Flame ON!!

Metaphorically speaking, there are three kinds of flames in this world…one is a spark, another is the flame that is kept burning by some type of super heated fuel, and the third is a flame which creates embers that smolder for a long time. Each has a purpose and to me each can show a different spiritual state.

The first, the spark, it the kind that jolts you into action. Saturday, I felt one of those flames. I was unplugging my computer when all of a sudden, I felt a shock so strong that I jumped about ten feet! It hurt too. I’m not gonna lie, it scared me (and my roommates, since I screamed bloody murder. Lol. No need to fear though, I am fine). I have realized that that is what those types of flames are supposed to do, they immediately jump start you into action. When we feel those sparks in our lives, it forces action in us. We no longer want a stagnant life, we have had a “shock” of some type and we want to change something. Often times, our first encounters with Christ are like that, especially for people who have never heard of Him. They experience this incredible moment in life and they want everything to drastically change right now when they become a Christian and that is fantastic! However, the problem with the spark is that as quickly as it comes, it leaves, both the literal and the spiritual spark. It is easy to allow lives to only be changed for a moment by the spark. Just like today, after the jolt of electricity, I checked to make sure I was okay and then continued on with my day as usual. Nothing had truly changed.

The second is a flame that is kept alive by some sort of super heated fuel, such as a gas, aerosol, etc. These flames burn quickly and brightly. They are incredibly hot. When I think of these flames, I think of blow torches and the like. I also think of a story I’m sure many of you know from the book of Daniel that included a fiery furnace so hot that when the guards ordered to throw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the flame went up to it—they burned to death! In this case, the Lord saved His servants, but they were willing to do die if that was what was needed because bowing before an idol was not right.  The thing about these flames is that they are great fire starters. They will ignite the fire and will even burn for a short time. However, like the spark, the flames are short-lived. See these flames have nothing to live on. They quickly burn off the fuel they have been given and need more, so unless they are fed a fuel with more substance they will die out. A relationship with Christ can be like this as well. While the spark is the initial change, the flame is growing desire to become more like Christ and to know Him. At first, it can seem easy, but like any relationship, it takes work and can be anything but. However, Christ will always be worth it.

The final type of flame is a flame that seems to burn eternally. It may start quickly or slowly, but it finds a source of fuel that allows it to create embers that will smolder and keep the fire going. It will inhale all the oxygen in the area. It is the type of fire that burns buildings, makes-up bonfires, and makes excellent mountain pies. ;-) This flame has heat and power. This flame is all-consuming. This is the kind of flame that even has strong effects on those around it, because it gives of large amounts of smoke. You can tell that this flame is there and see the lasting effects of what it has done after it is gone. You can smell this fire; it will permeate clothing and wood. You can even see the scorch marks; nothing will look the same when this fire is done. Anything that it touches will be forever altered: land, building, or person. This type of fire is the most contagious of all flames, because it is the strongest of all. This is the type of flame that we should be spiritually. We should ignite those around us by being a smoldering fire ourselves. Only by keeping our relationship with Christ growing daily can we become contagious Christians.

Outside my window is a large factory. Since we arrived here, my teammates and I have been hearing about a large flame that burns from the factory. Previous ESI teachers and those from Ostrava have many different nicknames for it even. For example, the eternal flame the Olympic torch, and a few others. We even saw pictures of it on facebook and such. However, in the first few weeks, we did not once see this flame. When we asked about it, we were told that if this flame no longer burns, it will mean bad things for Ostrava. (While they meant economically, I think that there can be a much deeper meaning to this statement). For months now, I have been living in the Czech Republic and this flame has been dormant, until this week. On Tuesday morning, I awoke looked out my window. There, coming out of one of the smoke stacks was one of the biggest fires I have ever seen! It burned for about five minutes, giving off lots of smoke and pollution into the air and then stopped entirely. Now many times a day, the flame goes off and each time I am amazed. I watch in wonder as this 30-some foot flame burns brightly in the sky in the middle of the city. And I can’t help but do two things, one turn into Johnny Storm and yell “Flame on!” And two, compare this flame to spiritual status of this beautiful country that I have moved to. The Czech Republic has an incredibly rich spiritual history in which they even have the first Protestant movement that came over a hundred years before Martin Luther’s. Their flame of spirituality in Christ burned bright and strong, but they stopped cultivating it. They came to a time period where Christ was no longer needed; and like the flame outside my window, they stopped burning at all. They became dormant. Sparks might have been lit, but they were few and didn’t seem to last. But now, just like the “Olympic flame” that I look at everyday, some of the people of the Czech Republic have been lit with a fuel that is highly flammable and they are contagious. But unless, they are held up in prayer and their flame is fed by a fuel that will last, the fire will not grow.

The Czech Republic and Ostrava in particular has an incredible group of Christian leaders that are rising up, but they need your prayers and mine. They are flames that are starting to burn brightly. Remember though, being a Christian in this nation varies vastly from being a Christian in the US. They face many different challenges and those trials are not easy. I ask that each time you see a flame over the next few weeks, as I am sure many of you will be lighting candles during the holiday season, you would think of it as a symbol of the triumph of God’s victories here in the Czech Republic and pray for the things that He has yet to do through His people here.

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” ~Hebrews 12:28-29


Check out this video I made of the flame from my flat window...me talking about the flame. :-)

Turkey Day!

Although Thanksgiving was not technically until this week and in fact it is not celebrated in the Czech Republic at all, we O-town girls have had a week of Thanksgiving and it has been wonderful! Each year, Fishnet invites all of their students to come away for part of the weekend. What’s the attraction you might ask? English practice, learning about the American holiday, good food, a weekend in the mountains, and fun! Our ulterior motive—that Thanksgiving can be celebrated as a Christian holiday in which we praise and thank God for the things He has given to us. The whole weekend was a ton of fun! We did a photo scavenger hunt, played some English name games, and played some backyard American football! We also got to see the students act out a dramatization of our holiday’s history. It was hilarious! Boy, can they act! We also watched Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving—you think the poor guy would have learned, Lucy is always up to her same old tricks, dude! I was excited to spend time with some of my students. I had three come and two brought members of their family with them. They are all adults and it was nice to get to know them a little out of the classroom. They are fun and seemed to enjoy playing of the Thanksgiving games as much as I did (and we all know how much competitive Chelsea likes to play games). So it was fun!

The second half of our Thanksgiving consisted of another retreat. It was the annual ESI Thanksgiving Retreat, where all the Central Europe teachers that work for the organization that I am here with get together to spend the holiday, do some training, and relax some before heading back for the rest of the year. These four days were fantastic! We went to a secluded area about 2 ½ hours away from Ostrava, near Prague. When we got there, we were met by all of the great people we had spent the summer with, our friends that are now scattered all over the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. It was a very joyful reunion. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner—gorged ourselves all weekend really on some delectable food that the conference center provided. (Traditional turkey dinner included). We spent time in praise and worship, fellowshipping together, we did several TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) sessions, and in our spare time goofed off! We played football, ping pong, cards, dice, bananagrams, read, watched Glee, and just had a good time together! After spending an entire summer of living together and then not seeing each other and barely having contact with each other for months, it was really nice to get to bond for a few days and celebrate the holiday. It was the closest thing that we could substitute for home. It was a wonderful weekend, full of friends and fun! I had a great time!

                                       Central Europe Team

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you got to eat lots of turkey and watch tons of football yourselves! (I hope you all watched the parade too, because that’s my favorite part and I couldn’t!) Talk to you soon!

“Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.” ~ I Chronicles 16:8-10

MIA from the Middle of Moravia

Almost two months without a word and then a crazy email about how you can make money…Reminds me of that old commercial, you know the one with the woman saying, “Do you want to make more money? Of course! We all do!” In the same way that that woman had no bearing on your personal life, for the last few months I have not either. With this blog, I aim to rectify that. I have made a Thanksgiving Resolution to be better about updating, in other words to do it once in a while…so this is going to be a newsy type of blog where I catch you up on my life. Don’t expect my usual attempts at wit, sarcasm, or sage advice, because I have a lot of catching up to do. However, anticipate a new blog in the near future in which I will foist upon you all the many facets of my perky personality. That being said, you may wonder, other than being hacked and having many other technical difficulties that make me much to angry to mention to polite society (have I stated yet that technology hates me?), what have I been up to?

First, I have been learning that I officially have a brain drain on my own English skills. While we are constantly told that our greatest skill that we provide to our new community is our ability to speak English as a native speaker, it is amazing how quickly you begin to lose parts of that skill. To explain, when speaking with non-native speakers the most important part of the conversation is comprehension. So when you are speaking, you constantly use synonyms and longer phrases instead of more difficult vocabulary in order to get your students and others to understand what you are saying. It sometimes takes a lot longer to explain, but it is extremely necessary. (It is also important to remember that speaking louder and repeating the same words over and over again will not help someone that is confused by what you are saying, *as seen on TV. Lol). While it is very useful for non-native speakers, we native speakers have realized that it is actually causing our vocabulary to dwindle. Frequently, as we put it, our English dies where we literally can’t think of the appropriate word to use in a sentence. It can be quite embarrassing when a student wants help thinking of a word or you are in the middle of talking and you actually can’t remember what an object is called. And while you may think that I am exaggerating, it happens to us more often than you might believe. Once while on Skype, I couldn’t think of what a light switch was called and had to take the computer camera to the switch so I could explain what I meant. Embarrassing!!

Enough about that though! One of the other things I have been doing and it has definitely been one of the most rewarding parts of being here is that I spend a great amount of time with the youth in the area. In Ostrava, Young Life International (YL) is a pretty big and thriving organization for kids to get involved with. One of the nice things about YL is that many of the kids involved are also in some way involved with Fishnet English classes (my school). It is a great way to do ministry. Both organizations use English to build relationships with the kids and it allows for natural conversations to flow. Since all of the leaders are Christians, the kids are often exposed for the first time to the Gospel and to Christians. It can be a way to dispel many of the thoughts that they have created about Christianity. YL and Fishnet are also great networking tools for those youth that are Christians. Unlike in the States, these kids don’t have countless events to invite friends to in order to help them share their faith with friends.

Many of you know that possibly my favorite weekend of the year is a specific weekend in May in which a group of fabulous teens get together, hang out in the woods and have a blast every year. Of all the things that I am going to miss this year, having to miss my girls’ senior year of the youth retreat is pretty high on the list. However, a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to join in on a retreat here with some great Czech kids. It was through YL and we went to Filmy Vikend!  For those of you that truly know me, you know it was a weekend after my own heart. We watched movies, discussed them, played cards and dice, and spent time outside in the mountains. It was beautiful! And I must say that God must have known what He was doing when He chose Ostrava as my Czech home, because you’ll never guess what game we played so I’ll tell you—MATTRESS RACES!! That’s right! We did a mattress race all the way over here in the CZ! It warmed my heart, Grace Youth! (Click here if you would like to view the Czech edition of this wonderful event, especially considering my team won!!) This weekend couldn’t have come at a better time for me, because while I truly love Ostrava, I am a country girl at heart. The area we went to looked exactly like I was looking at the views from my dorm room at college—minus the creepy graveyard. Lol. (I have also learned to remember, Czechs have a much different idea of an easy hike than I do, especially when I’m still carrying all my junk. J) 

We spent the weekend with kids who may or may not have been Christians watching movies and then talking with them about some off the serious issues that arose in the films and how a Christian might think about it. The youth were free to speak their minds and we had some really great discussions. It was a really cool experience and an awesome idea for a different, more out-of-the-box type of ministry that we don’t usually see done in the States.

In order to not completely overwhelm you, I am going to stop my update here. But know that another one is coming in just a day (it is almost finished)! But I just want to add that through these experiences, I have been able to begin building relationships with people. I ask that you would pray for some of these relationships as they continue to grow that they would be a time of fellowship and discipleship.

Bye for now! More tomorrow…

 "I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

Film Weekend Fun!!