Monday, April 02, 2007

That Lantern is never out of 'in'....


Chinese lanterns are great because they never go out of style...

Nor does music. And that is good because we've been able to do a lot of music with Groundstaff the last 2 days. One outreach I know some of you heard about because it was in the Chec Republic. That was exciting. God worked it all out really awesome. We got through the border no problem at all, and then we were able to set up. Before the program started however, we went for a walk to hand out flyers to the youth and kids in the area. We found some down around some the large uncreative buildings that a government at one time used to cram all of their citizens into. We had been taught a few basic words in Chec that basically equated to: Hello (ahoy) Here's a flyer!
Yeah, it was fun not being able to communicate again. As I walked towards these unsuspecting kids watching two older kids play some soccer, I practiced saying Hello...here's a flyer. There were 3 kids I spent the next few minutes with. They wanted to know if it cost anything, and we had fun writing symbols and numbers in the gravelish sand. What we got across was that it was free... But then they asked where it was...and I couldn't explain it for the life of me... Luckily, there were some German girls with us and so one came to help me... And although it did wonders for my moral support, she couldn't explain anything else either. Luckily again, there was another girl that seemed to know a good deal more about this communicating in Chec, and therefore was able to explain that we were in a theatre, 'that way'...
Oh, the joys of finger pointing... ^_^

So, we did the program, and there were only a few people who came who were not associated with the church there though there was about 60 people. What is awesome though is that there were 3 kids who came early at the start of the program and soaked in everything that night...music...art...drama...and the gospel. What they will do with it I don't know, but they each took materials about Christ, including the Jesus movie in their own language. That and they had a chat with the Pastor. Pray that God keeps his hand with them. This city is called Asch, and just like how it sounds in the back of the throat, it's a pretty rough town.
Being on the border of Germany, it's been a center for oppression, prostitution, and all kinds of crime and chaos. In fact it was known a short time ago as being the most rundown city in all of the USSR that had recently dissolved. To be able to bring a little bit of light goes a long way the darker the enviroment is. I hope God will be able to work there in a mighty way in the near future. Pray that God will keep working there.

That brings us to today. We were in a town an hour from Hoff. I believe it's called Saalfeld. Anyways, we had a good time there. We did a youth time and more music worship than I have done in a long while. It was really refreshing and then in the middle of the evening Groundstaff did a concert outreach thing. It was great. We finished it off by doing a good deal more music worship...in total that day it was like 7 hours of programs and music. We even slept there so we stayed up until about um... 1:30ish...and then us guys stayed awake until about 3:00ish...Some of voluntarily and some not voluntarily...It was good though and we apparently made some kind of an impact with the youth we hung out with cause when one of the girls was saying goodbye this morning, she came up to me and said, 'Goodbye funny freak!'...

Then we came home...
for any other pics of the adventure, check out the pics on my multiply site: http://encaitar777.multiply.com
Grace and Peace

2 comments:

neonwolfe said...

I laugh the part when she said "goodbye funny freak". Sounds like you really had a good time. So, this was biggest adventure?
Anyways, it'll be great to see you home again.

Anonymous said...

Hey James, been praying for you. Saw your request a month back for energy. Will keep that in mind. Looks like good fun and good ministry. Awesome how God can put that together, eh? Much courage and God's blessings to you and your group.