Greg in Czech

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This car was parked out in front of my building this morning.  No comment necessary...

Kids Getting Married

This last Saturday morning two students in my youth group got married.  I met Lukáš at English camp in 2003 when he was 16.  He had become a believer the summer before at camp.  That summer we made a habit of praying together each day.  The next summer at camp we did the same.  Tereza came to Christ a few years ago also.  I've posted pictures of the wedding in an album on the right if you'd like to look at them.

This has been happening for a while now...former students from my various youth groups getting married.  I love celebrating this life change with these "kids" of mine, but it always makes me reflect a bit on my singleness.  This winter while I was home I had a couple pastor friends of mine ask me about being older and single for illustrations in their sermons.  One interviewed me in front of the congregation.  I had to clarify to the church that this was not an advertisement. This forced me to gather my thoughts on the subject a bit more.  The Bible has a few things to say about the blessing of finding a good wife.  I could quote them all.  But, it also talks about contentment in all circumstances and the freedom for service to God in singleness (I can't quote that part as easily).  The last 16+ years of my life have been spent figuring out the balance between desiring marriage and knowing and serving God fully in my singleness.  I don't think I'm called to celibacy and anything monkish like that.  But I am called to offer my whole self in all it's singleness to the Lord.  I do want to be married someday, but my goal in life is not to get married, but to know Jesus.

I don't mind when people ask me why I'm still single at 33.  I think it's fun when ladies in the church try and hook me up with their friend's daughter because she's a missionary in the jungle somewhere...and single.  I get a kick out of it when my dad tells me I should go after a girl because she's "signed the contract" (that's his term for becoming a Christian).  For now I will enjoy being as much of a godly, passionate, single man as possible.

Place and Significance

I got back from Israel a couple of days ago.  How do I put my thoughts on that place in writing? One of the themes that surfaced several times for me was the idea of place and significance.  It seems that every significant place in Israel is memorialized by some sort of mosque, synagogue, or church. The Italian dictator Mussolini built this church in honor of the traditional place where Christ preached the sermon on the mount.  On the temple mount the golden dome on the rock honors the place where it's believed that Mohamed ascended into heaven. There are two sites where Jesus' tomb is believed to be.  One has a huge church and the other has a garden.  What started this train of thought was watching orthodox Jews praying by the western wall of the temple mount.  This is one of the most holy places in Judaism.  So many religions, including Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, have holy places.  Jesus challenged this by saying the Kingdom of God is near, not referring to a physical location, but a place inside a person.  1st Peter 2 talks about how believers are being built into God's house.  The Holy Spirit, who indwelled the temple in the Old Testament, now indwells believers as the new temple.  Because of Christ's work on the Cross I now have access to the Holiest of places, God's presence, no matter where I am.  What is the significance of Christ's tomb?  He isn't there.  He is in risen from the dead and His Holy Spirit lives in me.

For the past two weeks I was at the Global Youth Initiative conference in Israel.  GYI is a cooperation of youth ministries from all over the globe with a common vision for a movement of God among the youth of the globe.  We gathered as 250 youth workers from 56 different countries in Jerusalem to study the life of Christ together.  In the two photo albums on the right are a whole bunch of stories and pictures of our time together.

Israel

Just a quick note to update you on Israel.  I've here in Jerusalem with 200 youth workers from
56 different countries.  It has been an incredible time studying the life of Christ together in the place where He lived and ministered.  Yesterday we were on the temple mount which is under Muslim control right now.  If you have ever seen a picture of Jerusalem you will recognize the big golden dome that dominates the skyline.  This is the dome on the rock, a Muslim shrine memorializing the place where Mohamed ascended into heaven.  This also happens to be where the Jewish temple used to be.  As I was walking around the temple mount I was awestruck by the fact that this is where the glory of the Lord filled the temple that Solomon built.  I stood on the steps where Jesus was presented by Joseph and Mary when he was 8 days old.  this is where he overturned the tables of the money changers.  I was filled with a mix of emotions.  My instinctual was that this is where the temple should be, not a Muslim shrine.  I was jealous for God's temple.  But then I remembered that each time the temple was destroyed, both in the Assyrian conquest and in fulfillment of Jesus prediction in 70 A.D. it was God's doing.  God is bigger than my desire for Him to be honored.  Ufdah!  I have a lot of thoughts and feelings going on inside of me now.  I'll right more later.  I have to get to our next session now.

Rubbish

Greetings from Grand Rapids, MN.  I fly home to the Czech Republic in 1 1/2 days.  It's been weird being here for the past 2 1/2 months. Good, but weird.  This is the first time I've come to the US for only a visit.  Now I go back home to a foreign land.  I'm looking forward to getting back to where ministry and life are, but have been regretting the goodbyes.  Lately, I've felt that my life is one big goodbye.  I long for permanence, but I won't find it on either side of the ocean.  My home is with my Lord, Jesus.  As much as that sounds like a Sunday school answer, it is absolutely true.

Even with my unfulfilled longing for permanence, I hesitate to complain.  I was sharing about God's call on my life and my wrestling with Him at Rosemount UMC's Jr High group this week.  God has given me a pretty cool life.  A few weeks ago I was hauling block and bending re-bar in Jamaica (and lying on the beach).  This week I was snow-shoeing across a lake in Northern Minnesota.  In 3 weeks I'll be photographing a global youth ministry conference in Israel.  And my home is in the Czech Republic.  Yet, as Paul said in Philippians 3:7-10, I consider all this crap (The NIV says 'rubbish', but the Greek actually says 'crap') that I may know Christ.  I will gladly say all the goodbyes that I have said in the last few weeks if that means knowing Christ more.  I will leave all this traveling behind if that means walking closer with Jesus.  Nothing is better than walking humbly with my God.

Some prayer requests as I go back to Czech this week:

• School: I am trying to finish my Master's degree via distance education by June.  Suddenly I am remembering what it was like to be a high schooler who hates homework.
• Israel: I am photographing a youth ministry conference in Jerusalem March 5th - 17th.  I'll write more about it later.
• Summer Ministry: Right when I get back I begin youth group visits and planning in preaparation for the summer ministry.  Pray for my team of interns (they are completing applications for the internship right now), Pray for the CZ churches who will host the camps and the US churches who will travel to Czech.
• Language: An ever-present request, pray for my sanity as I plunge back in to the humble process of learning to function and thrive in my second language.

Jamaica Update

Hello from Jamaica again.  I've added a bunch of pictures in an album on the right hand side of this web page.  We've been able to complete a lot so far as we are nearing the end of our trip. We've completed two walls and gotten 2/3 of the way done with the other 2 of the second level of the Ebenezer basic school in the city of Bamboo.  Yesterday we visited 6 different schools delivering school supplies and seeing the work of many other Minnesota Methodist work projects.  What a blessing the Methodist church in Minnesota has brought to this country.  We have two more work days ahead of us.  Continue to pray for us.

Hello From Jamaica

We've been in St Anne's Bay for 3 days now and have been able to do quite a bit.  We have been working in the town of Bamboo at Ebenezer Methodist Church and Basic School putting second floor onto the school.  When we arrived for our first day of work on Wednesday there were only supplies and nothing built.  We finished work today with three walls nearly built and all of the re-bar structures put together.  Of course school is going on below us, so during recess time some of us have difficulty resisting playing with the kids.  I instinctively whipped out my camera and as soon as the kids realized that they could see their pictures on the camera's display, they immediately wanted their picture taken.  "I want to hahv ma peekchah tayken!"  I love little kids with a Jamaican accent!  Please continue to pray for us.  I was in the hospital today getting a metal fragment taken out of my eye.  Don't worry, I'm okay.  God has blessed us with no other injuries.  We have a day off tomorrow and then on Sunday we are splitting up to go to 3 different churches.  Rev. Benguchi, who pastors 5 churches (his wife pastors 6) is having 3 of us preach at different churches.  I get to preach at Hoolebury Methodist.  I've posted an album on the top right.  Click on it to see a bunch of pictures of what's been happening the past few days.

Familiar, Yet Strange...

I've been in the US for a little over a month now.  Everybody always says that reverse culture shock is bad but I don't think I've experienced it to bad.  I loved being with my family for Christmas in the north woods of MN.  I've eaten my fill of pancakes and waffles with real maple syrup. I have really enjoyed just being an American again.  Things are different, though.  Everything is familiar, but it isn't.  It's home, but it's not.   One thing that really stuck out to me this week was the odd loneliness that I feel.  My interns from this summer all got together (Minus David and Justin who are in CZ) for a reunion in MN.  It was so cool to be together with them again.  You really get close to people when you experience something as intense as our summer ministry together.  This is Phil, one of my interns, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  After I dropped Aubree and Melissa off at the airport I felt this weird loneliness.  I wrote in an email to them later that day that as a foreign missionary I am constantly lonely for someone.  When I'm here it's for people in Czech.  When in Czech it's for my family and friends in the US.  

My family changed while I was gone...for the better.  This is the 6 1/2 of us together (the dog is the 1/2) for the first time.  My brother got married in October to Jen Oknich (sorry Jen if I misspelled your name).  I had no idea how weird it would be to have a sister-in-law.  At first there was this feeling of invasion.  What's this new girl doing here?!  Then after a little while it got fun.  I think I'm going to enjoy having a bigger family now.  Welcome to the family, Jen.

Well, these are just some random thoughts on being a visitor to America rather than a resident.  Below are some things I'd love you to pray for.  I leave you with
Gracie...aka Mad Dog.

Pray For Greg:

• Support: I still need to raise another $3,000 in onetime gifts and $650/month in regular gifts. Thank you so much to those of you who are continuing and increasing your support.
  
• Jamaica: Jan 15-28 I will be going with RUMC on a mission trip to build classrooms in Jamaica.
• School: This winter and spring I'm finishing up my final 3 classes at Bethel Seminary to complete my masters.
• Summer 2008: My team and I are gearing up for another summer of English camps and intern teams. 

Uncle Greg

"...no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive  many times as much in the age and, in the age to come, eternal life." -Luke 18:29-30
This is me with my honorary nieces, Megan and Kayla Student.  They are the daughters of two of my best friends in the world, Kurt and Michelle Student.  I have been getting together with them and our other really good friend Russ Walker every Monday night for the past 12 years or so.  I've had to take a 2-year leave-of-absence from Monday nights, because I now live on the other side of the Atlantic.  The last time I saw these girls Kayla was barely talking and Megan hadn't been born yet.  This has been one of the hardest things for me.  Giving up involvement in the lives of my family and friends on this side of the ocean.  Being back in the US for 2 weeks so far has really made the above verse come alive for me. I've missed the last two years of my friends' and family's lives.  But God has blessed me with so much more.  At right is Natan Zvonař with his dad, David.  To Natan I am "Streda Greg."  (That's Czech for Uncle Greg)  David and his wife Desneige have become precious friends over the last couple of years.  This next picture is of my friends the Pitchers.  They have become my adopted missionary family.  I bring them French wine and take their family portrait and they invite me to their dinner table.  Since I left for college when I was 21 I haven't lived in one place for more than 2 1/2 years.  That's almost 13 years of moving around, meeting new people and saying goodbye, and being involved in people's lives from a distance. At risk of sounding overly spiritually cheesy, my transience has made me understand more fully that my home is in Heaven and not on Earth.  But, even with my transience God knows my heart's desire for relational connectedness, a family.  He has so provided for my needs. On the right is me fighting with my roommate Nate over Christmas presents last Christmas.  Nate and our other roommate Brad have become unlikely, but indespensible friends.  While back in the US many people have told me that they admire me for the sacrifice that I have made in leaving my Minnesotan world behind to follow God's call.  It has been hard, but there is no other life I want.  I have been given so much.  A few years ago God gave me the choice of a normal life in America close to family and friends or to follow Him across the ocean.  I chose, by far, the better life.  As Peter told Jesus after many disciples deserted him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

It's Everywhere You Want To Be

Last September my roommates, Brad and Nate, and Lucka (our fearless visa consultant) went to the foreign police dept to renew our visas.  We already had our initial 6-month visas, so we figured this was just a routine visit since we were already in the system. Ignorance is bliss only until it is discovered as ignorance. Little did we understand the journey that lay before us. What followed was an unending series of visits to our ever more familiar and friendly foreign police friends where we continually learned that we were yet again one form short of the end goal of a completed visa application. Two weeks ago, Brad, Lucka and I (Nate was in the US) made what we thought was our second-to-last visit with our last form. He he he (sinister and cynical tone). I soon learned that my birth date was incorrect on the form and it had to be redone, retranslated, and shipped from the US.  The plot thickens.  I was set to leave for the US for a couple months and wouldn't be around to pick it up if it wasn't ready in time.  That meant no visa.  Two months of meaningless, needless, fruitless visits to the foreign police.  Well, thanks to the courage of our State-side "everything-we-need her-to-be" Home Office Hero, Theresa Kerns I was able to turn in my final corrected form.  As I sat with Lucka in the foreign police office listening to her speak with the "gate-keeper" I heard the word  "Chyba." My heart sank, for that is the Czech word for "mistake". 20 seconds later I picked out the phrase "We'll just say it's correct." ...and the angels sang... This morning, 3 days before I head back to the US, I picked up my visa.  I'm legal!  God is sovereign even over visa processes.