July 2023: Personal Update

February

February started out with a visit from a missionary friend from Prague who recently left the field. We were able to host him and spend some time with him while he finished closing some loose ends on this side of the pond.

The following week, Natalie and I went to Český Těšín to attend the Czech wedding reception for my good friend, Nate. You may remember that a few years ago, Nate went to worship school at Hillsong in Australia. There he met a young Australian woman. They had the official ceremony in Australia, but had a Czech reception. It was a great time to see him again, since he will be making his life in Australia now, and bless them in their transition to this new phase of life and ministry.

Later in February, I went on a coaching weekend with Mark Krupa, a colleague from Josiah Venture who does personal coaching as part of his ministry to ministry leaders. We stayed at an Airbnb he runs in Bad Aussee, Austria, an area of the Austrian alps with several lakes. Mark worked with me to get reset and coach me through determining what this next phase of ministry was going to look like and what God was calling me to uniquely do. Mark has been a huge encouragement to me during my time with Josiah Venture and has been a big proponent of future ministry vehicles like gaming. He actually wrote a book about gaming and ministry and you can pick it up on Amazon.

March

As part of her job at the embassy, Natalie was sent to Athens for a training exercise. Since she did not get to go with my parents and I last spring, I tagged along so we could experience the city together. It was a crazy period in the country, though. There had been two train crashes recently one resulting in the death of several university students and several other citizens. There were major riots in the main square in front of parliament which was right outside of our building! Thankfully, we never felt in particular danger, but it was rather an exciting time to be visiting.

Literally within an hour of arriving home, my dad arrived in Prague for a elongated layover on his return from a missions conference in Malta. Due to the pandemic, it was the first time in 3 years that Natalie had physically seen anyone from my family. Crazy! We got to do some sightseeing including going to the Museum of Communism, a quite extensive museum chronicling the effect Communism had on the Czech Republic. We also had several meetings with ministry partners of mine in Prague.

April

After several years without an officially appointed ambassador, Bijan Sabet was appointed and arrived in Prague in late January. This has meant a huge uptick in work activity for Natalie as she is attending several events and meetings with the ambassador and his entourage as he makes his visits to the political ministers and other obligatory events. One such event was celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the release of the film Amadeus (1984). Amadeus won the academy award for best picture in 1985 and was predominantly filmed on location in Prague, still under Communist rule, by Czech director Milos Forman. The event was attended by many of the local cast and crew as well as visiting cast and crew such as Cynthia Nixon . The event was also attended by a delegation of congressmen and women visiting for meetings, including Arizona congresswoman Debbie Lesko whom we got to meet.

May

May was pretty busy for Natalie due to a lot of ceremonies that she has to attend as part of the embassy in honor of the end of World War 2. Almost every weekend she was gone, but she got to meet a lot of really cool people.

June

Natalie has been getting more and responsibility at the embassy and due to her economic portfolio she has been getting invited to more meetings with Czech businesses and political leaders

One of the big initiatives that Natalie has been working on has been discussions for the re-structuring and increase in the film tax incentive program for projects filming in the Czech Republic. This has put her in a lot of contact with the head of Prague Studios where Apple+ The Foundation series is being filmed. We have gotten to visit the set a few times and have an open communication with the heads of the studio which I hope to continue to foster myself as I get more involved in the local film industry.