God-incidences, Churches, Fog & Masks!
Dennis arrived back in England on 16 November as planned; chiefly through getting the right plane. That's more than can be said for the train to Dnipropetrovs'k... Dennis thanks everyone for their prayers, and God for his faithfulness. Read on for his 'tales' of God-incidences, Churches, Fog and Masks!
The time of fellowship and teaching in the Czech Republic and Ukraine went extremely well.
1. God-incidences.
I believe it was Archbishop Temple who, when informed that Christian experience and answered prayer is a matter of co-incidence said, ‘Yes, it could be true it’s all co-incidence. It’s just that it seems that Christians have a lot more co-incidences than non-believers!’
This last trip has been part of a remarkable series of what I would call ‘God-incidences’:
- As I stood on the transit bus at Birmingham airport I glanced at the guy in front of me. Brian Sedgwick! Brian has been a schools’ worker and youth leader trainer in Prague for many years and we have often worked together. It had been a couple of years since we had been in touch. It was such fun casually muttering ‘Morning Brian!’ into his ear! We had a great time to fellowship, catch up and wonder about when and why God would put us together next.
- The next day, Aranka from Prague took me and her two lads to pick up her husband Martin in Pardubice. He had a morning’s office visiting there. We were then travelling on to Ostrava on the Eastern edge of the nation, where they were going to a family wedding and I to minister nearby over the weekend. So we stopped in Pardubice for lunch. In the restaurant my phone rang: ‘So it is true; you are in Pardubice and haven’t visited us!’ It was our good friend David Halbrstat, an elder with Jakub in the Christian Fellowship in Hradec Kralove. His wife, Jana, had been on a bus and saw me on our five minute walk to the restaurant! More than that, it was David’s office that Martin had been working in, but of course did not know him.
- I had been told I would stay overnight in Ostrava with some family friends, but it turned out that they are the parents of Jakub Guttner from the Prague Central congregation. Jakub and I have often worked together and are good friends. Obviously I had a great time with his parents.
Sometimes I feel a bit like a train on a track. God is the signalman, deciding where I am going and whom I shall meet!
2. The Church in Havirov
I knew about the Apostolic Church in Havirov. (Pronounced Havirzshov – good try!!) It is something of a flagship for the denomination. I was thrilled, more than a year ago to be invited to preach there. It was no disappointment. From the moment I was picked up in Ostrava I realised that these were people with a passion to serve God and see his kingdom flourish. I stayed with a family who have worked for local mission in evangelism. David is with ‘3.16’, which aims to bring the gospel to young Czechs in a contemporary and relevant way. Jindrisska (you’ll never pronounce that – but it means Henrietta!) works at a local Christian Conference Mission centre.
I had been invited to a Saturday afternoon leader’s meeting as well as the Sunday service. I was told to expect up to a dozen. In the event nearly thirty were there and we had a great time encouraging each other in the love and service of Jesus. On the spot four of them signed up for ‘Potencial’ – more of that later. When I had been invited to speak there more than a year earlier, the Lord said, ‘What is that in your hand?’ from Exodus 4v2. My message on the Sunday was, ‘God has already done much with you, but he is going to use and multiply what he has put in your hands’. There were about 180 present, one of the biggest churches in the nation. Once more, we had a great time in the Lord’s presence.
Before I left I was able to meet the workers in their mission ‘Nehemiah’. It has some significant impact, especially with children in several third world countries.
What a great start to the trip!
3. Fog and Masks
The next few hours were not so smooth. The train into Poland and bus up to the airport at Katowice was fine (I was travelling on to Kiev, no point in going back to Prague).
The flight was due to leave at eight something pm. I noticed how many other flights were delayed and a couple diverted. Then I went for a stroll around the car park. Yuk! Fog. We were told 'Sorry, your flight will leave at 7.15 tomorrow’. So it was a steel bench all night. Happily the airport building was really warm (I don’t know why public buildings are kept at such a wasteful temperature – you could grow bananas at Prague main station!). In the event we left at 9.30am and I was met by a nice Ukrainian Christian taxi driver who took me to a church flat prepared for my occupancy. And I went to bed.
I had heard that swine flu was an epidemic in Ukraine. Czech television was gleefully reporting it every hour. All public officials and many more people were wearing masks. Praise God, neither I nor any member of our team got anything of the kind!
Still not exactly ‘shipwrecked three times, often in prison...
Dennis, 20 Nov 2009