Step by Step...the new church building starts to take shape

Remember the main hall of our new church building? (If not, click here and check out all the "before" photos!)
The new lights were put in and what a difference it makes! Danny and Annaliese Foote visiting from CC Kagarlyk, Ukraine get the tour during the installation of the lights.

Along with the new lights the Lord also provided chairs for the hall. That might seem like overspirit-ualizing to say "the Lord provided" but along with believing that "every good gift comes from above", when you hear that Jason just "stumbled upon" these chairs on close-out sale for just barely over $1 each...don't you agree that God really blessed us?!?


The chairs came in handy when we celebrated Cara's birthday at the church recently

Everyone on the team has been working at getting the building ready for services, but none more than Jason. Who knew they taught carpet laying at Bible School?

Petr also pitched in and helped assemble some of the furniture needed.

At the end of the day, they were tired, but this room was transformed and almost ready for Tomaš to move in! (Watch for that story in our next posting!)

Breaking bread together...Part Two

"Men at Work"

Ukrainians Vitaly, Sergei and Sasha man the grills.

(Click here to see the original post about this dinner that we had during the Ukrainian Drama Outreach.)

These Czech guys were all ears as Jason and Petr sat and chatted with them in Cara's kitchen.

The carried on their multi-lingual discussion into the "library".

Zarina and Aiya are becoming our new friends and they are a real blessing.

Sergei made good use of the "church guitar" and kept us in music.

Ukrainian Drama Outreach: More Photos

Here are just a few more shots of the street drama outreach with the team from CC Kyiv, Ukraine.









[Jason portraying Jesus being whipped.]




We had a great location - a square in between a metro entrance and the tram lines.





Lots of people stopped to watch, and almost became part of the skit themselves!

Even the police came by! Thankfully we had all our paperwork in order so everything was fine.

But more than just watching, many people took the Gospel tracts that we were handing out...

...and started to read them right there on the spot.

Quite a few of those folks were open to talking to us about God, the Bible and other spiritual things, too.

Jason and Milan talked to this family that we later ran into near our new church building...

It seems that we are neighbors! They live near the church and so we hope to see them when we start services soon.

Continue to pray that God would water the seeds that were planted this day through the skits, the tracts and the words that were spoken.

Our Loss is Spain's Gain

It has been raining here the last few days in Prague but we are sure the sun is shining in Spain. Maybe not according to the weather reports but rather because a bright shining light just flew from Prague to Spain.

Noelle Swedlow was with us here in Prague for

just a few months, but the impact she made on the laying of the foundation for Calvary Chapel Prague was significant and will always be appreciated. Even though we knew that when she came here should would be eventually returning to Spain, it was still hard to see her go. She will always be a part of our team.

Noelle was always ready to help, and not just to help, but with a smile and a cheerful attitude no matter what was required. Here she is putting together the sack lunches we give away to the homeless.

When she and Cara moved here to join the team neither had ever even met each other, but they quickly became fast friends. Cara credits Noelle with being one of the main tools that God used to really help her through the first few hard months of cultural transition, etc.

It was hard to find pictures of just Noelle because she was so often with someone...helping, encouraging, or just having fun....that is Noelle.

Here she is with Sharka celebrating each other's birthdays. She made friends with Sharka during the Easter outreach at the student dormitory.

This may not be the best photo of Noelle, but to those who know her it speaks volumes about who she is. Not only does it showing her doing one of the things she loves, but she is going for it, giving her all, wanting to win the prize, not worrying about whether she is recognized or not, and having fun in the process! We love you Noelle and know God has you in the palm of His hand. You are welcome back to Prague anytime!

Summer Outreach Prayer Request

They say that " a picture is worth a thousand words" and this summer we have an opportunity to "speak" millions of words about God's love to the people of Prague! We have an opportunity to do some outdoor evangelism utilizing some of the dynamic creative visual ministries from Calvary Chapel Kyiv, Ukraine.

Their drama team and a young man who does something really unique that could best be called "Paint-ing Evangelism" are available to come to Prague and we would like to ask you to be praying with us about this. Ukrainians need visas to enter the Czech Republic and for a group this size to come that distance there are a lot of practical needs that need to be met as well. Please pray that God would give us wisdom and open all the necessary doors if this is indeed something that God desires would take place this summer with us in Prague.

Prague in bloom...

Prague's beauty is not only in it's unique and historic architecture, but also in its many parks and flowering gardens.

It's basically already summer here with hot days and thunder showers at night, but this was the look of spring not long ago when some of the gals from the fellowship enjoyed a walk in the gardens at Petrin Park.

"...See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you...?"

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 28 -30

Resurrection Sunday Remembered...

Easter Sunday is long past but it will always be remembered as the first sunrise service for Calvary Chapel Prague.

While most of the city was just waking up, we prayed that Prague would also be awakened spiritually.


It is our prayer that the Czech people would have their eyes opened to God's love and grace and the reason why we celebrate Easter - the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ that wipes away our burden of sin!


Jon, Jason, Cara and Holly (from the Bible College team) made the trek up one of the hills overlooking Prague and were rewarded with an especially amazing view of this already amazingly beautiful city.

As promised, this is the first post about the Easter weekend outreach we had with the team from the bible college in Vajta, Hungary. We have been having a little technical difficulties getting this posting up on our spot, so thanks for your patience, and look forward to more relfections here on the great time that we had with the team!

A Heart for Prague's Youth

Yesterday Prague's Old Town Square was invaded by thousands of high school students. They marched from throughout the city and converged below the famous tower in Prague's historic center, before ending up in front of the Ministry of Education office. Despite the many tourists, the students made their prescence known with banners, horns, whistles, drums and shouts of "No State Exam"!

In talking to the students they explained that they were protesting a new proficiency exam required for graduation. They cited two main reasons: 1) they claimed the test was inaccurate and actually had errors 2) they were not forewarned that they would need to pass this exam in order to graduate when they started the year and so they feel that they are not prepared. Much of the material in the exam, they claim, is not covered in every school (they have an interesting system of "grammar" or standard high schools, technical schools, etc. so not every student has a "grammar" or standard education including Czech language, history, etc. that this exam is said to cover).

It was obvious that many students were there just for the good excuse to ditch school But others were very sincere in their belief that the test was wrong and they had to stand up for what they felt was right.

It's interesting that this all happened on the day that Jason had already planned for us to go out in the city for evangelism. The plan was loose; meet, pray, trust God that when we would step out that He would meet us and open the opportunities to share His love with folks. We were not disappointed.

OPEN DOORS
We split up into two groups and it was great to see how God specifically engineered exactly who each group would talk to.

Cara and her friend Denise (visiting from Applegate Fellowship in OR) ended up talking to 3 Czech students (from Moravia) and 2 Finnish students, part of a special student cooperative for top technical students. All considered themselves atheists, citing hypocrisy in Christians as one of their main reasons. This was a sharp group of students and the discussion was challenging, and fast-paced, but respectful and enjoyable.The end result was two students (a Finnish girl and a Czech boy, the most active in the conversation, and the most ardent atheist!) accepted our challenge to read the Gospel of John and ask God to reveal himself. Pray for them!

Jason, Noelle and Denise's daughter Lauren met up with a group of students that started out as only 4 but grew to 15!

Using the fact that many Czech speak English, Jason asked them to translate the Gospel tract that we were handing out. This opened the door to share the Word, Noelle gave her testimony, questions of faith were discussed as well as the all-important question of the correct way to roast marshmallows! (Noelle finally ending up buying some and demonstrating with a lighter! Plans for a marshmellow roast are in the works!)

They were really excited when they found out Jason plays for the Prague Lions and agreed to come watch one of his football games and we agreed to come to a dance recital that they would be having soon. These students were younger than the other group and are all local Prague kids. God is opening doors!

Please pray for God to lead concerning further contact with these kids and to water the seeds planted in all the hearts that day.

**We will be going out to do evangelism every Friday. Please keep us in prayer!

"To the waiting soul, God will guide His waiting servant".
~ Mrs. Howard Taylor
(daughter-in-law of famed missionary to China - Hudson Taylor).

Tea for Two...or Eight?

What goes together better than girls, pretty things, and great conversation? Well, tea and coffee, and sweets, of course! :)
Recently we had all of those in abundance when the "ladies" in our fellowship here got together for a "tea". There were dainty little sandwiches (without the crusts, of course!), scones and fresh strawberries with cream and of course - strawberry jam. (Our hostess' told us that was the only proper jam for high tea!)

Roommates Laura, Chrissy, and Elizabeth were our wonderful hostesses that provided their home and culinary talents us.



(Below, seated from left to right around the table) Rebecca, Dianna, Laura, Elizabeth, Chrissy, Noelle and Claire...Cara is taking the picture. :)


Some of the girls brought special teas or coffees that were significant to them and as
we sipped they told us of time they had spent in India, or Costa Rica, or Ukraine or even Montana! We are quite an international group. :)

Best of all, though was the time of sweet fellowship and sharing of our hearts. We looked into God's Word and what He has to say about who we are in Him and how much he treasures us. It was a special evening of sweetness and beauty, but not only that of the treats and flowers, but of the special treasures in each girl's heart that has been put there by our Father. Please keep us in prayer that we would nurture those seeds of loveliness and see God bring about His fruit in due season in all of our lives.

Our First Blog

Ok...so here it is, our first post on our first blog.

Here is where we - the team here at Calvary Chapel Prague - will keep you, our friends and family, updated on our latests news, prayer requests and praise reports.

You can reach us at ThePragueTeam@gmail.com

Watch for more news and info soon!