Pilgrims, Indians and Why we are thankful!

Thanksgiving day we celebrated with our Thursday evening English class and their families along with our church group.  It was a great outreach evening to meet new friends and to think about why we are thankful.
Those of you familiar with small European appliances will appreciate my fear when Larry came home with an 18 kilo turkey.  The meat market here isn't used to orders for turkeys, so every year we get whatever the farmer has available. This year was the biggest we've gotten yet and when Larry came home with it I was certain there was no way it was going in the oven.  Maybe some of you can relate, but I have a husband  that -when I say it is impossible-he WILL find a way to accomplish the impossible task.  Needless to say, the turkey fit into the oven and tasted absolutely delicious.
We enjoyed the story of the first Thanksgiving and were able to share why we are thankful for what Christ has done for us and to Whom we are thankful.
Honestly, when we looked around the room at the precious people there, we knew we had a lot to be thankful for.  We are constantly humbled and eternally grateful that God has allowed us to be a part of what He is doing in Plzen, Czech Republic.

Celebration time!

On Sunday, September 1, we celebrated with Martin and Kuba... their new life in Christ.
After a long time of struggling to have a baby, God gave Martin and his wife a beautiful boy.  Martin's wife recognized that this was from God and sought out a church where they could thank God. They found our church. Martin was so interested in what was being talked about in our discussions and so every week he came back with more questions. Martin has a beautiful testimony about how God changed his life and he boldly takes every opportunity to share what Christ has done for him.

We first met Kuba at English camp.  On the last day of last year's English camp, Petra gave her testimony. Kuba was sitting on the front row crying. After the program Petra talked to Kuba more about a relationship with Christ. Kuba comes faithfully by himself to church every week. He is the first to offer help with anything that needs to be done and always eager to learn more about Christ.  God really blessed us when He added these 2 wonderful people to our body of believers!

Victory!!!!

We had our first football game of the season on Sunday.  The Pilsen Patriots defeated the Prague Hippos 39:0.  It was my first game as a coach and not a player.  It's much less stressful to play.

Show me the EXIT

Last week we were able to partner with other churches to bring Exit Tour to Plzen.  Exit Tour is a program that brings topics that youth need to hear about, like sex, drugs, racism, etc., into the schools.  The main attraction is always an American band.  This year the band was Matter (matterband.com).
We were in three different schools and every afternoon we had an "Exit Party" with games, food, music, and the gospel.  on Friday night there was a concert.  At least 200 youth in Plzen heard the gospel.  Please pray for the Christian youth here as they continue with weekly Exit Clubs.

Catching the Vision

In February we took a group from our church to a church planting conference.  There were 19 church planting teams and a total of over 125 people at the conference.  It was led by a group of successful church planters from Norway.  It was great to see others are being called to plant churches in the Czech Republic as well as to spend time together planning and seeking God's vision for us in Plzen.