We are safe in Prague and packing up our bags to return to Chicago! It seems crazy that we are already coming home. We accomplished so many tasks and projects in the time allotted. God is good, and now we will return home and sleep :)
Pray for safe travels tomorrow!
God Bless,
The Czech Team
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Update from Kendra
Well hello to all!
What an exciting couple of days (Monday and Tuesday) our team has had!
Monday afternoon Dave Patty, president of Josiah Venture (and father to our schoolmate Tyler), joined our team for lunch at Malenovice and had some very encouraging words to share. Along with amazing stories about the way God has worked to make JV into what it is today, he had a special message just for us: perseverance in prayer and faith. Dave spoke on observations of our generation, how we are passionate but hardly know how to persevere through the thick of toughness to reach our dreams. Light was shed on the humble understanding that God is simply asking us to join in with the work He already has underway. “Sometimes we believe in and pray for things that we could never imagine happening; God gives us the vision and we just go along for the ride.” Dave challenged us to keep a hold what visions God has given us for the future, knowing that the road may be different than we expect but also that God is faithful.
Monday evening we had the pleasure of enjoying some homemade chili as we joined our new friends Nate and Emily at their apartment in Cesky Tesin (only a seven minute walk away from Poland, which we made later that night). The wonderful day that started with our lunch date with Dave was only added to by our time with Nate and Emily. As a young couple serving over here in the Czech as missionaries they had many words of advice along with life experiences to share. Not to mention, the chili was great, nice and spicy; an added bonus for those on our team who have been missing the flavor kick of the food we often eat in the states.
Tuesday morning started bright and early; another delicious breakfast at Malenovice, over looking the valley and the distant mountains (and the yummy delicacy of chocolate granola that we’ve all come to love). Although the scarce amount of clouds in the sky held promises of a good day per weather, our team found ourselves in a rather somber and confused mood; we all knew that it was the day we’d be heading to Auschwitz. We did not know what to expect and after talking about our experience later in the day, processing is still happening. Many questions were brought up and my prayer in all of it stands that they will not become questions that we will ignore but ones we will seek God through. The saying does go, “Ignorance is bliss,” but ignorance is ignorance. We must be aware of the depravity that once happened in our world and the variety of types that are happening today. I can only speak for myself, but I believe I also stand with the majority of our team on this one: our visit to Auschwitz gave us much to think about. God has been molding many of our hearts on this trip, in different ways for different individuals but shaping to be more like Him indeed, and I believe our time at Auschwitz will play a significant part in this.
Tuesday evening we had the chance to enjoy dinner with the Ellenwood family, missionaries who have been over here with JV for 13 years now. Their family was welcoming to our group right off the bat and continued in the trend of hospitality from the JV staff as well as the Czech people that we’ve been experiencing on this trip. Listening to the story of transporting a family thousands of miles across the world in obedience to what God was calling Mel and Amy to do was beyond incredible for our team to hear. Along with that was the fun of getting to talk with them about the most recent adventures that their family has found themselves on. The Ellenwood’s youngest, Noah, who is 15, is a contestant in the top twenty on the Czech version of American Idol called Super Star. To hear that Noah, as well as the family, is so grounded in the fact that this is God’s working to further His kingdom was great to hear. And we’ve all become big Noah Ellenwood fans for sure. (Here’s the link to his latest performance on the show this week http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Q41JbIv60 .)
Onward we continue to travel around the Czech, continuing to learn how to function as a group of people and follow what God is calling us to do. Wednesday morning we’ll be back in English classes at a couple of different schools before joining JV’s Fusion choir in the afternoon. While with Fusion Nick will be sharing on why God is important to him and what it means to be a Christian, so please keep him in your prayers. After that we’ll be heading on a train to Prague, spending Thursday in the city and heading to the airport early Friday morning. To our family and friends, we have been having a wonderful time here and are sad that it is coming to an end, but we’re looking forward to being back with all of you (or at least able to make a phone call to you).
Love from the Czechsters!
-Kendra Osepchuk
Personal Reflection
Well, we just finished up our first week of being in the Czech Republic. It has been SO BUSY, but GREAT! Since the church in Kyov, we went to Zlin. Right when we arrived in Zlin, we were escorted out of our lovely nine passenger van and into a church service. I was then asked to share my testimony. After I went up and gave mine, the rest of the group followed with their testimonies. It was really cool to be with fellow Christians and brag about all that Jesus has done in my life for a few minutes. After the church service, an older lady named Lydia came up to me and kissed my cheek and told me how much she loved my testimony. It was encouraging for her to see a 21 year old say she wanted to be a missionary. It was a really cool experience to talk with her for a while. Then we went to the place we were staying at and hung out with the youth group. The youth group in Zlin was amazing! We spent the whole weekend with them at a retreat. They have such beautiful servant hearts and love the Lord. The retreat was exhausting, but so exciting! There were around thirty students at the retreat. We were in charge of the games, English lessons, and the program. It was so fun to work with the youth group and their non-Christian friends. We also got to spend some time with a few University students while there. This whole trip has been such a good learning process! We are finally allowed to rest. Sitting at the beautiful retreat center, Malenovice.. I watched the sunset from the retreat center and the sun set right behind a mountain full of snow. It was absolutely beautiful. I am in love with the Czech Republic! -Heather Ludzack
Monday, March 21, 2011
Loving the Czech
A day with the youth staff in Kjov promoting camp
We went with the staff around town promoting English Camp
Handing out flyers
We enjoyed encouraging the church youth staff
Our team with the youth group at the weekend retreat in Zlin
The students fully enjoyed our warrior cardboard game
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Our first two cities
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Where to begin...
We finally have internet! This is a condensed version... I'm sure your loved one will fill you in on the details later.
We spent two days in Jihlava teaching english in the public schools. We invited the students to hang out with us the first night. We prayed over the evening but we were not expecting many people. However, God blew our minds. About 35 students that showed up for singing songs, playing games, talking to the Americans (which we have found out is a BIG deal, we sorta feel like celebrities), and hearing Jacob talk about how God is important to him. The main reason we are in Czech is to promote the summer english camps. We are the first round of advertising for some places, and our goal is to be energy filled in the classroom while being informative at the same time. If we accomplish both these things, the students hopefully will come to english camps. While there they will hear the full gospel presentation and even learn some English in the process!
We then traveled to Trebic where we stayed with host families! The Czech people are VERY hospitable and will bend over backwards for anything we say. We were amazed and humbled by their kindness. Today went to two schools and taught english for a total of nine hours today. Shortly after finishing that we led an English Club where we sang and played games for another hour and a half. After that, we jumped into the car and drove to our next city Kjov, we are staying the night at a church here. We just finished eating dinner with some of the leaders from the youth group and church.
Tomorrow morning we will be out on the streets advertising for Josiah Venture english camps. The students in Kjov are on spring break, so there should be plenty of them available for conversation. In the afternoon we will be leaving for Zlin. Here we will be having a weekend outreach retreat that we are leading with a local youth group. Please keep this in your prayers.
We also ask that you pray for energy for our team. This has been a fairly tight schedule running from place to place and it wears on us. Also teaching english is tiring, we not only have to talk at one third our normal rate, but we also have to constantly come up with three or four different ways to say things. It is mentally exhausting. However we love seeing the enthusiasm the students have to be around us and to go to the English Camps. We have been making relationships left and right that will hopefully lead to fruitful connections in the future, and possibly have an eternal impact.
Until we have internet again,
By God's grace, we will survive :)
In Christ,
The Czech Team
Quote of the day: "Well here we are again in another city I can't pronounce" -Bob MacRae
We spent two days in Jihlava teaching english in the public schools. We invited the students to hang out with us the first night. We prayed over the evening but we were not expecting many people. However, God blew our minds. About 35 students that showed up for singing songs, playing games, talking to the Americans (which we have found out is a BIG deal, we sorta feel like celebrities), and hearing Jacob talk about how God is important to him. The main reason we are in Czech is to promote the summer english camps. We are the first round of advertising for some places, and our goal is to be energy filled in the classroom while being informative at the same time. If we accomplish both these things, the students hopefully will come to english camps. While there they will hear the full gospel presentation and even learn some English in the process!
We then traveled to Trebic where we stayed with host families! The Czech people are VERY hospitable and will bend over backwards for anything we say. We were amazed and humbled by their kindness. Today went to two schools and taught english for a total of nine hours today. Shortly after finishing that we led an English Club where we sang and played games for another hour and a half. After that, we jumped into the car and drove to our next city Kjov, we are staying the night at a church here. We just finished eating dinner with some of the leaders from the youth group and church.
Tomorrow morning we will be out on the streets advertising for Josiah Venture english camps. The students in Kjov are on spring break, so there should be plenty of them available for conversation. In the afternoon we will be leaving for Zlin. Here we will be having a weekend outreach retreat that we are leading with a local youth group. Please keep this in your prayers.
We also ask that you pray for energy for our team. This has been a fairly tight schedule running from place to place and it wears on us. Also teaching english is tiring, we not only have to talk at one third our normal rate, but we also have to constantly come up with three or four different ways to say things. It is mentally exhausting. However we love seeing the enthusiasm the students have to be around us and to go to the English Camps. We have been making relationships left and right that will hopefully lead to fruitful connections in the future, and possibly have an eternal impact.
Until we have internet again,
By God's grace, we will survive :)
In Christ,
The Czech Team
Quote of the day: "Well here we are again in another city I can't pronounce" -Bob MacRae
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Safe Arrival
Hello everyone!!
We left Chicago and arrived in Brussels safely. The best part was that we made our connecting flight in the last five minutes to Prague, only by God's grace :)
We arrived here in Prague at 10:30 in this time zone. We are 7 hours ahead of Chicago time. Josiah Venture has been marching us around the city to keep us awake! By tomorrow, because of their doing, we should be on the right sleeping clock.
Tomorrow, we are going to church then we are leading a Josiah Venture encouragement training session in the afternoon. If you are praying for us, please mention Kendra because she is our speaker for tomorrow.
Feeling kinda sleepy
Thankful for safety
Loving the Lord,
The Czechsters
We left Chicago and arrived in Brussels safely. The best part was that we made our connecting flight in the last five minutes to Prague, only by God's grace :)
We arrived here in Prague at 10:30 in this time zone. We are 7 hours ahead of Chicago time. Josiah Venture has been marching us around the city to keep us awake! By tomorrow, because of their doing, we should be on the right sleeping clock.
Tomorrow, we are going to church then we are leading a Josiah Venture encouragement training session in the afternoon. If you are praying for us, please mention Kendra because she is our speaker for tomorrow.
Feeling kinda sleepy
Thankful for safety
Loving the Lord,
The Czechsters
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
We have been more recently digging into our youth ministry classes learning everything from program design, to discipleship, to speaking. This semester, our group enrolled in a class called Youth Ministry Practicum: Missions Endeavor. This class will provide valuable lessons that many of us will apply when we are team leader for the youth someday.
For the class, we meet during class hour and plan the trip and all of the details as a class of eight students with our professor. Then, as a class, we will go to Czech Republic during spring break and perform the missions trip that we so earnestly planned. While we are there, we will be experiencing the leadership role of teen missions. Our professor will debrief us daily with what did or did not go well that day regarding our planning, address the issues that were outside our control, and explain how these situations could have been handled better.
While in the Czech Republic, we will be teaming up with the organization Josiah Venture. One of our main tasks will be going into the public schools and teaching English. The teens in Czech are very curious to what a Christian is. Because of the effects of Communism on the country, many of these students have not encountered a Christian who is their own age. When they think of Christians, they imagine the faith of their grandparents that no one professes any longer. The faith that we have sparks conversation. We will also be training those who profess to be Christians how to share their faith with others. Less than half of a percent of the people are evangelical Christian; ninety percent of the nation is atheistic. Based on these statistics, this country is an un-reached people group and forgotten.
We are asking for your prayers. Prayer is the only thing that will make an impact on this lost country. We would like prayer specifically for:
1. Open hearts and minds of the teenagers we will be ministering too
2. Boldness from the believers to bring their friends to the event we will be holding
3. Wisdom for our professor as he trains us in this ministry
4. Safety and patience for our team as we will be working with a nation who does not know English well
We thank you from our hearts for your prayers. May God bless you in this New Year.
Getting PUMPED!!
Tonight we had another prep meeting and tonight we had our contact here, Martina! We were able to drill her with questions. We are all very excited but in great need of prayer. Here are a few things:
1) Finances, pray that our support comes in. We have been very blessed so far, we just need a little bit more.
2) Openness of students who we are going to be working with in the schools
3) Our speakers: for dedicated time to preparing our talks for the retreat
4) Safety: we are traveling quite a lot from city to city in trains and vans
5) Our studies, our quarter is wrapping up and our team is very stressed. Pray that we do not go into the trip exhausted from our exams and papers
For His Glory,
The Czechers
1) Finances, pray that our support comes in. We have been very blessed so far, we just need a little bit more.
2) Openness of students who we are going to be working with in the schools
3) Our speakers: for dedicated time to preparing our talks for the retreat
4) Safety: we are traveling quite a lot from city to city in trains and vans
5) Our studies, our quarter is wrapping up and our team is very stressed. Pray that we do not go into the trip exhausted from our exams and papers
For His Glory,
The Czechers
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