October was a unique month
of the Race. The previous month our teams were given the choice of 6
different countries [Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia] and we were told to pray together about where the
Lord wanted us to serve for October. As our team prayed individually
we all tried to find any contacts we could in these countries. We
tried to contact friends of friends, we tried to find a hostel that
we could stay at on our low budget, we tried to find anything we
could but nothing was working out. Until…
For those of you who don’t
already know, in America we are members at Lifechurch.tv. It’s one
church that operates in multiple locations [9 in Oklahoma as well as
campuses in 5 other states] as well as having an “online campus”
where services are aired on the internet every day of the week. We
have been fortunate enough to watch a few online services this year.
One day in the midst of our team praying for where to go in October,
Drew decided to watch an online service. It just so happened that the
pastor doing the welcome for that service was pastor Milan Presburger
from Nove Zamky, Slovakia. How random that Milan and his wife, Judy,
have a relationship with Lifechurch. We were able to get in contact
with them and they decided to take in our team for October!
about 30,000 people where everything is in walking distance and
people often congregate in the town square…how quaint. Despite the
small size of the town, God is moving in big ways there especially
through the church we worked with, Kompas Church.
Kompas Church is one of
the only evangelical churches in this region of Slovakia and they are
alive with the Holy Spirit! We were blessed enough to help serve at
Kompas through helping with discipleship, speaking at youth and kids’
meetings, and spreading the word about what God is doing through the
church. Overall we ended up receiving more than we gave – the
leadership at Kompas Church poured into us and encouraged us
amazingly and we are forever grateful for our time with them.
This is just an example of
some of the ways the Lord had us serving at Kompas. Here Drew and
Brian are helping illustrate the spiritual battle between God and
Satan. I’m sure you can guess who is playing which part…
Also during the month we
taught English twice a week at 2 high schools. It was as if God just
handed us the youth of Nove Zamky on a silver platter – within 1
week we had literally met about 50% of all the high school aged kids
in town. Amazing! English classes weren’t really us teaching, just
more us having conversations and getting to know the students. They
all speak really great English so we were just there to hang out and
help the students become more confident in themselves. God really
opened up the doors of communication and we were able to talk with
these kids about everything from drugs, sex, and American lifestyle
to Christianity, terrorism, and evolution. This is one of our
favorite classes – you guys were awesome!
That was a quick look at
Slovakia. The length of this blog is no indicator of how much we
loved our time there. Month 10 will always stick out as one of our
favorite months on the Race…and who knows, maybe we’ll be back to
Slovakia someday? God definitely had us there on purpose and we are
really blessed to have had the experience we had and make some great
new friends. We love you Nove Zamky!
