EOY 2022 - Ministry Update

Ez Az A Nap Event, Budapest, Hungary

At the end of July, I went to Budapest to join one of Scottsdale Bible Church’s missionary families, the Gyori’s, in their work on a huge worship and outreach event called Ez Az A Nap (This is the day). This event originally was supposed to be held in 2020 in coincidence with the opening of the new soccer stadium, but the pandemic obviously disrupted it. You can see my wrap up video for Scottsdale Bible Church here.

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‍EXIT Tour, Třebíč

Since I left the EXIT Tour school prevention program team, the program has changed a lot, especially since the start of the pandemic. Due to my experience, I usually get asked to come lead English classes at the program at least once a semester. This semester, I did this in a town called Třebíč. Although small, the town is quite charming. We were working with the church of one of our national missionaries Jiří. Jiří was really hoping it would help light an evangelistic fire under his youth group and push them to apply what he has been trying to disciple them in at youth group. I had several good spiritual conversations with students that came to our after school activities at the church. But the real value it sounds like came to the youth group. At our debrief dinner for the week, Jiří said he saw a marked difference in the tenor of his students attitudes towards evangelism and was very impressed with how they engaged the students in the programs throughout the week.

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‍Helping a Local Pastor

I have been working with a local pastor in Prague named David on some promotional video materials for his church plant, Pochodeň Praha (Torch Prague), in a section of Prague that does not have a church presence called Řepy (Beets, like the vegetable). I am finishing a promo video for local outreach, but I also finished a video to help him gaining church partners and support from stateside churches. He said he loved the video and that it really helped in getting interest during his recent trip to the states. Keep David, his family, and his church team in your prayers as they reach this unreached area of the city.

EDGE Tournament, Pardubice

One of the ministries that Czech is still getting up off the ground is the EDGE sports ministry. Each country offers different sports and Czech currently offers Ultimate Frisbee. The goal of this program is to evangelize and disciple students through athletic competition. In October, they had one of their bi-monthly tournaments and I went to photograph the festivities.

Film Connection in the local school

Back in September, I randomly ran into a Czech Christian friend of mine. She teaches at a public school and specifically has been working with some students that are pursuing a career in media. She was excited to have me come to her class to discuss film and my career in the film industry. I have been wanting to connect more with the larger community of independent and student filmmakers in Prague and hope this connection will lead to more connection with this community in the following year.

Work of the Holy Spirit

One of my missionary friends here, Matt, has been long involved in a ministry called Dunamis [Greek for power as used in Acts 1:8] which is focused on helping people understand the work and role of the Holy Spirit in their lives and learn to cooperate with Him. The last few years they have moved their annual youth conference online. This year they needed technical help running the conference on Zoom and they asked me to assist. We had students from three continents and many stories from the attendees about how they grew in understanding and cooperation with the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Former Disciple

Some of you may remember a few years ago, I was meeting with a student named Natanael. Natanael and his family went to the youth group I was a part of and asked me to meet with him so he could work on his English. Natanael had a dream of going to Hillsong Worship school in Australia (he is a drummer). We kept meeting even virtually while he was going to Iceland to work on fishing boats to earn the money to go. His English got better and better and he was accepted and for the past several years has been in Australia at school. He recently graduated and visited the Czech again with his fiancee, a young woman he met at worship school named Amy. Natalie and I got to take them both to dinner while they were in Prague and it was so encouraging to see God working so powerfully in the life of a student I got the privilege of working with here.