Living Where You Are

 vs. 

So if there is one thing I have learned from living in another country it is that you need to live where you are. Now you might say, "Yes, Shelly...of course isn't that the way it always is."

What do I mean by living? I mean meeting with people. Talking to people. Sharing your life, emotions, thoughts, struggles, fears, joys, moments and everything in between with those around you. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Letting people in and seeking to be let in to others' lives. 

With technology it would be very easy for me to be here in the Czech Republic, but still 'live' in America. I can watch all the tv shows (which could fill most of my day), keep in contact with friends (also could take most of my time) and never leave my flat. 

But then, why did I move here? The point is to build relationships, get to know other people share life. So as I continue to build my life here I want to be intentional in building those relationships. I want to live here, enjoy the friendships I have, and be present. 

So...what can you pray? I need a mentor. An older person who can walk with me through life. They can encourage me, give me advice and share their wisdom and experience. Thanks! 

Being a Young Christian in the Czech Republic

This blog is a plea for prayer. Living as a teenage Christian here in the Czech Republic is not easy. Imagine sitting in a class room and knowing that you are the only Christian there, and if there are other Christians it is a vast minority. You almost have this secret kept inside of you. You are afraid that if you confess your beliefs other students will laugh and think you are ignorant for believing such fairy tales. They may not say it to your face but you know they are thinking it. 

So you live your life with this hidden identity. You want desperately to fit in wit what all your friends are doing. You want to go to parties and drink, your want to have sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend, but you also know that all of this is against what you believe. So you are different. It would be so much asker to just walk away. To turn your back on your faith and live your life as you want. 

Christian youth in the Czech Republic desperately need discipleship and strong Christian examples to follow. They need constant encouragement to live a life worthy of their calling. So I am asking you to pray for these teenagers. 

Pray that:

1 . they will find encouragement in Christ, not condemnation from their peers

2. They will have Godly adults they can talk to and confide in with their doubts and fears. 

3. Pray that they will be bold in their beliefs and not afraid to share wit others the truth they have been shown. 

I found this story about a girl named Hanka from Ostrava. I do not know her personally, but I have heard and seen stories like hers many times. 

She came to know Christ through a Christian English Camp, just like the one we are doing in July. Her story is long, but worth reading. Please pray for all the youth in the Czech Republic and Ostrava. That God will raise up a generation of believers. 

My name is Hanka, I am from the Czech Repub­lic and I am really happy I can be here, stand­ing in front of you, shar­ing my tes­ti­mony. Light­house peo­ple have been a very impor­tant part of my life and I am so happy I can tell my story here. I actu­ally think I have imag­ined this sev­eral times before, since though it was only a few LBC peo­ple in 2001 who changed my view on God and Chris­tian­ity, I have always wanted the whole church to hear it and see how God was using their church to reach me.

To help you under­stand a lit­tle more, I should start in the begin­ning. I was raised in a kind of Catholic fam­ily. My grandma is a strong Catholic, but the rest of the fam­ily was basi­cally try­ing to make her happy and attended the church because of her. When I was a child, I enjoyed going to church and prob­a­bly even believed in God, but at cer­tain age I real­ized that all I was doing was only because I saw other do it and because some­body told me to do it. I did not have a real rea­son for nei­ther believ­ing in God, nor going to church, which slowly became a prob­lem when I was grow­ing up. At school I heard about evo­lu­tion as the only pos­si­bil­ity, and my friends there some­times laughed at me when they heard I was going to church. I had no rea­son “being a Chris­t­ian” any­more and I wanted to quit with the church, but I was not allowed to. I grad­u­ally started hat­ing the church and even hear­ing the word “God” and though even­tu­ally we stopped going to church, my grandma did not give up and tried to make us “return”, which made me hate the “whole Chris­tian­ity” even more. That was why my clos­est friends, Lucy and Lenka, knew they could not really talk to me or my sis­ter about God, we not only did not lis­ten, we hated it. They tried some­thing else though.

Light­house started send­ing their teams for Eng­lish Camps in Czech in 2000 and I remem­ber that was a camp I was invited to. One after­noon Lucy and Lenka came over, brought an Eng­lish Camp flyer and invited me and my sis­ter for that camp. After they left, my sis­ter and me looked at the flyer, then looked at each other and said: “No way” and we started laugh­ing, since we did not under­stand how they could think we would come to a camp that is orga­nized by a Chris­t­ian church. We did not even think about it, we saw the word “Chris­t­ian” and “Chris­t­ian evening pro­grams” and said “no” right away. So that was why I missed the first camp and why I do not know some of you. I was invited, but never accepted the offer. But God did some­thing else to make me come next year.

The girls get back from the Camp really excited and I heard a lot about the team, saw some pic­tures and heard how much fun it was. But I was still pretty glad I did not come, since it was Chris­t­ian, plus, the Amer­i­cans looked more like Asians. 

I do not remem­ber exactly, but I think Lucy and Lenka tried to invite us again next sum­mer, in 2001, and we prob­a­bly said “no” again. But right before the sum­mer I was invited to one Eng­lish class in the church that was taught by Cana­di­ans, and I loved the class – it was Eng­lish and it was fun. Lucy and Lenka told me that Eng­lish Camp is even more fun and made me sign up for the camp, though it was actu­ally pretty late and they said they had to make an excep­tion. So I went to the Camp, only because of the Cana­di­ans and only because of Eng­lish and fun, and I planned NOT to come to the evening pro­grams (since they told me I did not have to). But there have been a lot that I have planned since then and God decided He would “ignore” my plans. Any­way, Lucy and Lenka asked me to go to the first evening pro­gram and decide after I see it if I want to come again. So I went there the first evening and then came back every night. The evening pro­grams turned out to be very impor­tant for me. That was where I found out that I have a very dis­torted view of Chris­tians and Chris­tian­ity. When lis­ten­ing to the mes­sages about evo­lu­tion and other top­ics, I real­ized Chris­tian­ity is not that illog­i­cal and irra­tional. When watch­ing the team danc­ing and singing, I real­ized Chris­tians can be really, really funny. And when talk­ing to them, I saw they are not even that stupid.

I was shocked.

I thought all Chris­tians are older peo­ple going to the Catholic church, believ­ing in God only because it is what they were told and they do not know any bet­ter. I saw Chris­tians as peo­ple who are not smart enough to make their own log­i­cal deci­sion not to believe in some­thing so irra­tional and stu­pid like “God”. But the team showed me I have no idea what real Chris­tian­ity is about. That was the most impor­tant thing that they could do at that time. I did not con­vert right away, I did not pray to accept Christ at the Camp. Hon­estly I do not even remem­ber I heard the gospel…though I am pretty sure there were peo­ple try­ing to tell me. I actu­ally did not care that much about Jesus then…for me the first step was to real­ize that peo­ple who believe in God, are not crazy and have good rea­sons for that, which was exactly what the team did.

Any­way, while at the camp, I started think­ing about God and Chris­tian­ity much more seri­ously and towards the end was pretty sure there is some­thing worth more think­ing. But already then I also saw what becom­ing a Chris­t­ian would have meant and what would have changed. I knew I would get busier going to church, read­ing my Bible, pray­ing. And I also knew my fam­ily would not under­stand and some of my friends might laugh at me. I did not really want any of those and decided I do not want to go to church again after the team leaves. But again, as the Proverbs 16:9 says: ” The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord estab­lishes his steps.” The day the team was leav­ing I over­slept and almost did not get to the train sta­tion on time, but I did, and when I was say­ing “Bye” to Jane Kim, she hugged me and made me promise I would come to church again. First I pre­tended not to hear her, but she did not let me go, so I did promise it…the next Sun­day I went to church only to keep my promise but I never stopped com­ing out since then.

I still took my time, had a lot of ques­tions, talked to Meinolf, Lucy and Lenka. I think Meinolf said that he thought I would not even make the deci­sion, since I was think­ing for too long, but even­tu­ally I did. I was read­ing a book and at the end there was the author’s tes­ti­mony and a prayer I could pray to accept Jesus. With all I already had in my head and with all I had seen and heard, I could not do any­thing but pray and accept God’s forgiveness.

It has been already almost eight years since then and God has been work­ing in my life as vis­i­bly as he was before I became His child. I started serv­ing in my church and also help­ing out with the camps. First, I only helped with games or lit­tle stuff, but grad­u­ally I could help more and the more I knew about the prepa­ra­tions, the more encour­ag­ing it was for me to see peo­ple who really love God and want to serve Him, and to see God bring­ing together dif­fer­ent peo­ple with almost the only thing in com­mon — desire to serve Him. I really like your church, but in some ways you are really dif­fer­ent, our cul­tures are dif­fer­ent, but at the Camp every year I could see how it did not mat­ter, because we share the same faith in the same God who we want to serve (Romans 12:4–5).

I love my church and there are not many rea­sons I would be will­ing to leave it for, it is my home and my fam­ily. Before I went to col­lege, I was pray­ing that God would let me stay in Ostrava and that no col­leges in other cities will accept me, because I could not imag­ine I would leave my church. And then I came here and felt almost like home. It is not the same, but I do feel like I came to visit my fam­ily. It is amaz­ing when I think about it – I did not know you in 2001 and I did not under­stand why every­body was try­ing to talk about Jesus. And when I got some emails from LBC peo­ple then, the parts talk­ing about God or Bible were my least favorite ones…and now we have been work­ing together to help peo­ple see God’s love. God really is good and though I can­not always see it, His ways are much bet­ter than mine. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nei­ther are your ways my ways, declares the Lord . For as the heav­ens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa­iah 55:8–9)

The last thing I would like to use this oppor­tu­nity for is say­ing “thank you” to the whole church. I know it is not only the team that works hard before the camps, and I know the team would not be able to go with­out sup­port of the peo­ple at church, both finan­cial and prayer one. God has been using the team and the whole church, and I am really glad I could tell you my story that is a proof of this.

Freedom to Share

So I have been going back and forth about this post. This week has been an important one in the history of my home country. Every person should have the right to say what they think is true without fear of judgement, ridicule, or condemnation. With this blog I have always been careful about what I share for fear of "offending."  But this week I have realized that what I was most afraid of was rejection. So from now on, this blog will be a place of honesty and openness about who I am, what I believe, and why I am here living in the Czech Republic.

I need your prayers for boldness in sharing what God has done in my life. I have been changed and redeemed and I want everyone to know this same love, redemption, and freedom. So many of the students I teach here see Christianity as a bonding religion. They see rules, guidelines and restrictions. I want to show them the freedom that comes with knowing Christ.

So how can you pray. We are preparing for English Camp 2013. It will beheld June 29-July 6. I am responsible for organizing the evening program for our camp. Coming up with themes and songs and organizing the evening talk. For me this is the most important time of camp. It is when the students hear the gospel of Jesus. They experience what life as a Christian is like. It can be fun, even with all the rules.

You can pray for our students hearts and the camp teams hearts as we both prepare. Students will come to this camp who have never truly heard the gospel or seen how Christians live. I have seen the impact this week can have, so pray for open minds and hearts anda willingness to at least consider the  Truth.

Thank you for all of your support in what The Lord is doing here in the Czech Republic. Updates will be coming more often.

The end of darkness

The past few months have been extraordinary. I have had so many blessings and built so many friendships.

 To start off February, David and I went to snowboard camp with a youth group here in Ostrava. It was incredible to interact with such amazing youth, who are on fire for our Lord. Their servants hearts and willingness to support everyone at the camp, were rather large inspirations for me.

During the day, I learned how to snowboard. In the evening we had a program with a "talk". However, my favorite thing was that at every meal, someone shared their testimony from their life. It could be any story. Then people could ask whatever questions they wanted. It was awesome that each person had their moment of attention.

Here are a few pictures from the week.

I was also able to start developing a friendship with a girl in my English club. She is a reader and is interested in the same type of books as me. It's cool how we are able to connect. I hope to get to ow her better in the next few months.

The darkness of winter is fading. I like to think of march as a battle between winter and spring. I can't wait for the light to come. Which season is your favorite and why?

Thanks for all your thoughts and for hanging with me for three years. It means a lot!

Refresh

So in January I had almost 400 people view my blog. That was the highest it has ever been. Then the next month it went down to 80. After that it has steadily decreased. I am probably mostly to blame for that because I haven't been keeping up with this.

Well in my life there are lots of things going on right now. I am still teaching in Ostrava with Fishnet, and am now living with 3 other girls who also teach at our school. Erica, Chelsea and Britney. I have lived with Chelsea for 2 years now, and Erica has been here in Ostrava the same amount of time as I have. Britney is new this year and is learning so much about the Czech Republic and teaching English as a foreign language. It reminds me of what it was like when I first moved here.

Teaching is going well. I love my students. I have been so blessed with the opportunity to teach a lot of the same students for the past two years and again this year. The relationships we have developed are truly incredible. I feel as if I could really talk with them about anything. It is definitely true that it takes a while for the Czech people to completely trust someone, but when they do, you are bonded with a friendship rather strong.

David and I have started ministry together in Frydek-Mistek. We are working with about 20 young people. Walking with and teaching them. It is so much fun and gives me a great opportunity to practice my Czech. (not many of them are fluent in English) God has blessed us with this amazing opportunity and I can't wait to see how He uses us to glorify His name.

I will try to keep this updated more and please check out my fundraising thermometer on the right. That is how much I have raised this year. If you feel like God is laying on your heart to give financially (one time or a monthly gift) PLEASE click on the link above called "How do I give?" There you will find all the info you need. All of this money goes to help support me while I am here on the field.

The 2012-2013 Ostrava Team: Erica, Me, Britney and Chelsea

Our family added 2 more in June and will be adding
another one June of next year. :) 

Some of the Czech girls rocking out a "band photo"

Doing some Geocaching in Stromberk. Can you find the hole?

Geocaching is so interesting!

Enjoying "Stromberk ears" with David. 

Doing some serious exploring. Look they had to take off their jackets... :) 

That's Life...

A song to enjoy while you read. : D LOVE ME SOME FRANK!

Sorry everyone, it has been a while. I hate that I am writing this on my blog because that is what EVERYONE writes at some point on their blog. : (

Things here in the Czech Republic are awesome! The weather is warming up and the sun is out more than it's not. Winter here this year was a bit more chill than last year. Granted we had much lower temps this year than last year, but it started after New Years and continued for just two months. I am glad to see the sun. This Texas girl really likes the feeling of heat.

Teaching is great. The year is flying to the end. At this time every year (Easter Break) I realize that the year is almost gone. Where did it go? My students definitely have "summer fever." Which makes teaching hard, but it also means more opportunities to teach in a fun way. Which, you know. I really like doing.

Last year was full of lessons to learn. New things that He was teaching me. He is still teaching me so much, but in different ways. This year has been about really growing in to the woman that He wants me to be. Every day is a new lesson and I am a sponge of a student soaking every moment up. :)

Well that's about it. I have made a decision to return here next year. I will be with ESI again and at the same school, Fishnet. There are two other girls staying with me, and we will be getting a fourth teammate. Please pray for her as she prepares to join this group. Pray that she will look forward to serving here in Ostrava and that God will begin to prepare her heart for this people.

Stop at Nothing

This morning I was welcomed from sleep with a bombardment of "Kony 2012." I went to sleep and only one friend had posted the video. I woke up to 16 posts of this video from "Invisible Children".

While I was in university several of my fellow Crusaders took part in the Invisible Children movement. I never actually participated in their activities, but I followed the organization through my friends. They have been working since 2003 to bring awareness to the situation that is unfolding in Africa. I think we as Americans tend to get comfortable in our bubble of protection. We think that we are invincible to the tragedies of this world around us.

I think this movement to first bring awareness and now ACTION to the forgotten parts of the world is incredible. People are banding together to do something. So that is the question. What will I do? What actual actions can I take to bring change to my world?

What actions can YOU take? What are you doing actively in your life to bring a CHANGE to this fallen world of ours?

I am reminded of the words from James: Faith without works is dead. I have faith in a God that wants to change each of us. He desires for us to follow Him and bring others with us. If I truly believe what I say that I believe I will stop at nothing to ensure that His will and His word is made known. Spread the Word!!


God is just as invisible as these children in Africa. We must Make the Invisible Visible to those who don't know.