Saturday, December 19, 2015

Christmas Party 2015



Last Saturday we hosted our annual Christmas party. We invited about 50 friends and most of them showed up at one time or another during the afternoon or evening. There was a good mixture of friends from our church and those whom we know through other connections. 

The Holy Spirit allowed us to create a warm, loving atmosphere. We think many of our non-church friends come just to experience that warmth. Please pray with us for genuine fruit from this time we had with them.

Here are a few pictures from the party. (We don't know who let those one-eyed guys in.)








Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Planting Churches

Annette and I spent several very rewarding days in Prague last week at a church planting conference sponsored by Acts 29. We truly enjoyed the speakers and their enthusiasm. I think out favorite part of the conference were the people we met. There were pastors and missionaries from many European countries, all working to establish little outposts of heaven in their cities and towns. It was like finding beautiful, delicate plants growing in rock-hard soil.  











Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Dance Festival



One of the benefits of living in the Czech Republic is that we are often surprised and delighted by the free cultural events that take place in our little city. Last week Zlín hosted an international dance festival which included dance troupes from as far away as China, but was heavily tilted toward performances from the central European region. 

Many of the dancers sang as they performed, and were accompanied by traditional instruments. One of our favorite regional instruments is the cimbál, a large, concert version of the hammered dulcimer (see the nearby picture of the seated man playing this lovely and ancient instrument). We were also surprised to see that one of the dance routines looked very much like an ancestor of the American square dance.


We were unable to create a video of these dances, so here are a couple of You Tube performances that are very representative of what we saw. Traditional Moravian music with cimbál:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrZN7phBZc . Traditional Bohemian dancing/singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTg-UqrH62I .