Joeletter 8.2

I'm just barely slipping a second Joeletter for this month in. It's amazing how time is flying by over here. (We had Daylight Savings Time kick in, losing an hour by setting our clocks forward).

Again, so much has happened. First of all, some sad news. Satan is seeking new ways to discourage us. Last Monday night the Impact office was broken into. The thieves bent apart two of the 1/4 in. steel bars over the windows and made off with two laptops and a large amount of money.

But there is happy news too. One of the Impact-Munich staff was able to drive down to Prague and visit us over the Easter weekend. It was a great blessing to have Sandy here. In addition, students from Johnson Bible College traveled up from a town on the southern border of the Czech Republic to be with us as well.

Over the Easter weekend we held an Easter Vigil in our under-development Prayer Room. The walls are painted, but the floors are still bare and there is no permanent source of heat yet. A large rug was brought in, along with a small electric heater. Friday night we opened the weekend with a candlelight service commemorating Jesus' death. We had singing, prayer, and Scripture readings. At the close of the service we extinguished all of the candles, representing Christ's light going out of the world.

Immediately following the service we began the prayer vigil. I was able to take the first hour shift. We were reminded that prayer is not simply sitting and talking to God, though that is a major portion of it. Prayer is also praising God through music, art, and dance, and reading His Word. I was very blessed by the time I was able to spend as part of the vigil.

Unbroken, the vigil continued until Saturday night. Several people were involved, including the JBC group, the Impact team, and other Christians here in the city. At this service we entered and held unlit candles. A lighted candle, representing Christ's Light, came into the Prayer center. From this central candle each Christian lit our own small candle. What had been a dark room was filled with light.

Again on Saturday we had a time of singing, Scripture reading, communion, and a time of blessing and anointing. The vigil continued through Saturday night, and ended Sunday morning with a third service celebrating the resurrection.



On Saturday I was also able to visit one of my Czech friends, Filip, at his house twenty minutes outside of Prague. He had invited me to come go downhill biking with him. Not knowing exactly what that was (but wanting to be able to spend time with him), I agreed. When I got off the train I borrowed his brother's bike and we set off for the hill. First of all, Filip's brother is taller than me. So when sitting on the seat of his bike, I was not able to touch the ground with my feet.

But that was okay, I was still able to ride along and balance myself fine. After all, riding a bike isn't about your feet touching the ground. We got to the hill, and started up. Now, this hill turned out to be a wooded, rocky kind of hill. There were trails cut through it, and jumps and steeps banked turns thickly sprinkled throughout.

I had agreed, upon borrowing the bike, not to do any jumping with it. In the first place, I didn't know how to jump, and in the second place the seat was too high for me to land safely anyway. So as I looked at the jumps and turns scattered along the trail, I knew that I was not going to try any of them. I figured that I would just sedately pedal along down the hill.

We kept climbing, and passing more and more insane jumps. At several of them Filip would turn around and do them a few times, showing me how it worked. He did them quite well. But I knew that I couldn't. Nevertheless, he urged me to try them. He even lent me his bike to ride, because it was more suited to downhill jumping. I got started trying once, riding down the hill toward a very big U in the ground. But two yards into it, bumping over the stones and tree-roots embedded in the trail, I knew that this was a very bad idea and I quickly stopped.

All this fear was present before Filip told me how one time he had taken this same jump and accidentally bent his front wheel sideways at the bottom of the U. The bike stopped. Filip didn't. He flew into a tree, cracking his helmet into two pieces. Fortunately for him, he was fine. But his friend, about a week later, did something similar without a helmet, and had to be helicoptered off the mountain. I didn't have a helmet. And I had never tried this extreme sport before. So, I decided to be a live chicken rather than a dead lion, and told Filip I just couldn't do it.

He was very gracious, though he didn't completely understand how a person wouldn't want to at least try this insane, extreme sport. I agreed to watch him do a few more jumps before lunch. Because in all truth, it is very exciting to be there in person and watch these riders pedal down the trail and take the jumps. But the second time Filip tried the jump, he tumbled out of control himself, hurting his back. At this point I knew that it was not cowardice but wisdom that was keeping me from trying the hill. Well, I knew before, but this just proved my point - both to myself and to Filip.

We walked back to his house for lunch, and I got to meet his parents. He showed me some pictures on his computer, we went for a walk, climbed a tree, built a fire, and watched a man fly his remote control airplane over the hillside. All in all, it was a good day.


Sunday night and Monday I got to spend with the students from JBC. We visited Cream & Dream, the best ice cream shop I have ever been too. The shop itself is in Old Town, a very picturesque and ancient part of the city. It's a huge tourist magnet, and for good reason. But being so old, it's very difficult to find your way around in Old Town, especially when you haven't spent much time there. What I am trying to say is, we briefly got lost. Yes, I know what I say - "I'm never lost, I know exactly where I am. It's just getting to where I'm going that's the hard part." And that would be true. But to all you Negative Nancy's, we were lost.

One of the brilliant ideas that the team had was implemented on the way to Cream & Dream. When writing thank you notes to the supporters who had allowed them to take this mission trip, why not write them on post cards from Prague?! So we stopped at a store and they picked out cards. In addition, a few of them started their shopping.

Duke bought a toboggan style hat. Some call them a beanie cap, but this doesn't have a propeller on top. It is a knit, stretchy, warm hat. In the front it says Czech Republic, with the national crest. Later than night Ross was describing something to me, and said, "It was the same color as Duke's hat, that kind of yellow." Duke snatched the hat off his head, looked at it, and exclaimed, "What! This hat is yellow?! I thought it was blue! Why'd you let me buy a yellow hat! People have been looking at me all night. I thought it was 'cause they were admiring how cool I looked. It's 'cause I'm wearing a yellow hat with my black jacket!!!!" It was absolutely hysterical. Apparently Duke had in his head that he wanted to buy the blue hat, and had mentally stopped paying attention to the color as he bought it and put it on.


We did find our way to Cream & Dream, and the team graciously paid for my ice cream. In fact, the team graciously paid for a lot of my meals while they were here. I became quite fond of them. Apparently the feeling was mutual, because they invited me to join them Monday for their shopping/siteseeing time in the city.

With much joy I accepted the invitation and joined them bright and early at one of the Metro stops. We visited a park with a great view of the city and took several pictures. Then we visited Bohemia Bagel, the only place in the city where they sell a bagel breakfast. I ordered and took a couple tables, saving them for the rest of the group. But when I looked back, I didn't see the group!! My bagel came, so I started eating it. They still weren't there, so in confusion I pocketed the other half of my bagel (which tasted fantastic as usual) and caught a tram to where I knew they were planning on heading next. They weren't there when I arrived, so I waited.

When they showed up, it turns out that they had gone to the cafe next door. They had told me, but I was focusing on the cashier and hadn't heard. With much rejoicing we were reunited, and set off to do more shopping.

The girl I was accompanying, Tabi, and I visited the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments. It was the kind of place where you talked in hushed voices. It's beyond me how anyone could inflict this kind of damage on another human being. These instruments were designed to create suffering, most of them maximum suffering with minimum effort. We humans are capable of such destructive acts.

The JBC team left today and flew back to the States. I miss them a lot, and not just because they fed me. In the short time they were here they extended a lot of love to me. I was very blessed by their visit.

In His Time,