and almost every one of them wrote about being thankful for their salvation for one of their 5 sentences. It surprised me and made me so glad. I just hope they didn't write that because they thought it would make me happy. After all, I did teach them the phrasal verb "to suck up" last week.

On Thanksgiving Day I skyped with my family a little before the Effken family dinner. After they left to eat, I made a paper chain with which to decorate my tree while I watched "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." I was disappointed, actually. Not that great of a movie, in spite of Sandra Bullock and James Garner.

Well, I suppose its off with me to cut up some fruit to dry for the tree. This year I don't want to buy any fancy decorations for Christmas, since I won't be able to keep them for long, I'm home-making all of them. I made the paper chain already, and my other plans include thinly slicing assorted citrus fruits and drying them on my radiator to hang from the tree, AND making a popcorn string. It'll be a great throwback to my girlhood. I can't wait to see what it'll look like. I'll be sure to post pictures when it's all said and done (in a couple weeks... I don't want to skip Advent to start celebrating Christmas).

Gates of Splendor

2008-11-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

On Monday I finished reading Elisabeth Elliot's 1956 book "Through Gates of Splendor" about the the lives, work, and deaths of the men of Operation Auca in the Ecuadorian rain forest in the early half of the 1950s. I had so been looking forward to, having missionary zeal myself, reading the exciting account of these men and their work for the Lord. It was a quite good book, no doubt, and did not disappoint me in my thirst to learn from a first-hand source about what was going on with them in their mission service (the book is mostly comprised of excerpts from the diaries and letters of the men and their wives during their time in Ecuador). Part of me expected to feel even more guilty calling myself a missionary when I am in no danger of my life and feel that I don't share Christ often enough with enough people (I'm sure that I conveyed my misery and desperation at being a "bad missionary" in one of my former posts... not sure which one).

I learned not a few things about these martyrs, but also about myself. I was actually a little surprised to see "decision theology" crop up in the book at a few places. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by that, but the fact that I've been steeping myself ever more in the Word and in Lutheran doctrine has made this kind of "making a decision for Christ" stuff ever more foreign and unattractive in my eyes. As a Lutheran, I don't believe there is any such thing as a person being able to choose Christ, to condescend to agree with the Creator of the Universe to accept salvation, as though before one had turned up his nose at it. No. A person is given faith in Christ in the same way that the corpse of Lazarus was given life again by his Savior and Friend, Jesus: "Jesus called in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!'" (John 11:43). Did Lazarus reflect on this and say, "Well, I guess I'll do what He says."? NO. Just as He did at Creation, God spoke and IT WAS as He said. Enough about that.

One of the most gripping and fascinating parts for me was the thoughts and concerns of one of the men, Roger Youderian, who may almost have missed His calling to martyrdom: at the time he was invited by the other men to join Operation Auca, he was contemplating failure as a missionary and a return home to the States. He wrote in his diary: "About ready to call it quits. The reason: Failure to measure up as a missionary and get next to the people. The cause of Christ in the Jivaria will not suffer for our having been there, but I must be honest and confess that it has not been helped." (p. 152) He felt like an utter failure as a missionary, like he was wasting the Lord's time and his supporters' money through his failings. If he could only have known.

As Operation Auca was getting underway, and the men began making plans for transitioning from simply making daily drops of gifts from their airplane to setting up a location on the ground where they hoped to meet with the fierce Auca, the wives talked about the fact that these plans could mean loss of life for their husbands. Elliot writes:

"It was a time for soul-searching, a time for counting the possible cost. Was it the thrill of adventure that drew our husbands on? No. Their letters and journal make it abundantly clear that these men did not go out as some men go out to shoot a lion or climb a mountain. their compulsion was from a different source. To these men, Jesus Christ was God, and had actually taken upom Himself human form, in order that He might die, and, by His death, provide not only escape from the punishment which their sin merited, but also a new kind of life, eternal both in length and in quality. This meant simply that Christ was to be obeyed... 'Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature' was the categorical imperative. The question of personal safety was wholly irrelevant." (p. 175)

Another precious gem in the book is from Jim Elliot's diary (this man was an incredible writer and thinker... they all were): "Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, and smile into His eyes-- ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself. O Jesus, Master and Center and End of all, how long before that Glory is thing which has so long waited Thee? Now there is not hgouth of Thee among men; then there shall be thougth for nothing else. Now other men are praised; then none shall care for any other's merits. Hasten, hasten, Glory of Heaven, take Thy crown, subdue Thy Kingdom, enthrall Thy creatures." (255-6)

About the reaction of the world to the death of these men: "In a civilization where, in order to be sure of their manhood, men must box, lift weights, play football, jog, rappel or hang-glide, it was startling to realize that there was such a thing as spiritual commitment as robust, as total, and perhaps more demanding than the most fanatical commitment to physical fitness. It was a shock to learn that anybody cared that much about anything, especially if it was invisible." (268)

And finally, brilliant words from the pen of the fabulous Mrs. Elliot: "It is not the level of our spirituality that we can depend on. It is God and nothing less than God, for the work is God's and the call is God's and everything is summoned by Him and to His purposes, the whole scene, the whole mess, the whole package-- our bravery and our cowardice, our love and our selfishness, our strengths and our weaknesses. The God who could take a murderer like Moses and an adulterer like David and a traitor like Peter and make of them strong servants of His is a God who can also redeem savage Indians, using as the instruments of His peace a conglomeration of sinners who sometimes look like heros and sometimes like villains." (273)

So, for those of you who have stuck it through this long reading a blog post that is admittedly WAY too long for most people, and way longer than the recommended length for a blog post (I even get frustrated when blogs are too long), I hope that you have at least been given something to think about through the quotations that I've included. It was a marvelous book that refreshed in me a desire for the ends of the earth to know the Name of the Lord Jesus.

But don't just take MY word for it... read it yourself.

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Pray that God would engender a passion in your heart and in mine that we might seek to spread His Truth with as much abandon as these men, with no concern for our personal comfort (to say nothing of concern for our earthly safety and lives, as these men sacrificed). Pray that He would give us daily and many opportunities to speak the Good News of salvation through Christ Jesus to our neighbors, and that He would make us faithful to take the opportunities He gives.

Still Alive: Getting Caught up on the News

2008-11-18T04:36:00.000-08:00

I can't believe so much time has gone by since the last time I blogged. I haven't been late for anything, but the rapid passage of time sure has surprised me.

For about two weeks I have nearly completely cut myself off from communication with the New World. I'm not sure what it is that I've been up to that I'm too busy to respond to people's emails, to write a new blog post, to get around to writing and sending my newsletter (if I don't have that written and emailed by Friday, I'm going to feel REALLY guilty). I did talk to my family on skype on Sunday, as per usual. I think the only other contact I had with America was to also talk to my friend Sandi on skype and reassure my friend Elise that I was still living, in spite of the fact that she hadn't heard from me since she couldn't remember when...

To me this indicates that it's well past time to give an accounting of my time (well or not) spent. Of course the majority of my time and thoughts and energy has gone into teaching and working on class prep, trying to think of interesting things for my students to learn/talk about in English. I've spent a lot of time corresponding with the other LCMS Eurasia girls trying to get a weekend getaway for all of us planned (looks like that should come together quite nicely, if briefly, this weekend).

The other Ashley arrived in Cesky Tesin on Monday, so I went to see her during the day on Tuesday. I had a brass rehearsal last week (we started practicing Christmas music already three weeks ago!) and for the Friday afternoon Book of Concord meeting, Ashley and I went to see Stephanie. We managed to not get any reading done, but rather the we two Ashleys did some shopping in Stephanie's foyer. She'd had a three day fall break at the beginning of the week, and had had a chance to sort out even MORE junk that she didn't want to keep in the apartment. In this case, one woman's trash turned out to be TWO women's treasure. I couldn't lift all the stuff that I wanted to bring home with me, so I will be doing some more shopping in Stephanie's thrift store as soon as I get the chance.

This past weekend was also the fall conference for the youth of the SCEAV (Silesian Lutheran Church) which Ashley and I attended. That was Friday evening and most of Saturday for me.

Sunday was a blessed day of rest for me! I had no lunch invitations from anyone, and so I had the luxury of trying to make something tasty and new for myself for my Sunday Dinner (I made something, and sure made a lot of it, although I am not sure what to make of it...). I also spent some time reading a BOOK, something that I have been rarely doing lately, but am always longing to do. In the afternoon at Biblicke hodina (Bible hour), I learned that Pastor Klus' youngest child-- two-year-old Daniela-- had fallen off the toy slide in the children's Sunday school room and had to be taken to the emergency room (the CT scan showed nothing major, and she and mom should be home from the hospital this afternoon). That evening I had dinner with Pastor Kadlubiec, his wife, and one of the teachers from my school and her family. They had come to sing at Bible hour and they did a marvelous job.

Monday was the 19 year anniversary of the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. Because of the holiday, there was no school and I slept all the way until 8:00! Yes, indeed: the sun was actually UP when I woke up yesterday! Hard to believe, I know. I didn't get out of bed until 10:00, but rather spent those two hours finishing "Through Gates of Splendor" about Jim Elliot and the rest of the missionary men killed in "Operation Auca" in the jungles of Ecuador in January 1956. After that, I did a tiny bit of cleaning (another thing I'd been neglecting for at least two weeks... yuck) and got ready for the day.

I'd received an invitation to lunch with the Danys family, and so at noon Daniel picked me up and we went. It was a very delightful afternoon. There is such a dedication to and a love for learning in their family. Daniel and his wife, Jana both speak English quite fluently and they are working on teaching their two sons the language as well. Kuba, their oldest, is a brilliant second grader who likes to spend his vacation time in museums! Filip is about kindergarten age, and talks a blue streak. It was wonderful, and would have been even more wonderful if I could have understood more than 15% of what he was saying. Then of course there is beautiful little Natalka, their 6 month old daughter. On the day of her baptism, I had been honored to be a guest at their home and to share with the extended family the joy of their little girl being adopted into God's family. Wonderful. Yesterday we talked extensively about travel and language learning and also played a full game of Phase 10 (miracle that I won... Kuba was on a role for most of the game).

When I came home I finally had the chance to speak to Pastor Klus and ask him about his little girl and when she would be home. I spent the rest of the late afternoon/ early evening chatting with him, his father-in-law, Bishop Pietak, and Dale Feenstrom, a visiting American pastor. It was great to get to "talk church" with them and learn how things have changed here for the Church since the time of communism. Very interesting stuff.

Today: I hope that Sarka will be able to come for our weekly prayer meeting tonight. It may not be possible, as she and Daniela are only supposed to come back from the hospital this afternoon, and she may need a rest.
This evening are my conversation classes, and I'm praying for amazing things, based on how the classes went last week. I really owe a whole post to discuss Adult Conversation Nov. 11. Hopefully I'll get to that today too. Hmm. I've got a lot to do.

Tomorrow: Follow-up appointment with the dermatologist to check on my Pityriasis rosea. I've had more interesting "conditions" here than I've had at any other one time in my life, I'm sure. This means that tomorrow should be pretty restful as Monika has told me I should take the day off for the appointment. Maybe I'll finish up these loose ends tomorrow during my free time.

I suppose that will do it for the Ashley-centered update. I hope that'll be the last one... John 3:30

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Please pray for my students, especially those who don't yet have faith in Christ's atoning work for the forgiveness of their sins. Pray that Daniela will fully recover from this scary injury and will suffer no long-term damage. Pray that Chris will find a new job. Pray that Tyler will fully recover from his car crash. Pray that Christ will give me direction as whether I should remain here another year or return to the States.

Thoughts about Life (or Death)

2008-11-06T02:18:00.000-08:00

What will happen to the American culture of death, now that we know tho the next president is going to be? The American people in the last few months have let their concerns over their bank accounts, stock portfolios, and gas prices overtake the really more urgent need to stop murdering unborn children. Actually, things like gas prices and wars and personal convenience have taken precedent over the lives of a million children in the US every year (legally) since 1973. We're getting close to 36 years of legalized abortion on demand in the US, and it seems that people are growing more and more complacent about it. This is a bad thing.

I was just listening this morning to an older (Oct. 15) broadcast of Issues, Etc. in which Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, born in Hitler's Germany, talked about the collective shame of the German people because of the Holocaust. The interesting thing is that Hitler was elected in a landslide because he was a very engaging, inspiring speaker who made promises to the German people to fix their ravaged economy after the effects of the Great Depression. This was in spite of the fact that his plans for the extermination of the Jews and the gypsies were known (Mein Kampf was published in 1925, Hitler was elected in 1934).

Now, I'm not saying that Barack Obama is Hitler, but I'm saying there are some parallels here. The difference is that Obama isn't creating the Holocaust, he's inheriting it. But from his voting record and answers to questions about abortion during his campaign, it doesn't look like he's going to make any moves to stop this American Holocaust, one which is, quite honestly, MORE atrocious than the one of the 30s and 40s here in Europe.

How many people did Nazi Germany kill? Well, 6 million Jews, and between 3 and 5 million others. How many people has Roe v. Wade America killed? Just over a million every year since 1973. That puts us at more than 35 million killed. I believe that America should be ashamed for being so selfish, being more concerned over $4 gas and rescuing people from their debts-- in a culture that CONSTANTLY spends more money than it has-- than for the life of the pre-born. Why do we allow life to be graded on a curve? Why is it that a person who has just finished gestating has rights (i.e. LIFE) that he or she didn't have just minutes, days, or weeks before? WHAT ARE WE THINKING?!

I hope that, as President of the United States, deciding when life begins will no longer be above Obama's pay-grade.

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Please pray for President-Elect Obama and for the USA.

"First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." (Romans 13:1-2)

"We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them." (Explanation of the 4th Commandment from Luther's Small Catechism)

Sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christus, sola scriptura

2008-10-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

I like that Martin Luther decided to post his discussion points on Halloween. It lets Lutherans like me do stuff like this:

Recently found a great hymn for the Reformation. Reformation Day was observed in Lutheran-- and other Protestant-- churches around the world this past Sunday. I suppose it was celebrated, or at least mentioned, in the church here in Trinec. I don't know about this, however, because I had been invited by a friend to visit her church (nothing took place there that could have been mistaken by anyone as Lutheran...). Anyway, here it is:

Salvation unto us has come
By God's free grace and favor;
Good works cannot avert our doom,
They help and save us never.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,
Who did for all the world atone;
He is our one Redeemer.

What God di in His Law demand
And none to Him could render
Caused wrath and woe on ev'ry hand
For man, the vile offender.
Our flesh has not those pure desires
The spirit of the Law requires,
And lost is our condition.

It was a false, misleading dream
That God His Law had given
That sinners could themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.

From sin our flesh could not abstain,
Sin held its sway unceasing;
The task was useless and in vain,
Our guilt was e'er increasing.
None can remove sin's poisoned dart
Or purify our guileful heart--
So deep is our corruption.

Yet as the Law must be fulfilled
Or we must die despairing,
Christ came and has God's anger stilled,
Our human nature sharing.
He has for us the Law obeyed
And thus the Father's vengeance stayed
Which over us impended.

Since Christ has full atonement made
And brought to us salvation,
Each Christian therefore may be glad
And build on this foundation.
Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead,
Your death is now my life indeed,
For You have paid my ransom.

Let me not doubt, but truly see
Your Word cannot be broken;
Your call rings out, "Come unto Me!"
No falsehood have You spoken.
Baptized into Your precious name,
My faith cannot be put to shame,
And I shall never perish.

The Law reveals the guilt of sin
And makes us conscience-stricken;
But then the Gospel enters in
The sinful soul to quicken.
Come to the cross, trust Christ, and live;
The Law no peace can ever give,
No comfort and no blessing.

Faith clings to Jesus' cross alone
And rests in Him unceasing;
And by its fruits true faith is known,
With love and hope increasing.
For faith alone can justify;
Works serve our neighbor and supply
The proof that faith is living.

All blessing, honor, thanks, and praise
To Father, Son, and Spirit,
The God who saved us by His grace;
All glory to His merit.
O triune God in heav'n above,
You have revealed Your saving love;
Your blessed name we hallow. (LSB 555)

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I pray, dear reader, that this coming Reformation Day, you would be assured by the true Word of God that your salvation is in Christ alone, by grace through faith alone, and that it depends not on any deeds of your own. (See Ephesians 2:8-9)

Little Joys

2008-10-16T11:56:00.001-07:00

Today was a day of so much joy for me. The joy actually began about 24 hours ago when I had a 90 minute "phone" call on Skype with my dad, followed by another one of similar length with my precious best friend from high school. I hadn't heard the sound of her voice in probably 6 weeks, so this was delightful to me.

One of the first things of my (always too early at 6:00 AM) morning was the discovery upon checking my email that God worked a miracle in the clutch, as I'd been hoping and praying for, for my friend Emily. Her last day for raising support for her internship with Cru was Wednesday, and I had an email from her saying that her support percentage was high enough that she can finally stop spending every waking minute raising support and she can FINALLY get on campus at UVA. WOOO!!!!

Then, I had a teaching highlight. This was completely unexpected. Thursdays are my longest (and admittedly least favorite) days. But the 6th graders made me so happy: after I had finished teaching them this little song about the seasons-- to the tune of Frere Jacques-- and was getting ready to sit down and let the "real" teacher take over the class, one of the boys said "jeste jedno." This phrase is Czech for "again." I couldn't believe it. I asked if they wanted to sing again, and all the little heads in the room began bobbing up and down. So, we sang it again, and when I sat down and the other teacher took over, I did a little, internal happy-dance. Wow. And, the eighth graders weren't as bad as usual, so that was good.

When I got home, completely exhausted from a full day of teaching, a package was waiting for me outside the door to my flat. It was from home. It was mostly books that I had ordered on the internet for myself and had shipped to the house, but when Mom and Dad packed the box to send to me, they included strawberry-flavored Twizzlers, Starbursts and Gardetto's snack mix (my FAVORITE!!!). I was SO happy, I forgot that it was a Thursday and that I was supposed to be tired and miserable. :P

When my flatmate got home, she had good news: her sister gave birth to a baby, Rebeka, this afternoon. Yay! AND she shared with me the good news that her religion classes (not required for the students) at the high schools in town are going so well. At one of the schools, so many kids signed up that they had to split into 3 classes because they couldn't all fit in the room together. She also told me that in her class today, when the hour was over, the students wanted more, and were even asking if they could have class more than one day a week! Praise the Lord!

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I will pray that your day, dear reader, will be filled with as many little joys as mine was, and that God will open your eyes to see the blessings that He showers you with every day.

Oswiecim

2008-10-13T02:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Sunday) morning I was invited to go on a day-trip to Auschwitz and Krakow with our building manager and a group of pastors from Korea who are visiting this area for 10 days. I got invited because the building manager speaks no English or Korean, and because the pastors speak no Czech or Polish, and because none of the bi-lingual members of our church were available. Basically I was the "translator." Bizarre. I've been here for 5 months and my ability to express myself in Czech is half that of my pastor's toddler daughter's ability. But she still doesn't speak English ;)

So we left on our trip around noon. It took us about two and a half or three hours to get to Auschwitz because we stopped for lunch in Bielsko-Biala at McDonald's (only the third Mickey D's I've even SEEN since I've been here... nice that it's so rare).

My impressions of Auschwitz I: Horrible. There were many barracks there, which had been "home" to the thousands of prisoners, and while some of them were under renovation or reconstruction, the majority of them were dedicated to housing a display about different aspects of the camp and the history of the war. One was for the confiscated possessions of the prisoners (mountains of shoes, suitcases, brushes, combs, wash basins and pitchers, eyeglasses, and implements such as crutches, back braces, and wooden legs; Jewish prayer shawls displayed hanging from rods, rather than in a heap like the aforementioned items; a few items of children's belongings including a doll and shoes for a toddler). This one, and the one depicting the physical toll that the camp took on the prisoners (photos of nude, skeleton women at the time of the liberation of the camp, listing that they had shriveled from around 165 lbs at internment to 55 lbs at the time of the taking of the photograph), are the two that had the heaviest impact on me. The Jewish barracks also had a huge emotional impact. We walked through the gas chamber and the crematorium, where they incinerated thousands upon thousands of people PER DAY.

My impressions of Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau, a mere 2 miles from A. I): Huge. I'm afraid it will seem irreverent or ghastly for me to admit, but Birkenau seemed almost elegant, giving me the same sensation as when something rancid also has a sweet tinge to it's odor. Not that there is ANYTHING sweet about what happened in Birkenau, but it's physical appearance now, 63 years after it closed has a ghastly beauty to it. It was so symmetrical. So meticulous. And that's a part of the horror of it. The Nazis were so meticulous in their extermination of people: Jews, the sick, homosexuals, the weak, children, criminals-- guilty or innocent of real or imagined crimes... From the entrance building to the camp to the back of the camp where the incinerator was located (it was about 95% demolished... the destruction that remains is a powerful tribute to the destruction that occurred when it was in use) was at the very least half a mile, maybe even a mile (I'm not great at estimating these distances). I have no idea how far it was from side to side, but it was wider than it was long, and filled with these barracks designed to house 52 horses. When the camp was occupied, each barracks housed 400 people.

Auschwitz I overwhelms with words and images and the presence of a plaza of execution and a prison basement in one building where many prisoners were sentenced to death by starvation or to pass nights in a row in "standing cells" where they would wait out the night only to work 11 or 12 hours the next day.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau overwhelms with it's sheer size. There are very few placards with words or images on them. It's just a huge, empty, outdoor prison, where the Nazis had dismantled many of the buildings in an effort to cover up what had happened there. Of those buildings, the wood was taken away, but the two chimneys from each of the barracks stands as a silent monument to history.

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A final thought: As I wandered through these two death camps, I was thinking that no matter how horrible and awful the atrocities committed in Auschwitz were, no matter the evil that the Nazis did there, there is something that I've done that's worse.

I am guilty of killing the Author of Life and nailing Him to a tree just outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

Auschwitz was not the most horrible thing to ever occur in human history.

The Cross of Calvary was.

Whirlwind Week

2008-10-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

This week was my busiest week of the school year to date. I knew it would be chock-full of activities, and so I wasn't surprised when I had basically no down-time for the first four days of the school week.

On Monday I went to Navsi, a neighboring village, where for a few weeks now, the pastor of the SCEAV (the local Lutheran denomination) church in town and I have been leading a Christian English Club for the junior high aged kids at the primary school. Because it was the first Monday of the month, I went not only for the club, but to also teach two classes. That evening I had my first class in the "new season" of my Anglictinu s Ashley (English with Ashley) classes. When I arrived in the classroom, I was overwhelmed as nearly 30 pairs of eyes were looking at me, waiting for me to begin. Because there were so many, and the class was designed for 2 hours, we decided to break the class in half and do only an hour for each half so that there would be fewer students and less for them to remember from week to week.

Tuesday was the first day that I was to be in the 1st and 2nd grade classrooms at the school here in Trinec. I had planned to do a memory game with the second graders, but due to a communications error, I showed up for that class during the second hour when the class was during the first hour. Oops. In the first grade classroom, the director of the school and I taught using a song about the "Happy House": roof, wall, door, window, floor, and chimney. Cute. That evening I had high school and adult conversation at the church. My chosen topic for the day, because I'm going alphabetically through my conversation topics, was "Arguing." I thought that this would be a wonderful, fun topic with lots of participation. Boy, was I wrong. Arguing, not even in the sense of defending one's position with facts, was not regarded as important among my students. It was much more important to avoid making any waves. I tried to bait the conversation by posing a situation about having a friend inviting them to go shoplift at Tesco (like Wal*mart), asking whether that would be a situation in which they might argue. The answer: a lot of hemming and hawing. This makes me wonder about the state of conviction about the Truth among the believers here. But I digress.

Wednesday was 3rd, 4th, and 6th (a) grades at school. It's getting easier, but it's still hard to stand in front of a group of children and try to teach them something. Everyone says that just giving them the opportunity to hear and be around a native speaker will help these kids a lot. I hope so. That evening was my intermediate class at the church. Thinking about this class was the most nerve-racking of the evening classes for me, because it was the new one. And because I have no curriculum for it. For the beginners I have a curriculum, for the conversation students, I already have a plan worked up for the lessons. But the intermediate? Would they even understand me? It went really well. I'm starting from a basic level: introductions/getting to know you activity, classroom vocabulary, past simple and present simple verb tenses (review) and a little reading: a simplified telling of the Fall with LOTS of our "verb tenses of the week" included. The students gave me good feedback, and by the end of the two hours, I began to think that maybe it would become my favorite class. We'll see.

Thursday: the longest day every week. I have 5th and 6th (b) grade regular English, and then conversation with the 8th and 9th grades. It's good. The eighth graders are the most difficult class for me because many of them don't want to be there, but they are required to be. If anyone has any ideas on how to involve and interest 13-year-olds, I'm more than willing to listen! After lunch, I teach the teachers at the school. They are so much fun and so eager. I really enjoy their class. By the time that class is over, around 3:30, I'm completely beat and have only 90 minutes before my Czech lesson begins. The best way to completely exhaust myself, I've found, is to teach all day on Thursday and then sit and try to think and listen in Czech for two hours in the evening. Wow. My brain wants to jump out of my skull and run away from me, screaming "No more!!!!!" by 7:00 on Thursdays.

Friday: awesome! I teach only 7th grade conversation during first hour, and then I'm done for the day. This week Stephanie and I met in the afternoon for our first Book of Concord reading group meeting. We went to a nearby cafe and talked and drank caffeine and read from the Formula of Concord and discussed our questions searching Scripture. It was great.

When I started writing this, it was late Saturday morning, and because I had been so busy during the week, not evening checking my email for four days, I was at a loss as to what to do with the free time. I had already gone for a run and even cleaned my bathroom, but was wondering what to do with myself. Strange to be so busy and then all of a sudden, not.

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Prayer Requests:
-For my friend Emily, that she would receive the last bit of her support for being a Campus Crusade staff intern. Her deadline is 3 days away and she has a way to go, but we have a big God who is able to provide for all our needs.

-That God would use me as His mouthpiece to share the Gospel of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, especially in my evening classes and in the children's club on Mondays in Navsi where there are non-believers. These people, and all without faith in Christ, need to hear the Gospel because they are perishing in their sin.

-That I would improve as a teacher of English and a learner of Czech.

Image is Nothing, Thirst is Everything. Obey Your Thirst

2008-09-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

This morning as I was getting dressed and ready for the day, going through the paces of my daily "beauty regimen", all of a sudden the old Sprite catch-phrase was floating through my head: "Image is nothing, thirst is everything. Obey your thirst." This was one of the stranger things to enter my thoughts in recent days. It wasn't a passing thought, either. It has been inside my head all day.

I haven't seen a Sprite commercial for... ages, and I haven't seen this particular one for years. More than that, I can't remember the last time I even saw, let alone drank, a Sprite. But this was in my head. Immediately after this popped into my head, I began to think about two different Bible verses:

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." 1 Peter 3:3-4

and

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled." Matthew 5:6

Being woman, body image is very important to me. It baffles me why, when, and how exactly this became true of me. I wasn't raised to be so focused on and worried about my appearance. My parents raised me in such a way that beauty, while a good thing, was no where near the center of my focus. I was raised to be an independent, self-confident and capable woman, not relying on my appearance but my intellect and cognition.

This is why I am baffled over and over again why beauty and the whole physical appearance thing are so prominent in my thought life. I have been told that this is part of the way that women are generally wired, that this obsession with physical beauty is something that is almost always floating around in the back of our minds (or sometimes front and center and seemingly unavoidable and impossible to ignore). And most of the thoughts that surface concerning physical beauty, at least for me-- I don't pretend to speak for all women-- are ones of insufficiency and dissatisfaction. These thoughts of course lead toward a kind of uncomfortable consciousness about myself.

This consciousness is somehow inexplicably linked to a deep desire to be loved, and a doubt that if I don't live up to the impossible standard of beauty the culture sets, then I will not be loved. The desire to be the object of a real love is like a voracious, nearly unquenchable thirst. I know that if I were to seek in the world for that thirst to be quenched, my mouth and my soul would grow dustier and drier for the trying. So where does a girl go to have her thirst quenched from its very depths?

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David." Isaiah 55:1-3

But this morning, as I thought about Sprite, I was reminded that my appearance does not matter to the One who loves me the most. In fact, I was almost dancing as I thought about following my thirst to the source of the River of Life where I can drink freely and deeply. Rejoiced at the thought of being filled and brought to a blessed disinterest in my physique because all my attention would be not on my beauty, but caught breathlessly up by the beauty of the One who is the Beginning and the End.

"He said to me: 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." Revelation 21:6-7

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I pray God's blessings to all of you who read this post. May you "Obey Your Thirst" and be filled with the Living Water that is found alone in Christ Jesus.

Friday Nights In

2008-09-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

It's almost 9:00 on a Friday night. I have just slowly (reluctantly) made my way back upstairs after the ending of our Mladez meeting (older youth group, comparable to a "college group" in the US), and have greeted a dark, empty apartment. This sets me to wondering what I would be doing if I was at home.

If I was living in the US, how would I be spending my Friday nights? Certainly not bemoaning my lack of activities on my blog! A year ago, during my final semester as a university student, I spent nearly every Friday night playing Husker Fight Songs and other pep tunes at Misty's restaurant in Havelock. Okay. I'm sure there were any number of Friday nights when I was at the U when I stayed in and did homework. There was one semester when I went to Navigators' meetings on Friday nights. I never did the bar scene; if you are surprised by that, then you don't know me at all. I know I spent a lot of time with friends, just hanging out in the dorms on Fridays. There was also a period of time when I would have spent the majority of my Friday evenings with a boyfriend (that may be a surprise, too). Of course in high school there were the football and basketball games to keep everyone occupied on Fridays.

And now?

I guess I could go to bed...

Other than the mladez meeting, Friday night is the same as any other for me. Catching up on my ever growing list of blogs which I am "following, " listening to back-broadcasts of Issues Etc. podcasts, and reading my Google News feed to find out what's going on in the world, in the States, and in the election campaigns. I could do some lesson planning for next week (that's the same thing as doing homework on Friday night. Blech!).

Maybe I'll go read my Bible and pray. After all, at our mladez meeting we talked about spiritual growth and how busy-ness often prevents us from dedicating time to God as we ought. I'm not busy now... maybe I should spend my Friday nights in with the Best Friend I will ever have.

Gain the World, Lose Your Soul; Forsake the World, Gain Eternal Life

2008-09-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

In the last two days I have finished reading two books. The first, Revolution in World Missions by K. P. Yohannan, was about modern Christian missions throughout India, China, and southeast Asian nations. The premise of the book is to persuade North American Christians to support native missionaries in these nations for several reasons. The book was very thought-provoking and has awoken me to the need for native evangelists to be helped by westerners in carrying the Gospel to their own people. The book made many assertions that I didn't necessarily agree with (and some that I did), but I was glad to examine my own assumptions on the basis of the challenges leveled against the way that I-- and western Christians in general-- seem to think about God's plan for missions and for bringing His Gospel to the nations.

The most welcome challenge to my way of thinking was the one which called attention to the affluent way in which so many of us live. The book powerfully showed how so many American Christians hold on so tightly to their possessions and their money, as though these things actually belonged to us, and as though God had given them to us for our own pleasure. The truth is that everything that we "have" is not ours, but a trust from God. He blesses us so that we may be a blessing. He gives good gifts to us so that we may serve our neighbors, not so that we can collect a mountain of worldly goods. The money we have is not ours to stockpile; we can't keep it anyway. We would do well to remember that we ought to store up our treasures in heaven and to give away our treasures in this life for the good of our neighbors, and especially the advancement of the Gospel. After all, what will please God more for us to do? Buy another new car or a bigger house or a more expensive, cutting edge electronic toy OR "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21) I am reminded of the parable of the Rich Fool (check out Luke 12:13-21).

The second book that I have just finished is The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The overall thesis of this book is the extremely set-apart life of the true disciple of Christ. The disciple of Christ, in responding to His call, gets up and leaves everything in his previous life completely behind to follow Christ. Bonhoeffer reminds his readers of the intensity and extremity of the Christian life. We have died to sin and to the world, living now only in and for Christ. This book, like Yohannan's, challenged my reliance on and attachment to my worldly comforts. I have to admit that usually this kind of challenge would make me uncomfortable, and I might even be tempted to turn on it with a deaf ear. But lately, some very deep part of me has been longing for this completely revolutionary, intense life in Christ. I don't want normal, I don't want easy, I don't want comfortable. I want to be challenged and to rely on Christ's provision for the strength to meet the challenge.

This post is another Reading Rainbow post: Don't just take my word for it, read it yourself-- especially the Bonhoeffer book.
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"A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15b)

Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away

2008-09-06T03:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I had a wonderful, dual privilege. I played my trumpet at a wedding. I neither met nor spoke with either the bride or the groom, but I got to witness, along with many others, their union before God. The ceremony was brief-- a long 20 minutes-- with very little pomp and circumstance compared to the roughly 20 weddings in the US I've attended. Many things about the ceremony were very different from the way weddings are done in America, but that wasn't the thing on my mind as the marriage miracle unfolded as I looked on from the balcony.

What was on my mind was what marriage is to be a picture of. Many times in the New Testament, the relationship between Christ and the Church is described as the relationship between a groom and his bride. The thing that I think that many people, including me, miss about marriage is that Christ and the Church are the real thing, and that marriage between a man and a woman on earth is a type of that eternal Marriage. This is evident in how the relations between husband and wife are described in Ephesians 5. It says that wives are to submit to their husbands since the church submits to Christ. It says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and laid down His life for her. It does NOT say that the church submits to Christ because wives submit to their husbands, nor does it say that Christ laid down His life for the church because this is how husbands love their wives. That is absurd.

I am beginning to think that part of the reason that marriage is deteriorating among Christians at the same rate as it is deteriorating in the culture is that we have forgotten which marriage is the rule. When we look around at how human marriages are, we begin to let failing, selfish marriages be our standard, our measuring stick. But as Christians, the example, the rule for marriage is not the way other people are executing this covenant, but rather how Christ and His Bride carry out the Covenant. This is a much higher standard, and maybe in our disposable culture, it is "too hard" for people treat marriage the way the Christ does. Christ doesn't call His followers to ease, there is no where in His covenant with us an escape clause. Christ's marriage with the Church will NEVER end, no matter how many marital problems they have. No matter how unfaithful the Church is, no matter how many other lovers she runs after, this marriage never ends, it's for forever.

For the man and woman who wed this morning the marriage picture is now complete, they have been made one flesh. They have gone off to their wedding banquet with all of their guests to celebrate their feast. I hope and pray for them, and for all men and their brides, that their marriages will be in the image of the Christ and the Church. I pray that the brides will submit to their husbands as to Christ and that the husbands will love their wives as Christ, giving himself up for her, loving her as he loves himself.

Some day soon, the picture of marriage will be complete for the Church too. On that day, a trumpet-- one that doesn't sound anything like the brass instrument I play-- will sound and Christ will come to take His bride home to her wedding banquet. And then Christ and His church will enjoy union for the rest of eternity. Maranatha Jesus!

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Please pray for marriage! Pray that Christians would return to a faithful, sober-minded understanding of this covenant, that they would treat marriage like the eternal covenant that it is. Pray that couples wouldn't see marriage as a way to "prove their love" for one another, but rather as a way to mutually serve the Lord, to serve and love one another, and to nurture children, should the Lord provide them.

Pray also for contentment and discernment for unmarried people. God calls some people to marriage and He calls others to singleness. Pray that He would give wisdom and discernment to single people, whether they should marry or embrace life-long celibacy.

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Note: The photo I've included on this blog is not from today's wedding, but from my brother's wedding in December. I took no pictures during the wedding today.

Back to School

2008-09-03T09:01:00.001-07:00

Monday was the first day of school here. That's right, while America was enjoying its last day off with barbeques and other fun with get-togethers with friends, at the very least, a three-day weekend, we here in the Czech Republic were putting our noses to the grindstone. Okay, that is not be an accurate characterization of the first day of school here. We started our first day at 8:00 with an assembly in the school gym. All the students and some of the parents gathered to be welcomed, first by the president of the school, Bishop Piȩtak (the Bishop of the Silesian Church) and then by the director of the school, Mrs. Guňková. She also introduced all the teachers at the school. Then there was a very adorable little ceremony where all the new first graders were brought to the front and the ninth graders gave each of them a stuffed animal as a gift to welcome them to the school. The transfer students were also brought to the front, introduced, and welcomed. We had a few prayers, a few songs, and by 8:45 or 9:00 the assembly was dismissed, and the students all went to their classrooms. There they were notified of some of the rules and whatnot. The school was then pretty much empty of students by 9:30 as the tasks for the school day were over.

We had a teachers meeting at 10:00 and I finally learned some of the things that I will need to know about my responsibilities for this school year. I still don't feel like I know a lot, and I still don't know my schedule for the year, but I at least feel reassured. I didn't have to go to school on Tuesday or today, and probably not tomorrow either, as the schedule is still pretty fluid right now and things are just getting settled. By about next week, things for my schedule should be pretty settled. In addition to teaching 7-9th grade conversation, the teachers want me to teach them one day a week after school. They made noise that they would like it to be an English Bible Study. That's pretty sweet. At the preschool, one of the teachers would like me to come to her class for an hour one day a week. Another option for teaching, or more likely leading an after school English club, is open to me at a public school in Navsi, a neighboring town. In addition to all of that, I am still teaching my three evening classes here in Hutník (the name of the parish hall). I am looking forward to having a lot to do, so that I must use my time wisely for a change!

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Last week, the final week of the summer, was our youth group retreat, with members of our youth group and some of their school friends. It was a wonderful week, and probably one of my favorite camps of the summer. Our discussion theme for the week was Love, Dating, and Marriage. This, I believe, was a wonderful topic to be discussing with the youth, and being a group leader, I was given an opportunity to speak from my own experiences, the good and the bad, in this area. Since we spent so much time talking about what real love was, we of course talked about the love of Christ and how all true love emulates Christ's love (for more information, see 1 Corinthians 13:4-7). This was a great opportunity to share the Gospel, showing exactly what the extent of God's love looks like.

We didn't spend all of our time discussing love, however. We did a lot of playing. Some of the boys brought unicycles, and so many people learned to ride during the week. We tried to learn to play baseball and American football-- to almost no avail. That was actually one of my favorite parts of the week: watching kids who grew up without baseball trying to wrap their minds around the rules. I laughed a lot. We played capture the flag in the pitch dark forest one night, went on an early morning hike to watch the sun rise, spent all of one day at a swimming pool, had a massive scavenger hunt and a huge, impromptu water fight. It was wonderful. I learned to solve a Rubik's cube during the week as well (Look out world!).

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God has been amazing me a lot lately. This morning I read Psalm 97 and was put in awe of what a glorious God we have.

Psalm 97:1-6:

The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad;
let the distant shores rejoice.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire goes before him
and consumes his foes on every side.
His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.

The rest of this psalm is great too, but I thought that this first half was particularly wonderful. I love how God reveals Himself here, and throughout the rest of His Holy Word. The way God describes Himself puts me in so much awe; the thought of how much more awe we will experience when we see Him as He is, face to face, in heaven is too much for me to fathom. Wow. Alleluia.

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Please pray that:
-the needs, such as visas and support, of the other new LCMS missionaries would be filled soon so they may get to God's work in their respective fields. Pray particularly for the missionaries heading to Panama & Japan (support) and Hungary & the Czech Republic (visas).
-the Christian students throughout this area and I would be salt and light in our schools, bearing witness to the Gospel and making new disciples of Christ.
-the Gospel would spread throughout the Czech Republic. There is SUCH need here for people to know God and to be saved!

Laugh till I Cry

2008-08-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

This week was... a challenge. I was really anxious under the pressure of being an unworthy vessel for transporting to children the greatest Good News man has ever known. Besides the fact that I don't have a ton of experience as an engaging story teller for children, I was also aware of the fact of the importance that Christ puts on giving the Gospel to the young: "It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin" (Luke 17:2). In fact, today before I went to our last morning of camp, I was reminded of the importance of children to Christ in my Portals of Prayer devotion. It was from Mark 10:13-16. Jesus' words (v.14b -15) are: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." I really zeroed in on the "do not hinder them" portion of the passage. I wonder how often well-intentioned people end up hindering faith when they falsely believe that they are trying to foster it. I just pray that I was under no delusions: when I believed I was bearing witness to Christ that I actually was doing so.

It has been a difficult week in terms of the loneliness factor again. Strange that I have the capacity to feel lonely when I'm so surrounded by people. Tonight, because of the loneliness, I finally went to my "survival kit" of sorts, provided to me by the other new LCMS missionaries. The last night of our orientation, Thursday, June 26, they threw me a going away party complete with DQ ice cream cake and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Many of them also wrote me notes that I was supposed to read here when in need of encouragement. I can't believe that I made it this long before I read them. I'm so glad that I did. Their own words, as well as particularly encouraging verses they included in their notes, made me so happy. One of the girls from the Eurasia team had folded her note into an origami frog and even included a funny joke in her note. One member of the Japan team wrote his notes to me on the back of paper he had used for doodle paper during our classes, and finding his awesome sketch of a mouse and of a gerbil on his words of encouragement made me laugh. That laughter quickly proceeded to tears of thankfulness and praise to the Lord for giving me the encouragement of His Word through His gift of these friends. I can't believe how the Lord has blessed me.

Also through His Word, prayer, and the encouragement of wise people around me, God has caused the difficult anxiety about the approaching school year to dissipate. And how thankful I'm for that! He has brought me here and He will fill my every need with His providence.

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How did I spend my time this week when I wasn't with the kids? I've spent a lot of time this week listening to podcasts of my favorite talk radio show, Issues Etc. It is "Christ-centered, Cross-focused Talk Radio" hosted by Todd Wilken, an LCMS pastor. If you haven't ever heard of it, check out their website: www.issuesetc.org. It has been wonderful to keep up with the news in the States and with all kinds of social, political, and religious issues from a solid, Bible-based perspective. I highly recommend it for people who are into real Christianity and podcasting (or listening to the radio online).

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Prayer Requests:
-Please pray that God would continue to prepare me (and my students) for the upcoming school year. We go back on Monday the 1st!
-Pray that God would continue to remind me that He is and has provided everything that I need for life, health, and salvation.
-Pray that I would continue to have opportunities to share the Gospel with those around me, bearing witness to the Truth of Christ's once for all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the world.

Children's Camp in Cutlery Town

2008-08-20T05:27:00.000-07:00

Last week I was the token American at a children's camp in a city about 60 miles from here. This children's camp was at Dětská Misie (Children's Mission) in Přibor. The name of this post actually comes from the meaning of the word Přibor: cutlery. I love the names of towns here...

The children's camp wasn't specifically an English camp, so I didn't have a LOT to do, but we did have three 40-minute English lessons which I led. It was wonderful to be with the children at this camp; I believe that my Czech vocabulary expanded quite a bit around these children who consistently forgot that I don't speak their language, and so they were always speaking to me in Czech, expecting me to understand. At times that was difficult and/or frustrating. More often, however, given the context of the activities we were engaged in, I could actually guess what the children were saying or asking, and I was occasionally capable of answering them appropriately out of my limited vocabulary. Another wonderful thing about this camp was the counselors at the camp. Most of them had very limited English vocabulary, but that didn't stop us from developing friendships based on our common faith in Christ, our willingness to struggle with our language barrier, and our ability to laugh with love at ourselves and one another. Because I didn't have a lot of actual English responsibilities and wasn't really able to interact with the children on a very deep level, I felt guilty being inactive while everyone was caring for the children. As a result of this, I made myself useful in the kitchen, loading and unloading the dishwasher, hand-washing other dishes a couple of times a day, helping to prepare food, tidying and cleaning in the kitchen, and cleaning up the dining room after meals as well. It was bizarre, but on Thursday evening as I was washing dishes and scalding my hands in the water, I had a realization that I was really very happy, that I couldn't imagine anything else (other than washing dishes) that I would rather be doing at that very moment. Weird.

This week we are having a children's English Camp here at the church hall in Třinec. I am helping to teach the advanced class of eight incredibly bright young boys (6-10 years). They have surpassed our expectations of them by learning in the first day all of the material that we had planned for the first two days. I am also leading the Bible story time of the camp. We are covering the Fall, the Flood, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Zacchaeus, and the Feeding of the 5,000. This is actually causing me great anxiety, as I realize that teaching or even being in front of a crowd of children between the ages of 4 and 10 is one of my greatest weak spots. I find it very intriguing that I have such difficulty in front of such young children, when I'm sure that a crowd of most any size, between the ages of 15 and 100 would cause no problems for me. I could handle that. More than not being geared toward this age group, I feel the weight of needing to faithfully proclaim the Gospel to these children. This may be the main source of my anxiety; I want so much to be found faithful to the Lord in this task.

Another thing on my mind: school starts in 12 days and I still don't know the details of my responsibilities for the year. I know that we've talked about me teaching conversation to the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. But I haven't had a chance yet to have a meeting with my school's director to nail down exactly what will be my tasks during the school year. This is a major concern for me.

Right now I'm reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's awesome. Bonhoeffer illustrates strongly the difference between God's real grace in Christ, which is costly, and cheap grace, the grace which people appropriate for themselves when they sin, but then say, "but I won't worry, Jesus has forgiven me for that, so I don't have to be too serious about radically putting that sin away (i.e. cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye if it causes me to sin-- Matt. 5:29-30). He expounds his thesis using the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. I highly recommend it.

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Prayer Requests:
Please pray that I would have peace about teaching and leading Bible stories at Children's English Camp this week and that I would have peace about teaching this fall. Pray that God would do away with my fears and my worries of inadequacy in these things and that He would lead me to rely on Him even more desperately. Pray that I would spend more time reading God's Word and talking to Him in prayer, lifting up to Him all my concerns. Pray that He would give me motivation to use my time wisely for Him and for serving those around me.

"Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." -Philippians 2:12b-13

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Trivia Factoid:
Přibor, Cutleryville, was the birthplace of Sigmund Freud, for those who are interested. His family lived there until he was 3, when they moved to Austria. He is kind of a big deal to that town, as is evident in the Freud Inn, the Freud bust in a little green spot near to the town square, his preserved boyhood home (complete with psychologist's couch on the front lawn), and the Freud related items that are available for purchase in many of the shops on the town square.

Children's Camp and Other Stuff

2008-08-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

Today I'm continuing my theme of playing catch up on my blogs. Last week I started the week in recovery mode from XcamP. Because it was such a long week and because I had gotten sick, I really treasured the chance to have a few days to myself to relax and recover before moving on to the next thing. On Sunday I was blessed with an invitation to have Sunday dinner with the Samiec family. Two of the children in this family and I have become friends throughout the course of this summer, and I was excited to have the chance to meet their parents and spend the afternoon with them. Not only did I get to come over for dinner, but I even got to help in the preparation a little. Maybe eventually the women here will collectively teach this "kitchen incompetent" how to cook.

After a relaxing and fairly uneventful Monday and Tuesday (except for teaching my three English classes), I went on Wednesday to Budišov nad Budišovkou to join the last two days of our church's English camp. I took the train (my first Czech train ride!) from Třinec to Karvína by myself. In Karvína, I met with a doctor who is so renowned here that everyone simply calls him by his first name, Bendito. I actually have no idea what his last name is. He is originally from Angola, but he moved to the Czech Republic 25 years ago to attend University in Brno. He's lived here longer than he lived in his home country. Anyway, he and his wife, wonderful people both, picked me up at the train station and the three of us drove the rest of the way to Budišov. It was a very pleasant ride. Bendito and I spoke with each other in English, but more of our conversation was in Spanish as his Spanish is stronger than his English. At one point, he said a sentence to me that was trilingual. That's right, in one sentence he switched between Czech, English and Spanish. And the funny thing was, I understood him! I tried my Czech on his wife, and I have to admit that it was pitiful. But they were both patient with me, and they taught me a few new words on the way to the camp. The reason that Bendito and his wife were going to the Children's camp was that every evening, a non-Czech had been invited to speak about his or her home country. Wednesday was Bendito's appointed night, and once we arrived and the time came for him to speak, he gave a presentation about the continent of Africa with the most beautiful slide show that I've ever seen. When he was done speaking, I was dying to go to Africa and see EVERYTHING. When Bendito was finished speaking, he and his wife went home, and I stayed at the camp until Friday when it ended.

On Thursday, the entire camp went for a six hour trip to the top of the mountain above Budišov. On the way there, I was blessed to walk with so many children who wanted to be my friend and who wanted to teach me Czech. I learned more words and phrases on the way to the top of that mountain than I have learned in any other single WEEK that I've been here. More than that, I developed a couple friendships with some wonderful children from my congregation. I also had the first time in my life to pick blueberries. Parts of the mountains here are carpeted with blueberry plants under the trees, and by the end of the afternoon, my hands and my mouth were purple. It was wonderful. At the top of the mountain, there was a meteorological station where we spent about an hour learning about the machinery and equipment for weather prediction.

That evening it was my turn to talk about my home. I had been told that I should talk about Cowboys and Indians because children in the Czech Republic love the American Old West. So, I made a presentation about Plains Indians and Cowboys. It went over so well with the children that the next morning, when they were asked what their favorite part of the camp was, many of them said "Ashley!" I have a sneaking suspicion that they said that because it was the most recent event, and therefore the thing they remembered the best, but who am I to say? At any rate, the two days when I was at our children's camp were two of the best days of the last month. Seriously. It was wonderful.

The only other really noteworthy things that I have done since Children's camp include hiking up Javorovy (a local popular "mountain" hiking/ biking/ parasailing location) on Sunday with two brothers from the church. It was one of the most exhausting and fun things I've done in a long time. After we reached the summit and rested for a little while, we took the opportunity to run down the face of the mountain. That's right. We ran down the treeless parasailing strip from the summit to about 2/3 of the way down. From there we got onto a significantly less steep trail and jogged for about 10 minutes back to their home. What a rush. Another 'noteworthy' activity was a solo cycling excursion where I took my lunch and a book and went to the forest for an afternoon of reading, relaxing, and berry picking. I came home with about a half a pound of blackberries with a few raspberries and blueberries in the mix, and not a few scratches on my arms and legs. These bushes are vicious!

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In other news, I just finished reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. I highly recommend it, especially the final chapter, "Charity." Lewis always amazes me, at his depth of insight, and his incredible ability to draw such incredible, often funny, analogies. Also, if you haven't read another wonderful book by Lewis: The Great Divorce-- and you probably haven't-- DO. I am really excited about that book. In it he does an incredible job of painting a picture of how small and forgettable and impermanent is everything that we live for here in light of the bigness and unforgettability and permanence of heaven. It's awesome. While I'm on the Lewis bandwagon, I also highly recommend The Screwtape Letters, but enough of the book review.

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One of the joys which I've recently enjoyed is devouring an entire book of the Bible in one sitting. Paul's letters are particularly conducive to this and every time I have finished one lately, I wonder what it is exactly that keeps me from doing this every day. This amazing letter is my spiritual daily bread, the Word from God's mouth by which a man lives. Why do we not read His Word with hunger? Because it is our daily bread, when we don't read it on a daily basis, we are spiritually starving ourselves as Christians. We often convince ourselves that we don't need to read it because it is "boring." But God's Word is ANYTHING but boring. Honestly. As they used to say on Reading Rainbow: "But don't just take MY word for it, read it yourself!"

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Prayer Requests:

-Please pray for our upcoming children's English Camp (Aug. 18-22):
*1) Story-telling to children of 5-8 years is one of my decided weaknesses-- pray that God would be strong in my weakness!
*2) Five of our 20 registered children are from families that are not from our church-- pray that we would faithfully proclaim God's Word, that these children would be receptive to it, that He would create faith in their little hearts based on our faithful witness.

-Please pray for the upcoming school year, that my students would be ready and willing to learn English, and that I would be ready and willing to teach!

-Please pray for my friend Stephanie Rosburg, LCMS missionary in Poland. She's taking an intensive Polish course and has basically no time to relax, even though she just returned from a month in the US. Pray also that she would be prepared as the beginning of a new school year quickly approaches.

-Pray for the other new LCMS Eurasia team members, that they would get their visas in time to be in their fields for the beginning of the school year (Sept. 1). Also, pray for the new LCMS missionaries preparing to go around the world. Many of them are behind where they would like to be on their support raising, and their departure dates are quickly approaching.

XcamP!

2008-08-02T03:10:00.000-07:00

XcamP was awesome. Really. It was an incredible time of meeting new people, learning about God's plan of deliverance, and having a lot of fun doing it. Everyone began to arrive on the grounds of the Karmel retreat center in Smilovice on Saturday afternoon. All of the kids in attendance were assigned to discussion groups based on age, but at registration, they had the option to switch to my English discussion group. The groups were to meet in the morning and evening every day throughout the camp. At our first group meeting that evening, we spent a little time getting to know one another and talking about our first topic, the text of Joshua 24:15, where Joshua admonishes the people of Israel, now that they've been able to settle in the Promised Land, to follow the Lord, rather than turning aside to follow the gods of the people around them. This first group meeting didn't go too well. Many of the kids who signed up to be in my group weren't really prepared to have a discussion about the Bible in English. Needless to say, once this first meeting was over, I was highly discouraged and praying like mad that God would help me to do things in that group His way, because my plan (which had included some real in-depth discussion of how the Exodus foreshadowed the salvation that we have in Christ) certainly didn't look like it was going to work at all.

Sunday morning, we had a leaders meeting to talk about the goal of our groups and how the group break-down was to help keep the kids involved in all the activities of the camp, to give them each a built-in community so that they wouldn't be alone and so they would have an outlet to talk about whatever they needed to. After that meeting, we broke up into our groups again and my group gave it another try. It was again a tough time. I was so thankful for Miriam, my "assistant," a wonderful Christian young woman who spent a little more than a year in England, and who was able to do some translating when it was necessary. Following group time, we went to breakfast, and then the pastors from all over Silesia came out to lead Sunday morning worship for us in the big tent at the camp. This was a wonderful experience.

The best part of our Sunday morning worship was celebrating the sacrament together. For me it was a particular blessing for me. When the pastor with the Cup came to me, he said "the blood of Christ for you" in English to me. This was the first time I'd heard these words in English in the Czech Republic. It brought me to tears because it was the first time HERE that I really felt that communion really was something that Christ had done for me in particular, the first time it felt like the very personal gift of the Lord that it is. It was exactly the encouragement that I needed.

Later that morning the regular schedule for the week began, with seminars and workshops in the morning and afternoon, sprinkled with free time and group meetings, late afternoon evangelism and evening concerts. All of these things went off without a hitch except some of the sports activities during free time and on Wednesday afternoon as the skies let loose with rain on late Monday morning and didn't quit until Thursday night.

By Monday morning, some of the people in my small group came to Miriam and me to say that they really had no idea what we were talking about in our group and that they had found different groups to attend instead of mine. They didn't want me to be upset. On the contrary, I was praising God for this. I really didn't want them to miss out on hearing God's Word because of the impairment of being in my group, so I really encouraged them to leave. At the same time, many more people began to join my group. They hadn't known that there was an English discussion group that they could join, but they heard about it very early in the week and came to be with us. Many wonderful young people with fabulous English skills joined my discussion group, and we were able to even laugh and joke around in our group as we discussed our topics in depth. I was even able to pose some of the very difficult application and connection questions that I had initially wanted to ask of my group. I really praised God for that opportunity. Also, we were able to make connections in every discussion between the Exodus that God gave the Israelites and the exodus from sin and death that we have through faith in Christ and His cross.

By the end of the week, on Saturday morning, it was so hard to believe that it was actually over. What had started for me as a discouraging and lonely week (my group was difficult and I knew relatively few people with whom I could talk, only having one or two people for translators) ended up to be one of the best weeks I've had here (even in spite of the fact that on Thursday I spent the whole day in bed with a fever of 100F). By the end of the week, God had made my discussion group into a wonderful group of fun-loving Christian friends, He had blessed me with many new friends from the youth groups in the surrounding villages, and He had also blessed me with about 5 or 6 incredible grown-up translator friends.

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Prayer Requests:
-Please pray that the youth who attended XcamP would be salt and light in a world that is not friendly, even hostile, to the Gospel and to Christ. Pray especially for those who are returning to their university campuses this fall where there is no powerful Christian network present like the one here in Silesia (the universities here don't have anything like the Christian "infrastructure" that I was blessed with at the U of N).
-Pray for the youth who returned to non-believing homes; may they be a light before their parents and siblings!
-Pray that the believers in this tiny corner of the Czech Republic would be passionate about God's salvation and worship of Him in such a way that they cannot help but evangelize those around them out of a desire for more people to come to a knowledge of the Truth and worship of our great God!

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Psalm 65:8 "Those living far away fear your wonders; where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy."

Two Weeks of Summer Break

2008-07-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks since English Camp (whole group from English camp shown in picture), and they've been wonderful. I have spent a lot of time preparing for my English classes on Monday and Tuesday evenings, working on my June newsletter which I finally sent yesterday, and being with the youth group kids I love so much. I am still working on uploading my photos from English Camp to a web album on Picasa (operated by Google). Once I've finished, I plan on including a link on my blog to the album. I took over a thousand pictures during EC, but Picasa places a 500 photo limit on its albums. This is for the best, as I'm sure I don't have even 500 pics worth sharing with the whole world.

There's really not a lot of news to share about what's been happening during my weeks "off," but I guess I have a few favorite things that have happened I'd like to share. I got to spend Sunday afternoon with Pastor Michal and his family (wife Sarka and their four kids). We went to a retreat center in the mountains where a bunch of families with young children were having a weekend retreat. There Michal spoke with about marriage; how to keep your marriage healthy, how to honor your own marriage and how to honor the marriages of those around you. In the afternoon, following his talk, we all went to Sarka's parent's cottage where the kids and I swam. It was great fun. I especially enjoyed the splashing game that we got into. It's great to play in the water with kids who haven't yet figured out how to splash someone effectively. I guess I had an unfair advantage, but I don't regret it. It started to rain (and practically hasn't stopped since) and we had to get out of the pool. It was a really great afternoon.

Another favorite thing of the past two weeks is that this band, made up of six young men with whom I'm becoming friends, has been practicing in the basement of the parish hall in the evenings. They are the main worship band for XcamP, a huge camp event that begins tomorrow and lasts through next Saturday. I really love to sit in on their practices and sing along with the songs that I recognize and watch them as they interact and as they jam out on their instruments. They are some of the best musicians I have ever known, and they are really tight. I think they've all been playing together for about 4 years, and so they follow one another really well. I wish that all of you reading this could have the opportunity to watch and hear them rather than just reading this inadequate description of them.

It was really wonderful to go out for coffee yesterday afternoon with one of the members of the Czech team from English Camp, Katka Konesová. This girl is incredible. I really enjoyed her and her crazy-fun personality and her energy and her love for Jesus when we were at English Camp. She isn't from the Trinec Lutheran Church-- she isn't even from Trinec-- and so I never get to see her. But we made a date for yesterday to spend time together and get to know one another better. It was just wonderful. I have hopes to build a really good, lasting friendship with her.

Another delightful thing of the past two weeks is that I have started to have some Czech lessons. One of the members of the worship band, Tomas, and I became friends during the English Camp. After camp, I knew that he didn't have a summer job, and so I told him that since he had so much time on his hands, he should help me to learn Czech. He thought that was a great idea, and so I've now had two Czech lessons with him. For our first lesson, we went to a pub and he taught me all about all of the things one finds in a pub and how to order food or a beer and things of that nature. It was a great time. For our second lesson, we talked about daily routine. I learned all about how to describe my patterns for getting ready in the morning and how to talk about what I do throughout the course of the day. Today I shared what I have learned with some of my other friends, and they were all amazed. I was kind of embarrassed and nervous that I would say things incorrectly because I didn't practice a lot, but so far everyone has been pretty impressed. I have to say though, that I don't think they are impressed so much at my stunning ability to speak a little bit of Czech as they are at the fact that I've learned anything.

So, tomorrow I go for a week to XcamP. This is a huge event for this area, organized by Daniel Chlebek, the youth pastor for the whole Silesian Church. It's a really big week of evangelism and discussion about a Bible topic (this year it's about the Exodus, hence the name "X"camp), with all kinds of cool events like sports and concerts. It's kind of like big summer music festivals in the US in that most of the people who come pitch their tent and sleep right next to the big tent where all of the big festival activities take place. My role for the week is to be a group discussion leader. I will be leading group members in English discussion about our twice daily Bible topics. I am really looking forward to this and am hoping that the people who opt to be in my group really are ready and willing to discuss the topics in English, rather than hoping to get an English lesson. Another important thing to note about XcamP is that not all the people who come are already Christians. In fact, I understand that a really large number of them aren't already believers, and so we have our work cut out for us to show these young people through the story of the Exodus how God also wants to lead them out of their bondage to sin into the Promised Land of heaven through His Son, Jesus Christ. I'm really excited about it!

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Prayer Requests:
-Please pray that God would use XcamP as a huge tool for the spreading of His Law and Gospel into the lives of young people in this area who have either never heard the Truth before or who have heard it but never really been affected by it.
-Pray that all of the leaders at XcamP would be faithful to our task to lead discussion on God's Word and that we would be tools for God. Pray that we would be sensitive to God's movement and that we would be welcoming to serious questions and discussion about real problems or doubts in the lives of the members of our groups.
-Please continue to pray for the children who attended English Camp, that those who received faith in Christ would grow and be nurtured in their new faith and that those who are not yet believers would grow to believe what they have heard.

A Fortnight in America and the Return to the Field

2008-07-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's strange what a four week hiatus can do to one's ability to blog. I have been thinking for several days that I needed to get writing so that you could know what I've been up to lately. And while so much has been going on, I've been having trouble figuring out what I should say.

Summer started here while I was in the US for two weeks. That's right, I was in the US from June 14 through June 27. I spent those two weeks in St. Paul, MN at LCMS World Mission missionary orientation and training. The time I spent there was incredible and invaluable for my mission and teaching work here. More than the education I received on funding my mission, my missionary insurance, keeping up communication while I'm here, how to stay psychologically healthy while I'm on the mission field, spiritual warfare, the organization of World Mission and the Ablaze! movement, and how to be a better teacher, were the incredible friendships that I developed with the other new LCMS missionaries.

All of the LCMS missionaries that will go out this year were in attendance at our orientation in St Paul and I have to say that I was incredibly blessed by all of them. God has done some amazing work in raising up people who are willing to leave everything from home behind and follow Him to the corners of the world. Many of these missionaries are just like me: fresh out of college with nothing in life in the US holding them back from chasing God to the ends of the earth. Some are young people who do have commitments at home that they must return to after their year term overseas is finished.

An impressive number are adults (as opposed to new college grads) who have answered God's call to leave behind a very involved and busy life in the States or who are retired and who have sold everything to go overseas. Also at orientation were a number of new career missionaries who are going overseas for life. The regional directors for every world region but one and many of the volunteer coordinators-- direct supervisors of volunteers like me-- were there also. These people all answered God's incredible call and they all blessed me with their stories, wisdom, encouragement, and insight into missions. All of our pictures are featured on the LCMS World Mission blogsite. Please be sure to include these people in your prayers!

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After two incredible weeks in St. Paul-- made even better by the fact that my parents came to visit during the middle weekend, I got to visit with my dear friend Elise and her husband Tony (who live in St. Paul) three times, I got to speak on the phone with another dear friend Emily, and even saw my friend Kyle one of the times I visited Tony and Elise-- I came back to the Czech Republic. During the trip back, I had a 6 hour layover in Amsterdam and a 6 hour layover in Prague. Because I managed to sleep for the duration of the trans-Atlantic flight, I was wide awake and ready for some sight seeing in these two incredible cities during my free time.

However, due to the time (it was 6:30AM) and the weather (cold and foggy) when I landed in Amsterdam, I decided not to go into the city, and I spent part of the time having a coffee with my seatmate from the flight. It was a pleasant 90 minutes that I spent with Mark from Germany, talking mostly about travel. I wanted so badly to talk to him about Jesus, but all conversations don't lend to a Gospel presentation. I did have the chance to tell him what my work is in the Czech Republic, but couldn't go much further than that with him.

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When I arrived in Prague, I hadn't received an invitation to coffee as I had in Amsterdam and I was more than ready to get out and see something and do some walking after so much sitting around. So, I dropped off my carry-on luggage and asked the information desk how to get downtown. I bought a round-trip bus ticket from the airport and half an hour after I boarded my bus at the airport I was coming up out of the subway station in the Old Town of Prague and staring slack-jawed at the view in front of me: the Vltava River and Prague Castle up on the hill. I had forgotten that the view from the subway was so magnificent. When I exited the subway I was really regretting that I didn't have my camera, but I figured that I would have another chance to see the same thing again and didn't worry about it too much. I only allowed myself about 2 hours in the city because I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time to get back to the airport and be ready at my gate for an hour in advance of the flight.

Because of the time constraint, I didn't see much new, but I mostly retraced the steps I'd taken in the Old Town eight years ago when I was in Prague with my grandma Effken. From the subway, I found my way to Charles Bridge and crossed the river, looking at all of the artwork on display for sale, being careful not to bump into any other pedestrians and being careful to hold on to my bag, in the event of pick-pockets. I bought three small photographs of the city on the bridge with which I plan to decorate my room here. After I left the bridge, I went into a few gift shops and went to an information office for a map of the city. I had to also exchange some money as I hadn't taken much with me when I left for the States. I meandered over to the Old Town Square, where the astrological clock and the Tyn church are. I didn't remember ever going into Tyn church, so I decided that would be the new thing I would do. It was worth it and very beautiful.

After buying some postcards in the church, I went to the Franz Kafka bookstore on the square and bought an English copy of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. This book is the favorite book of one of my friends, and when I found out some months ago that it was by a Czech author, I decided I had two reasons that I must buy it and read it. After the bookstore, I thought I ought to find my way back to the subway. I happened to walk past a synagogue on the way to the subway. Unfortunately it was closed (it was Saturday), or I would have gone in for a look and to learn something about the history of the Jews in Prague. I plan on doing that the next time I'm in the city, if possible.

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Upon arriving back at the airport, when I came to my gate, there was a group of about 20 or so Americans, mostly teenagers and some adults, in the same area of the terminal. I eavesdropped on them and decided that they must be Christians on a mission trip. So, I worked up some courage and went over to talk to them. It turned out that they were on a mission trip from Calvary Baptist Church in Pottstown, PA, on their way to a town in Slovakia, close to Bratislava. They were going to be in the area for two weeks. I swapped stories and contact information with them and am still waiting to hear from them. I'm not worried that I haven't heard yet, as they are still on their trip and should be back in the US by the beginning of next week. It was wonderful to be able to encourage them and to have them be an encouragement for me as I was coming back here for the "long leg" of my stay in the Czech Republic.

When I finally arrived at the parish hall here in Trinec, Pastor Michal and Sarka were up waiting for my return and they welcomed me back warmly and asked me all about my trip. Of course, since it was 10:30PM and I'd been traveling for a day and a half, I didn't want to talk too much, but it was so nice to have them so excited for my return and it was so nice to be "home." Really though, it was great to take a shower (one of the top 5 showers of my life, I'd say) and sleep in my "own" bed.

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My favorite activity from Orientation was what we called Urban Plunge. It was an afternoon where we went out in pairs to different parts of St. Paul where we would be immersed in a different culture and have to do some common things. My partner and I were sent to the Somali Mall in Minneapolis. We wore long dresses over our jeans so that we would be able to fit in better among the very conservatively dressed women at the mall. Among our tasks were to make a friend with someone who would teach us how to do basic greetings in the Somali language, to eat a meal at a restaurant, to buy some clothing, to get a haircut, to play a game of pool with our new friend, to drink a cup of chai tea and other things.

During lunch, when I ate goat meat for the first time in my life, I interviewed my partner, Sherie about her life in missions (she has served the Lord all over Latin America with her husband, a called and ordained pastor). She had a lot of wonderful experiences to share with me from a lifetime of mission service. I greatly appreciated it as a new missionary, and was encouraged so much by her.

When we were shopping, we had a very interesting and informative conversation with a woman about religion and the state of America. This woman was a passionate Muslim and though we did not try to turn the conversation to Jesus, we did manage to find a lot of common ground with her about the problems caused by turning from God in our modern society. This was a wonderful adventure and we returned back to Concordia's campus later than we were supposed to, but we thought it was worth it to meet the people and see and do all of the things at the mall that we did.

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Prayer Requests:
-Please pray for all missionaries everywhere, but especially for the new LCMS missionaries who are going out into parts of the world, committing at least a year of their lives to the service of the Lord.
-Please pray for all Christians everywhere, that they would realize that by virtue of being Christians, they are missionaries too. Pray that God would enable and strengthen them for their missionary task in the field where He has called them, whether work or school or even home.

The Great Multitude in White Robes

2008-06-11T11:46:00.001-07:00

I have a lot of "thinking time" on my hands as I live here in Třinec, concurrently surrounded by a foreign language and by incredible Christians. One of the things that I have pondered a lot lately and have been amazed by, a thing that has brought me to deeper places of wonder at our big God is described in Revelation 7:9-10:

"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.'"

It has become dear to my heart to think about the multitude of people representing a multitude of languages and tribes and nations that will be present before the throne of God in heaven, crying and singing and shouting with great, inexpressible joy the glories of our God, the Lamb.

It has also been a fun thing to wonder about communication in heaven. What will speech in heaven be like? Will we all still speak our own languages, but be able to understand each other perfectly anyway? Or will we all be returned to one common speech as mankind was before the incident of the tower of Babel when God confused the speech of man? If so, what will that language be? I know that these questions are completely non-essentials, but they help to maintain a sense of wonder at the glories of heaven and the presence of God in my mind, and so they are good to ponder.

I can't wait to be a part of that great multitude in white robes, crying the mercy of our God through the blood of His Son, the Lamb: Jesus Christ.

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Climate note: The weather here is INCREDIBLE! There is a light rain about every third or fourth day on average so far, and it keeps everything so fresh and green and cool. Today there was a pretty good storm lasting most of the afternoon. It was probably about 75 F before it started to rain. After the storm when I went outside, the temperature had dropped to around 60. It is wonderful. I will be able to wear jeans and a light jacket most of the summer (one of my two favorite types of weather).

They don't get "Nebraska style" storms here, as far as I have experienced. There has only been thunder two or three times in all of the rain we've had. The first time I heard it was around 2:00AM about two weeks ago. It woke me up and almost scared me with the sheer loudness of it. I thought that I had never heard thunder so loud. As I lay there and listened to it, almost convinced I'd never fall back asleep, I remembered that I had my windows open. That's right, you can sleep with your windows open when it rains and not worry about getting water inside.

I have to take a moment and explain the windows here. They are great in that they are dual function. If you turn the handle on the window up 90 degrees, you can open the window in just like a door. This is VERY handy for washing the windows. If you turn the handle up the next 90 degrees, the window may be tilted in from the top. This way, the top of the glass is inside, and the window remains connected to the pane from the bottom. This is how one may have the windows open and not worry about it raining in. When I "grow up" I want windows like this in my home. Another thing: there are no screens here on the windows-- just like Mexico! Actually, no. Here there are no screens because there are no big, obnoxious flying insects, and so far no mosquitoes (WOOHOO!). *In Mexico there were no screens on the windows not because of the lack of insects; far from it. Rather, it was because there was no heating or cooling system in the houses, but irrelevant to my blog about the Czech Republic.

To finish the story about the thunder: it turns out that when I got up and closed the windows, the thunder sounded just like middle-of-the-night thunder in Nebraska. So, Nebraska still wins in the forms of extreme weather, not that it was a competition.

In Nebraska after a big rain, the sidewalks and streets become covered with creeping earthworms. That doesn't happen here, at least to such a noticeable extent. I think I've only seen two or three earthworms. That may seem like a lot in a month, but this is the kind of thing that I pay attention to. What comes out after a big rain are these slugs. It's incredible. I went for a walk this evening after the rain was done, and the whole time I was walking, I had my eyes on the ground so that I wouldn't have slug goo all over the bottoms of my shoes when I got home. I have seen a lot of slugs, but today for the first time I saw a snail. This was a SNAIL. It was probably 4 or 5 inches long and its shell was almost the size of ping-pong ball. I stopped walking, crouched down, and just stared at it for about a minute. It was fascinating and beautiful. I wanted to keep it, but thought that was probably a bad idea, for both the snail and for me.

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On Saturday morning I have some exciting plans! I will be getting up around 5:00AM to go to the Ostrava airport and fly to the USA. That's right, I'll be back on American soil in 82 hours. I am returning for a two-week training/orientation program with World Mission in St. Paul, MN. I will be learning how to be a fabulous EFL teacher and how to be an informed LCMS volunteer missionary, equipped with all the information I could possibly need to know about... well, I guess I'll find out soon. While I am there, my parents will be coming to St. Paul for the middle weekend of my stay. I can't wait to see them. I am also making plans to meet up with my lovely friend, Elise Probasco. I will then depart from Minneapolis on June 27th to remain in the Czech Republic until sometime in July of 2009.

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Please pray:
- the great multitude who will stand before the throne in the robes made white by the blood of the Lamb. May they now, as they work out their salvation with fear and trembling, rely fully on God for their every need, trusting that He will bring them safely to their eternal home.
- that all believers everywhere (including you and I!) would be faithful in proclaiming the Good News of salvation through faith in Christ, that the great multitude might increase daily.
- for safe travel for me and for all of the other LCMS missionaries who will be traveling to St. Paul this weekend. Pray that I will learn everything they have to teach me so that I will be fully equipped to teach!
- for Stephanie Rosburg as she travels home for a month on June 24. Pray for health and for the ability to adjust to life in the States again, but that she doesn't get too attached. Pray against the desire to remain in the US when she has another year of service ahead of her in Poland, and pray that when she comes back to Poland that she won't suffer homesickness. Pray for a quick recovery from jet lag for her (she hates jet lag).