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The Lord has blessed me with many new things this year, and among those was the opportunity to go to Czech Republic with Lighthouse. This was a experience that was not immediately ground shattering but indeed was such a rich and blessed time. I did not have many anxieties upon leaving but was just really excited to meet the many church members that I had heard about. To have so many people from our church be so excited for our team to go was really cool and helped me get psyched up. You’ll read in the newsletter about the various aspects of our trip, in ministering to the church in Ostrava that we have partnered with for the last 8 years. As I took time to sit down and think about the multiple blessings that I experienced during our trip, there were a few significant things I wanted to share.
All eight members of our team were given an opportunity to teach during the week long camp we had with the church. My experience teaching was not all that I hoped it would be. I saw that opportunity as something I should take very seriously and prepare well. The topic of “The Discipline of Being a Witness at Work” itself was daunting because I knew that every Biblical truth and every practical challenge was something that I myself was going to have to deal with and undertake. I learned so much from the studying and prep before I we left for Czech that I almost felt like I was done! It was beneficial that I wasn’t scheduled to teach until the fourth day of camp because it gave me the opportunity to hear what the Czech church really struggles with. Going into it I knew there were differences between the struggles of working in America and working in the Czech culture that would effect the practical application of the lesson. However, we came to embrace that God’s truth applies to everyone, no matter how difficult the situation we find ourselves. It is our nature to pick and chose the parts of scripture that we want to apply and uphold but God’s truth is so much greater than that and God is so much greater than us. He establishes the Word and the standard that we are to live up to.
All people struggle with this – it is our nature to rebel and do things our way, but we had the opportunity to address this with the church in Ostrava. During the teaching times presented by my teammates, I too was humbled to consider my own life and be honest about how I am not willing to be obedient to the every commandment of His word and endure discipline for the purpose of Godliness. Yet now, I not only acknowledge but understand how important it is to submit to His every plan for our lives. We start to compromise in little ways because we thinking that it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. In our discussion times many issues came up because the mindset of complete submission to the Lord wasn’t established. It led to questioning so many fundamental and clear instructions in the Bible regarding how to be a Godly wife, a Godly mother, or even how devoted one should be in serving. I was grateful for the opportunity to encourage them to also take stock of their lives and see the areas in which they may compromise the Christian life. It was not easy for them to be honest and share with us, nor wasn’t easy to sit through all the things we wanted to teach and impart to them, particularly when it was directly challenging their currently way of life. But by the end of the week, we all were seriously evaluating our worldview and our view of God’s holiness. Really, that’s all I hoped for, even though it was hard to leave them especially in the midst of starting to learn how to deal with these issues of living a God-centered life.
There were many areas of my life that I was wrestling with in terms of being obedient and understanding God’s instruction, especially regarding how we are to value and be a part of the church - but that all clicked during our trip. I had reservations about my team, because I was well aware of how selfish I could be, especially when I am not comfortable but God really conquered all fears I had of team conflict. I’m sure it was not through any coincidence but rather just the amazing grace of God that helped me to humbly love and serve my team and practice the discipline of serving. A big part of that was seeing the love that came from our own church members in sending us off with many reminders to glorify God in all things, and knowing that even though they weren’t going with us, they were sending us. I can’t express the love of God that I experienced in the days leading up to take off.
Then once we were in Czech Republic, my understanding of the blessing of being apart of the family of God grew through the time with the church from Ostrava and mutually serving each other. My mom used to always tell me that friends come and go but family will always be there for you. Through the care and partnership with my teammates, John, Angela, Mike, Caroline, Teresa, Teddy, JR (and Alyssa too) I could see these same things being practiced. During this trip and through my team, I truly came to see The Church as a family – we are called to love each other, not out of personal preference for each other (much like real family members have to struggle with loving each other) but in response to God’s great love that unifies us. We are all sinners that have been redeemed because of God’s mercy on us, not being we merit it. After being saved by grace, we are then called to fellowship together and walk this Christian life together and stand as God’s church. May we continue to look for opportunities to spur one another one to love and good deeds, continually seeking to honor God wherever we are.
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