doug & kara serving europe . . .

Yep it’s true, the office is getting a new photocopier on Thursday!  Is this really exciting ministry news?  Well no probably not but it is noteworthy nonetheless.  It becomes another machine that can act as my nemesis.  For some reason I’ve not managed to figure printers out.  I hit the print button and expect everything to work.  If I need to print anything else like the dreaded back to back I turn into an old lady trying to set the time on a VCR . . . I holler for help.  Please pray for me that this new photocopier and I have a better relationship than all the ones before.

It’s worth praying for Scott and Lynda Thomson right now.  They are having a few difficulties with their visa renewal.  Scott and Lynda are important members of the organization and as you know visa hiccups can be extremely frustrating.

Janelle Fowlow has received her visa to live in the UK and has booked her flights!  She will be showing up at the start of October (1st I think).  She will be working with John, looking after STM teams going on the BOOST tour and participating in the internship program.  She is seeing this as the first step in her journey which of course we all see at NLI for years and years to come.

Great news, Sara Mendez has news that her visa has been issued!  It’s something like this that really sinks the reality in because there is nothing blocking the path.  Pray for the rest of her support as she begins to make arrangements for the start of next month.

My first stop in Slovakia was Trnava.  Lubor and Daniela are the church planters there.  They are working in a difficult neighborhood with many social challenges.  Two of the kids joining the team at a youth camp come from a home where their mother ran off while they were little, their father is a junkie and they live with their grandmother.  To make matters worse their grandmother just recently went into the hospital.  Lubor is not sure what will happen to this brother and sister.  Please pray for Roman and Lucia.

While visiting with Lubor one night, Pastor Mark from Parkwood (their partner church) asked him about working with NLI and what benefit that brought.  His response was encouraging.  He said, ‘NLI has helped us be more organized and think ahead by training us to host short term missions.  This is something I’ve not been good at in the past.  The training they provide every six weeks is like a time of refreshing for him and his wife.  Also to have the church planting team expect reporting has helped with accountability.’  The one area he still desires is to have strong mentorship on a regular basis.  Please pray for Lubor that he would find that person to lean on in ministry.

I know I don’t speak French, in fact I don’t speak any other languages other than English.  On this trip though I did learn a few new words in Slovak.  Anyway back to the story . . .

My second stop was in Wodzislaw, Poland.  There I spent a day and a half with the team from Planetshaker church in Melbourne.  This is a large church full of young people that have a real focus on what it means to be a worshipper.  It showed in the team.  Each person understood what it means to have a worshipping heart whether they are ‘musical’ or not.  They had a ‘full on’ week with the church there.  I had the chance to spend all day Saturday with them.  In the morning Cliff and the team shared with the worship team from the church the heart of the Planetshaker church.  Then after I had a little chat with the team they joined them in their practice.  It was great to see Cliff showing a young drummer a few new moves and to see the young guy’s face light up as he caught on.

The afternoon and evening was spent at a BBQ in a nearby town, Rybnik, where there are two cell groups meeting.  The intent is for these cell groups to form the next church plant for the Wodzislaw church.  We played Kubb with everyone and ate some yummy Polish sausage.

This was the first of four teams coming from the church into Europe this year.  If the Poland team is any indication of the quality of people coming on mission we will see three more excellent teams - Ukraine in August, Czech in September and Slovakia in October.

In addition to the teams one of the couples I was able to spend a bit of time with was Peter and Lucia in Brezno, Slovakia.  Lucia works with the NLI team assisting church planters with their finances and coordination.

As a couple they are also one of the church planters in the small city of Brezno.  It’s about 24,000 people and does not have a strong evangelical presence.  In the community of Mazornikovo (about 6000 people mostly in high-rise apartments) there is only one Catholic church without a lot of life which is typical of this region.

Peter and Lucia feel that it is through ministry to kids that they will reach their community.  They have already seen doors open with many parents through providing a Friday club for kids and a variety of activities.  We were able to spend the afternoon with a group of kids and youth on a hike in the hills around Brezno.  We climbed up to a real nice spot, started a fire for a ‘typical Slovak bbq’ and then it promptly started to rain on us.  We raced back 20 mins in the rain to the church and had a bite to eat (tried to dry off!) and played some games.

Please keep Peter and Lucia along with all the church planters in Slovakia in your prayers.

You can find a few pictures from the trip on our photos page.  

Well, I’m on the way home (title gave it away).  I’ve been gone for 11 days and been through three countries - Poland, Czech and Slovakia.  I must say I enjoy Slovakia every time I come here.  The people are great and as Cyril insists, they are not much different from Canadians.

First stop Krakow, Poland where I met with a team at the end of their mission.  This team spent a fantastic time in Czech with the main highlight being a youth camp attended by several youth groups from the area.  There were approximately 50 youth there and some from difficult backgrounds.  Jason, the team leader, faced a couple of boys with the harsh reality of their poor choices today and the future outlook for them.  By the end of the few days there four young fellows accepted Christ!  Not only that but one of them approached a team member to hand in the drugs they had brought with them.  Together the five of them flushed them down the toilet.  This is so encouraging as a sign that it was not just words but they are ready to follow through on their commitment with real actions.  Amazing!

Tomorrow I’ll drop an update on the other teams I visited.  It’s great to be just a small part of stories like this.

11 days is how long I’ll be away.  As stated before, I’m heading off to Poland and Slovakia.  I’ll have a great chance to meet up and spend time with several teams that are on the ground.  The schedule looks something like this:

10th-Krakow, PL  :  11th-Rybnik, PL  :  13th-Trnava, SK  :  16th-Brezno, SK  :  18th-Trencin, SK  :  19th-Zvolen, SK  :  21st-HOME, UK!

Please keep us in your prayers, particularly Kara and Lauren.  Lauren is coming off one medicene and going on another and that can be a trying time.  Please pray for those people I’ll be meeting, we’d like to see a three or four people catch the ‘fever’ and start looking to serving europe with us.  That’s not too much to ask for do you think?