Slovakia live - news from the heart of Europe

Dear Peter and Zuzka!

Your Day is here! What a wonderful moment.

May God bless your beautiful union and may your life as ONE be always filled with His love, joy and peace. May the new life you‘re beginning be full of adventure and mutual friendship that will grow into eternity. May the words of William Cowper be your words to each other:

“There is not room enough for friendship to unfold itself in full bloom in such a nook of life as this. Therefore I am, and must, and will be, Yours forever.”

Dear Peter and Zuzka, I wish you that your mutual friendship may last forever and beyond! May the people around you see your wonderful Savior through you always!

From July 8th – July 14th we have been to our Summer camp at a small village called Huty, which is close to the High Tatras (at their western end). A good group of Christians from Prague, Olomouc (Czech Republic), Bratislava, Banská Bystrica and Košice came. This time we had a special group of students from Harding University that came with Allen and Monica Diles, former missionaries in Prague. Also a new missionary couple from Olomouc joined us for a few days. I believe the camp was just a good spiritual experience for all the participants. Allen brought us excellent lessons from the OT books of Kings. Discussions, times of fellowship and sharing were just a great encouragement to all of us. And the beautiful n ature that surrounded the camp with an amazing view of the Roháče Mountains (High Tatras) just contributed to the uplifting atmosphere of the whole camp.

(Click on the picture above and gallery with camp pictures will pop up.)

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I had a couple of sessions with the students in Nitra during the Summer, where we shared our faith and talked together about the purposes that our Lord has for His church. We had very good talks about sharing the gospel and the need of good fellowship and what it all means. Our plan for the future is to talk about worship, sharing our resources and helping others, and discipleship. One good news from this group is that Zuzka and Peter are getting married the coming Saturday, August 25th. Zuzka is originally from eastern Slovakia, studying now in Nitra, and Peter is a Christian living in Vienna. They met each other at our Easter Family Retreat in 2006. Since then they have been dating each other and now comes their great day!

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In Bratislava we’ve been going through the study of our Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) during the last 5 weeks. I studied the material of this beautiful prayer first with the students in Nitra for over 3 months this spring. Now I’m sharing my studies in a sermon series with the church in Bratislava. This was a very exciting study for myself personally and I believe others enjoyed it, too. I think that this is often a very neglected prayer in spite of its great significance and depth. It’s a prayer that helps us to see God as our loving Father who is not far away, but very close. This prayer teaches us the right priorities by putting the first things first. His name, His kingdom and His will can be done on earth as it is in heaven through us - His children.

It reminds us that God takes care of us daily, not just of “me,” but “us”! How many times can we count the personal pronoun “me,” “mine” or “I” in this prayer? And how many times we see there “our,” “us” and “we”? Does it suggest something to us?

The bread we have from our Father reminds us that we are richly blessed. And as blessed people, we can become a blessing to others. The last two clauses remind us of our role of peacemakers in this world. When we open our hearts with all their hurts and pain to God, we can truly find healing. By opening ourselves fully to God we can be forgiven and learn how to forgive others. Out of the fullness of His love that flows through us we’ll become whole and secure. We’ll be able to love others and forgive them. When we walk with God in intimate closeness, He will not lead us into temptation, but out of it. And it won’t be anymore only about “my” temptation and struggle with sin, but about our community and society’s struggle with evil. God is calling us to be the answer to the question of evil in the world. He calls us not to be part of the problem, but instead part of the answer. It is through us that God is putting the world back in order. It is through us that His will can be done on this earth as in heaven. What a vocation to be a follower of Christ!

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We experienced a Great fellowship on Sunday, July 22nd. After the assembly in the morning most of us went to Ana and Jaro’s garden, where we had a great cookout with good discussion and simply a fine time of fellowship. We also had some visitors - Ana and Jaro’s son with his wife and kids came. Also Jozef brought his family for a short visit. This created a good opportunity for us to get to know each other and to start to build bridges with each other. We would like to do something like this more often so that we have more chances to share our lives and faith with others.

Last week some of the young people from Bratislava (Miriam, her friend Jana, Braňo, Rasťo and Roman) went to Súľovské skaly to do some hiking. Three guys from Olomouc (Corey, Graham and Mitch) joined us on this adventure. We had a very blessed time of fellowship and sharing together. There were many opportunities to talk about the Kingdom and to share our desires for the spreading of His love to other people. And all this was done in the midst of the astonishing nature that God created in Northern Slovakia. Amazed by the beauty of His creation, we were not able to utter a word sometimes, just to gaze with awe at all His wonderful deeds.

Summer in Slovakia was good and adventurous.

As humans we sometimes utter with a sigh of sentiment in our voice: “Oh, where are the good old days?!” And in our minds we picture the old warn days of the distant past, where life seemed so simple and uncomplicated. Everything was going well and to live was a delight.

But isn’t that exactly the same thing that we will say one day about the days that we are living right now?

The truth is that there will always be something in our lives that we will have to wrestle or struggle with. In this present life there will always be things, people or circumstances that would trouble and hurt us. But if this is the only truth we believe then we are needlesly stealing the joy and peace from ourselves that we can be actually experiencing in spite of all the present suffering.

The second more important truth is that “the end of a matter is better than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8; see also Romans 8:18-39). It is a more noble truth that is full of undying hope and glorious promises!

Even when things are not the way they are supposed to be, even when we have made many mistakes ourselves and even if what is going on is not our own fault – we can still have one assurance. God works through and in spite of these things, so that the end of the matter will be better than its beginning! God is putting the world to rights!

Paul is praying: “And may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5). Let’s try to pray with him, that our hearts will be filled with God’s abundant love toward us and toward other people and that Christ’s steadfastness and patience will be ours, so that the joy will not be needlesly stolen from us, but instead, we would be able to say that:

the good old days have just begun!