UK in October

During October, we will be in the UK for a series of meetings.  At some of these, we will be talking about our work in Prague, at others Simon will be preaching.  Our basic itinerary is below.  If you are able to join us for any of these, it would be great to see you.

Sat Oct 2nd
DUMO at Exmouth Chapel. 6.15 pm
Sun Oct 3rd
Beacon Heath Church, Exeter. 10.30 am
King Street Chapel, Tiverton. 6.30 pm
Mon Oct 4th
DUMO in Braunton. 7.30 pm.
Tue Oct 5th
DUMO at Plymstock Chapel. 7.30 pm.
Sun 10th Oct
Grosvenor Chapel, Barnstaple. 9.30 am.
Pinhoe Road Baptist Church, Exeter. 6.30 pm.
Mon 11th Oct
Blandford Forum Evangelical Church. 2.30 pm.
Sat 16th Oct
Youth Bible Academy, Belmont Chapel, Exeter. 1.45 pm.
Sun 17th Oct
Bradley Evangelical Church, Newton Abbott. 10.00 am and 6.30 pm.
Monday 18th Oct
West Down Chapel. 7.30 pm
Sat Oct 23rd
Echoes Conference (details here.)
Please do pray for us during our time in the UK.

Berea College, Prague

If you have been reading this blog you will know that one of the aims of the ICP Study Centre is to run a year-long residential course and that we are searching for properties at the moment.  That search continues, but this blog entry is just to let you know that there is a small website I have just put up which gives a few more details of the project - including how to give.  It can be found here: Berea.  I am also working on a leaflet, which I hope will be printed and ready for distribution after we return from holiday in a couple of weeks.
If you know of people who might be willing to contribute to the purchase of property, please do point them in our direction!

The Summer... so far!

If you have been following this blog, you will know that a group from ICP went to China for a couple of weeks to work with the children of migrant workers in beijing.  If you haven't followed their exploits or seen the pictures, access to their blog is in the side bar on this page under the title "ICP English Camp".  Simon's brother, Trevor, and his family were some of those who went.  They returned safely - tired and jet-lagged after a 30 hour trip - yesterday afternoon.  That means that we can move back to our flat in town as we have been house - and dog - sitting while they have been away.  During that time, Dorit's brother, Heðin, and his family visited.  they had been on holiday in Italy and were on their way to Germany for Teenstreet - a young people's week of mission etc. organised by OM.  Details can be found here.  Dorit's sister, Guðrun, with her family were also at TeenStreet and they arrive, God willing, for a visit today.

We plan to go to Denmark on August 15th for a holiday, being joined by Stephen and Sarah Sowden and their boys.  So we are looking forward to that.  Until then, Simon is still working on various aspects of the Study Centre; the most important - or at least urgent - one at the moment is the question of property.  Please do continue to pray with us about this.  He is also putting together our latest prayer letter, so that should be coming out by the end of this week.  Otherwise, he has been doing most of the preaching over the past couple of months while John Waldrop is in the US.  He has been going through some of the themes in 1 John.  If you want to download or listen to the sermons they can be found here.
In October, we will, God willing, be coming back to the UK.  We will be speaking at the three DUMO rallies and one or two other places, as well as at the Echoes Day on October 23rd.  If you know of any church or fellowship that would like to invite us to share something of what we are doing in Prague, please do email us, our address can be found on our website.

Property Update

Please do continue to pray for us as we look for potential properties for the residential course.  Dorit and I have looked at four promising places but have not been totally convinced by any of them!!  This is mainly, I think, because any property we look at needs a fair amount of work to make it usable which adds to the already high cost of the property.  The property which is most appealing is in a village just to the west of Prague, fairly close to the airport.  This is an old farm with stables and other outbuildings which, with work, would make a wonderful site for a study centre.  However, it is expensive - the old estate agent mantra of "Location, location, location" springs readily to mind.
Please pray that as we seek to raise the finance for this project that the Lord will provide.  And also that Dorit and I will know clearly which of the properties to pursue.  Please pray also for potential students; that even now the Lord will be preparing the hearts and minds of those who will be attending next year.

Property

This past week or so, we have looked at a couple of potential properties for our planned residential course. Please do pray about this.  On Friday, Dorit and I are going to see another property just outside of Prague having spent most of the last two days driving around looking at various places.  One of the major difficulties is, obviously, that of price.  The nearer to Prague you go, the more the price rises.  Even those we are looking at on the outskirts range in price for £350 000 to £750 000.
We don't have that kind of money.  In fact, at the moment, we don't have any money!!  Please pray with us for wisdom in knowing which - if any - of the properties we have seen is the right one. And that the Lord will provide the necessary finance.

Two Graduations and a Wedding

The last month has seen the schools that most of ICP's young people attend come to the end of their year.  And for final year students, that means graduations.  Simon is on the board at CISP so attended the graduation o there a couple of weeks ago.  The Christian International School of Prague is not a large school, so there were only seven students graduating.  It was very encouraging, though, to hear them speak of their time at the school and of the importance of their faith to them.  Terry Chumbley, the High School Principal and deacon at ICP gave the address, using the life story of a US baseball coach as an encouragement to the young people to always place their faith first in their lives.  The graduation ceremony was held in the same building that ICP uses every Sunday for its services.

The second graduation was for Riverside School.  As some of you will know, Simon's brother, Trevor and his wife, Ali, both work at Riverside and have done for the last 5 years.  Ali had been form tutor for this year's graduates so was very involved in the graduation itself.  Simon was asked to give the address, the first graduation speech he has ever done.  It was great to be able to do it though.  He took the school's motto "Come here, son, and learn to be wise", a quotation from the Czech educator and pastor Jan Amos Komensky as his starting point, reminding the students that true wisdom can only begin with a knowledge of God.
Like CISP this year's final class was quite small;, only 11 graduating.  But they came from at least 8 different countries, from the Czech Republic to Mongolia.
The ceremony was held in one of Prague's many fantastic old churches, Saint Simon and St Jude.  But, like many other churches in Prague, this is no longer used as a church but as a concert hall!  Still, there were some very impressive paintings and statues around making it a fitting venue for a graduation.  Definitely better than the old Leas Cliff Hall were the Harvey Grammar School used to have its prize giving!!

The Riverside graduation was last Thursday (June 24th).  The day after, Dorit and Simon were in the town of Lysa nad Labem to the north-east of Prague for a wedding.  Two young people from ICP, Manny (a Greek-Canadian) and Sarka (a Czech) were married in this small town where she, Sarka, grew up.  Simon had the joy of being able to conduct the service which was held in both Czech and English (though Simon only did the English bit!!).

The church was a small, Hussite church next door to a small school and the pastor's house.  To reach it you had to go through the garden of the manse!  We had fantastic weather and I think everyone enjoyed the occasion.  Dorit and Simon were then invited to the family reception immediately afterwards which was a great honour.  As Manny's parents had been unable to make the trip to the Czech Republic, we ended up on the top table as his parents for the day!
Please pray for Manny and Sarka as they start their new life together.  Sarka became a Christian through Manny and was baptised at ICP last November.  It has been a joy to see her grow in her faith over the past year.

Courses, summer...

This coming Sunday sees the last session of the Study Centre's course, "What is the Church?"  During this course, we have looked at some of the biblical images used to describe the church; what God expects the church to be doing now; as well as look at three of the important eras in the church's history: the first three centuries, the Reformation and the rise of modern Evangelicalism.  We finish this Sunday with a look at the future of the church.  This has been an interesting course to be part of, with the historical part being led by Jim Barnes, an American missionary in Prague who runs the Christian Library here.
Simon will also be preaching at ICP on Sunday, the first in a series on 1 John. The reason for this is that John Waldrop, the senior pastor, is on leave and then taking a short sabbatical.  During that time, Simon will be acting a senior pastor.  Please do pray for him over this period as he not only performs ordinary church tasks but also prepares for next year's Study Centre courses.

Dubuque

I have just got back from a week in Dubuque, Iowa on a conference organised by Emmaus Bible College and Tilsley College, Motherwell about setting up and running small scale training centres.
Emmaus are probably best known in the UK and the rest of the world for their correspondence courses, the head office being on the site of the college.  The college itself has about 250 students who study a range of subjects but with an emphasis on Biblical Studies.
There were about 60 of us at the conference, from countries as far apart as Zambia, Peru and Papua New Guinea; to say nothing of the Czech Republic!

It was an excellent time.  The people at Emmaus were wonderfully hospitable, running the conference for free for all participants.  The campus was built in the 1950s by the Catholics as a seminary but sold to Emmaus in the 1980s.  This means that the main building has at its heart a large, marble-clad church with stained glass windows of various saints!!  Not quite what you expect from a Brethren-based college!

I expect for anyone not involved in training and equipping Christians for service, most of the week would have seemed remarkably tiresome with workshops and papers on curriculum development, accreditation of courses and funding of centres.  However, I found it not only interesting but also very helpful for the situation we find ourselves in here.  Most of the participants are further along the line in setting up and running their centres than we are so it was good to be able to hear of their experiences and - hopefully! - learn from their mistakes.  Perhaps the most exciting - because it has been running only a few years but seen real growth in that time - is the GLO centre in Zambia.   There is a video here which gives some idea of what they are doing - made even more interesting for us as a couple of Faroese girls are on it.
Please continue to pray that we will be given the wisdom we need as we seek to plan and then start our first residential course in September 2011.

Pictures from Terezin

Terezin

Dorit and I have been on holiday this past week and went one day to Terezin (perhaps better known as Theresienstadt). This is just an hour's bus ride north of Prague and was used by the Nazis during WW2 as a ghetto for Jews from throughout Europe. The vast majority of them were later transferred to Auschwitz. The town was originally built as a garrison town and prison in the late 18th century and is laid out in straight streets and regimented blocks. (More details can be found on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_concentration_camp.)
We went on a coldish but clear day to find the town almost deserted of visitors which gave everything a slightly surreal feel. Visiting the museum and other buildings was very sobering, especially the section where drawings by some of the children in the ghetto of life before and during their time at Terezin. Reading the detailed lists of names, home towns, ages, destinations of the people who went through this camp was almost overwhelming. Over and over again, the question kept coming back "Why?". Why so much detail? Why the need to know everything? Why record all this? And yet, in the midst of the horror of the camp, there were moments where something of the human spirit of the people came through. The drawings by the children; the newssheets produced on typewriters and distributed in very few (sometimes solitary) copies; the music and drama performances and the self-sacrificial care given by nurses and doctors to the sick and the dying.
Perhaps it was all the more poignant a visit as it came just a few days after we celebrated the resurrection. Here was evidence, if ever it was needed, of the reason for the cross. Humanity's innate capacity for hatred and evil, exemplified by the cross and the holocaust, never ceases to astound. But perhaps it should also warn. The people who ran the camps, who logged the arrivals and the departures were human just like us. And if we are encouraged by the strength of the humanity shown in the drama and music of the camp we need also to be challenged by the fact that the inhumanity shown is something that we are as capable of as anyone. Evil will be overcome only through the work of Jesus on the cross. It is only through the cross that we can cry, in the face of horror, "Death, where is your victory?"

To the UK and the Faroes

The Monday evening course, "Introduction to the Old Testament" is halfway through and we are taking a break until April. The Sunday course, "We Believe..." ends this coming Sunday. On 14th March a new course starts, "Questions People Ask" which is being led by Angelo Franklin, an ICP member. Information can be found on the Study Centre's website.
The courses have been very encouraging this term, with 12 people attending the Monday course and four at the Sunday one.
Meanwhile, I am off to the UK on Sunday for three weeks at Trinity College in Bristol as part of my master's studies. I have two weeks on the early letters of Paul and a week on hermeneutics. For part of that time, Dorit is going up to see her family in the Faroes; she leaves a week on Saturday.

Mum and Dad's Golden Wedding

Website and Courses

If you've not been on our website for the study centre, please do.  And let me know if any of it doesn't work or doesn't make sense!!
You'll see there that we have started two courses.  The first is on Sunday and is a new course looking at the Nicene Creed and the Christian doctrines it tackles.  I have a small group of 4 following that course and our discussions have been really interesting and challenging.  On Monday evenings, we are doing our Intro to the OT again, but this time taking 12 weeks over it as the first time through - last year - was much too rushed.  We are a larger group which is very encouraging - 12 all told.  From about 5 different countries.
We have also put a Faroese page on the site which a very brief explanation of what we are doing.  You can check that out as well if you like!!

New Year

We had a great time back in the UK over the New Year where we not only spent time with Robert and Kristina and spouses, but also were able to celebrate Simon's parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary on January 2nd.  I'll post some pictures when I get around to it!
It was also good to be able to return to BHC and see everyone there.  We were really encouraged to see new faces and to hear of recent conversions.
All of the Advent and Christmas services and activities seemed to go well, for which we are very grateful.  One of the highlights was a baptismal service where 5 people were baptised, including three from ICP's Chinese Fellowship, a group that only started last spring.
Back in Prague and the activities of the new year are about to begin properly.  Simon goes off to the UK on Sunday for a week at Trinity College in Bristol as part of his MA studies.  That means Dorit is on her own in Prague - she won't be drawn on whether that is good or not!
As soon as Simon returns, the next two courses start: on Sunday 24th we begin a new course called "We Believe..." which is looking at the basic Christian beliefs as presented in the Nicene Creed.  The next day, we start our Monday evening course, "Introduction to the Old Testament".  This was first offered on Sundays in the autumn but we have revised it and expanded it slightly.  One of the problems last time was the lack of time for discussion of some of the issues, so we have turned this into a double course - 12 weeks instead of 6.  As with our other courses, more details are on the website, www.icpstudycentre.cz.