45 months and counting.

45 months!

Dear friends, 

earlier this week, doctors confirmed that i continue to be in remission.  With gratefulness for undeserved gift of 45 months in remission I continue to heal, gain strength, and pray for what is next. As i mentioned in the previous posts, a change of our address and starting a new church plant were the two big projects for 2017. We have moved in February and have enjoyed being at the house for the spring and summer even though all the outside and the bottom floor is still a construction site. The renovation will come to an end soon, and we will take a break before we work on the front yard and back yard next spring. 

At the moment, more exciting than finishing the house is tomorrow’s official launch of the new church plant called DoSlova (IntoTheWord). September 10th at 10 am marks a new beginning of a bilingual church in Prague. Over the summer we practiced how to best accommodate two possible groups of people - Czechs, who speak English and English speaking expats for whom Prague is their home. We also realized, probably like any other church, we are struggling with balance for looking inward to make sure we all (including kids) are growing in our faith, but that it would not consume us to the point that we won’t have any energy left to be with those who are asking questions, are interested in opening the Bible to find out more about what God we believe and what do we experience in our following the rabbi Joshua and his teachings…

Looking at the last six months since my last post, i see how God is teaching me about two major things. One can be summed up in a short phrase, that spoke to me in a preaching - “There is enough time for God’s will. “ Time is a commodity that we are all short of. Even if our days had 48 hours we would try to squeeze in more than what we humanly can. We don’t walk, we drive so we can be at more places. We don’t prepare meals out of fresh ingredients because it takes time, which we want to spend somewhere else. God is the Master of time management and that little phrase is slowly changing my life. Since i am aware of it, and talk about it with others, i see how leaving things up to God’s time management is worth the risk.

Busyness is loosing its’ grip on me. It’s not my idol anymore. I am learning how to manage time with God’s help. Especially as the other topic I am learning about is death. “It is not death coming to get me, but God,” was an inspiring quote during one of the hardest times fighting leukemia. Now I am in the process of putting together something that I hope to be the theology of death in written form. What does the Bible teach us about death? What are the major blocks for building a solid theology of how are we to approach the fact, that each one of us has a final day here on Earth. God knows my last day. Is it today? Is it tomorrow? When is it? I don’t know, but the bigger question is this: is my death a tragic end to  my life or is it an end of chapter 1? Someone compared our life and eternity to 9 months of pregnancy and life after birth. I like that illustration. I was not aware of what I was getting into when being born, but it seems that  God gave us a few hints what to look forward to when we will be crossing into eternity. My overall impression is that by not knowing in detail what God revealed to us about death and eternity, I am leaving room for speculations, I am choosing confusion and by tolerating lies opening doors for chaos and fear, that in death I am loosing something, while the TRUTH is that to “die is gain”.

And with this hope..

… that our lives are just a chapter 1 of something much longer then 80 years, 

… that forgiveness for turning our back to God and reconciliation with Him is made possible thru the cross of Jesus,  

… that Jesus is the Truth, the Way, and the Light

… let’s start a church!!!!!!!! 

ps. here is the link, may you ever wonder when and where we worship on Sunday www.doslovapraha.cz