If you have been following my blogs, you know that the Lord has been walking me through the fruits of the Spirit. The first two months the Lord taught me a lot about love and patience. Well He insisted on keeping up the trend of having a theme for the months. In the time that we spent in the Czech Republic he taught me so much about just living in the joy that He has placed inside of me.
The first few weeks in the Czech were very hard because I was still digesting a lot about what happened to me in the Dominican Republic and at the Awakening in Ireland. The Lord had placed so much upon me that I was losing track of where myself ended and where He began. At the time, it is not a good place to be in personally because you really don’t know how to react in any situation. Looking back on the process it was an awesome and worthwhile process even though it was some of the hardest weeks of my life. On top of the Lord placing all of these things upon me, the ministry we were involved in was not rewarding for me. We were teaching English in the schools around the area, and we were not allowed to talk about the Lord due to the remnants of the Communistic influence in the country. So, having to teach kids about our lives without involving God was extremely hard on all of us.
The good news is that we did not teach English the whole month. In the third week we were in the Czech Republic, we worked in a different city. We worked in Varnsdorf with a pastor for a week of revival/evangelism. This week was called No Comment, and we also worked with a Christian rap group from Indiana. If you want to know more about that week just watch some of the videos I posted. This week was extremely rewarding for all of us. We were finally able to do the things that we longed to do. We could walk around on the streets and make relationships with people and tell them about the Lord. In all, this week changed the atmosphere of the entire month for us. The relationships that we formed during this week were amazing. After only spending one week with these people, when it came time for us to leave, they were extremely sad to see us go. These people were more emotional when we left than people that we had spent a whole month with before. It was good to see the Lord working in these relationships.
Where the joy part comes in is with the contacts we had and with the relationships we made in Varnsdorf. During the month we spent more time with one of our contacts than pretty much any other person we had ever come across. Our contacts name was David Ellmrich, and he is absolutely full of the presence and joy of the Lord. Spending time with him would leave you joyous and knowing that he spends a lot of time with the Lord. The time that we were able to spend with him was amazing, and I will always remember some of the jokes and conversations that we are able to have with him. He loved us so much that he was willing to give up so much family time to be able to pour into us and show us around the Czech Republic and just hang out and become friends with him. Our time with David will never be forgotten!!
Another part of the month that was rooted in joy was the relationships that we were able to make with a family in Varnsdorf. During the week of No Comment we made relationships with three kids from a family. The Sunday after No Comment, the mother of the children said that she would like to have us help her out with a class for mentally challenged kids at the church and afterwards we would go over to their house for dinner. Obviously we accepted this invitation!! The class with the children was awesome. These kids had so much fun with us and it was a good time to do some work that we hadn’t been able to do in quite a while. The real blessing came afterwards at the family’s house. The family has so much love for each other and for the Lord that it is apparent on their faces and it is definitely felt when you walk into their household. Being able to spend a brief amount of time with them and in their home was a big proponent of restoring all of the joy that I had lost (or misplaced) from the first few weeks in the Czech Republic.
Although I may not have grown as much this month as the first couple months on the race, I think the time that we spent in the Czech Republic will be more memorable than any other time on the race so far.
