doug & kara serving europe . . .

My first stop in Slovakia was Trnava.  Lubor and Daniela are the church planters there.  They are working in a difficult neighborhood with many social challenges.  Two of the kids joining the team at a youth camp come from a home where their mother ran off while they were little, their father is a junkie and they live with their grandmother.  To make matters worse their grandmother just recently went into the hospital.  Lubor is not sure what will happen to this brother and sister.  Please pray for Roman and Lucia.

While visiting with Lubor one night, Pastor Mark from Parkwood (their partner church) asked him about working with NLI and what benefit that brought.  His response was encouraging.  He said, ‘NLI has helped us be more organized and think ahead by training us to host short term missions.  This is something I’ve not been good at in the past.  The training they provide every six weeks is like a time of refreshing for him and his wife.  Also to have the church planting team expect reporting has helped with accountability.’  The one area he still desires is to have strong mentorship on a regular basis.  Please pray for Lubor that he would find that person to lean on in ministry.

I know I don’t speak French, in fact I don’t speak any other languages other than English.  On this trip though I did learn a few new words in Slovak.  Anyway back to the story . . .

My second stop was in Wodzislaw, Poland.  There I spent a day and a half with the team from Planetshaker church in Melbourne.  This is a large church full of young people that have a real focus on what it means to be a worshipper.  It showed in the team.  Each person understood what it means to have a worshipping heart whether they are ‘musical’ or not.  They had a ‘full on’ week with the church there.  I had the chance to spend all day Saturday with them.  In the morning Cliff and the team shared with the worship team from the church the heart of the Planetshaker church.  Then after I had a little chat with the team they joined them in their practice.  It was great to see Cliff showing a young drummer a few new moves and to see the young guy’s face light up as he caught on.

The afternoon and evening was spent at a BBQ in a nearby town, Rybnik, where there are two cell groups meeting.  The intent is for these cell groups to form the next church plant for the Wodzislaw church.  We played Kubb with everyone and ate some yummy Polish sausage.

This was the first of four teams coming from the church into Europe this year.  If the Poland team is any indication of the quality of people coming on mission we will see three more excellent teams - Ukraine in August, Czech in September and Slovakia in October.

In addition to the teams one of the couples I was able to spend a bit of time with was Peter and Lucia in Brezno, Slovakia.  Lucia works with the NLI team assisting church planters with their finances and coordination.

As a couple they are also one of the church planters in the small city of Brezno.  It’s about 24,000 people and does not have a strong evangelical presence.  In the community of Mazornikovo (about 6000 people mostly in high-rise apartments) there is only one Catholic church without a lot of life which is typical of this region.

Peter and Lucia feel that it is through ministry to kids that they will reach their community.  They have already seen doors open with many parents through providing a Friday club for kids and a variety of activities.  We were able to spend the afternoon with a group of kids and youth on a hike in the hills around Brezno.  We climbed up to a real nice spot, started a fire for a ‘typical Slovak bbq’ and then it promptly started to rain on us.  We raced back 20 mins in the rain to the church and had a bite to eat (tried to dry off!) and played some games.

Please keep Peter and Lucia along with all the church planters in Slovakia in your prayers.

You can find a few pictures from the trip on our photos page.  

Well, I’m on the way home (title gave it away).  I’ve been gone for 11 days and been through three countries - Poland, Czech and Slovakia.  I must say I enjoy Slovakia every time I come here.  The people are great and as Cyril insists, they are not much different from Canadians.

First stop Krakow, Poland where I met with a team at the end of their mission.  This team spent a fantastic time in Czech with the main highlight being a youth camp attended by several youth groups from the area.  There were approximately 50 youth there and some from difficult backgrounds.  Jason, the team leader, faced a couple of boys with the harsh reality of their poor choices today and the future outlook for them.  By the end of the few days there four young fellows accepted Christ!  Not only that but one of them approached a team member to hand in the drugs they had brought with them.  Together the five of them flushed them down the toilet.  This is so encouraging as a sign that it was not just words but they are ready to follow through on their commitment with real actions.  Amazing!

Tomorrow I’ll drop an update on the other teams I visited.  It’s great to be just a small part of stories like this.

11 days is how long I’ll be away.  As stated before, I’m heading off to Poland and Slovakia.  I’ll have a great chance to meet up and spend time with several teams that are on the ground.  The schedule looks something like this:

10th-Krakow, PL  :  11th-Rybnik, PL  :  13th-Trnava, SK  :  16th-Brezno, SK  :  18th-Trencin, SK  :  19th-Zvolen, SK  :  21st-HOME, UK!

Please keep us in your prayers, particularly Kara and Lauren.  Lauren is coming off one medicene and going on another and that can be a trying time.  Please pray for those people I’ll be meeting, we’d like to see a three or four people catch the ‘fever’ and start looking to serving europe with us.  That’s not too much to ask for do you think?

The iTeam is finished up and returning today.  From the intial reports it sounds like it has gone well.  Eight people were baptized on the first Sunday at a service on at a lake.  They said with 40-50 people clapping and making a scene it brought a lot of attention by the others lake goers.

The clubs went well and with the team showing up well prepared it made it easy to engage the kids.  The ‘City Church’ in Vienna is a real community church that intends to reach out to the people around them rather than people on the other side of the city.  It’s great to be able to send a team out to support them and be a part of what God is doing in Austria.

So it’s finally decided and booked.  I’ll be going off to Poland and Slovakia from July 10th to 21st.  This will be a great opportunity to meet up with five of the teams that are out there.  Some will be finishing up mission and some will be just starting mission.  The purpose of these site visits are to connect with the teams, see how things are going and if there are any improvements needed.  Also this will give the teams a face to connect with NLI and give us the opportunity to present internship and staff positions to the teams.  We have seen a number of interns and staff come from short term missions so this becomes a great recruitment tool.

Here is a list of the teams I will be meeting and the dates they are on mission:

River of Life (US to Czech) - July 2-11

Planetshaker (Aus to Poland) - July 5-14

Parkwood (Can to Slovakia) - July 11-21

Lakemount (Can to Slovakia) - July 17-26

King Street (Can to Slovakia) - July 19-28

Please keep these teams in your prayers and of course pray for Kara and Lauren as this is the longest we’ll have been apart from each other.

Just a quick note to let you know that the Austria is going out this week.  This is NLI’s 2nd iTeam and has an interesting dynamic.  There is a group of Aussies coming to look after the dance aspect of the mission, they are a regula dance troup and should bring a high level of professionalism.  There will also be a few Brits and one Canadian on the team.

The team will be hosting kids clubs and football (soccer) camps in Vienna each day leading up to an event to include parents.  This will be at the same time as the Euro 2008 Football Tourney which will have cause a lot of excitment in the country that we hope will carry over to the iTeam.  Please keep the team in your prayers, specifically the youngest team member, James, who is 11 and is a friend of ours.

We had a great week with my (doug) parents this past week.  They came to visit us after being in Uzbekistan to visit my sister for two weeks.  We did London, which is an exhausting time when you try to see everything.  Tip:  the bus tour is totally worth it and you can cash in your Tesco points to go on it. 

In the next few weeks we have our friend Mylee coming to visit and Derek and Lara with family.  We’re really looking forward to having some visitors.  It’s great to get the chance to show people around our stompin’ grounds. 

On the work front, beginning to think about a trip that I’ll be taking next month to visit some of the teams on the ground.  I’ll keep you posted on those plans.