CC Prague's First Sunday Service!

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" Psalm 133:1

...and it was sweet as our small group gathered together for our first Sunday morning service!

In some ways it was no different than what Jason and Tomaš have faithfully been doing for almost a year now...teach-ing the Word verse by verse with translation into Czech. The only difference was the location! Instead of in Jason's apt., now we have this great building!

But what is a church, really? Not the building, but the people, of course, and we were blessed with help from some wonderful people from Roudnice this first Sunday.

Franta and Alysia came and shared their talent in music and worship.

Alysia's husband Zdenek and their two daughters joined us, too.

After service it was a good time for folks to hang out with some coffee and snacks and just get to know each other better.

And so although the church is the people, we are blessed to have this great building that has not just a place for the serivce to meet, but also room enough for people to hang around afterwards and fellowship. We are blessed!

We have a lot of room to grow in this location and we pray, and believe that God will fill it in His timing and His way! Thank you so much for your prayers! Please continue to pray for us here in Prague

CC Prague's First Sunday Service!

This Sunday at *2:00 pm

CC Prague will have our first Sunday service!

*(Prague time - 9 hrs. ahead of US West Coast Time)

If you are here in Prague, we invite you to join us!

WHEN: September 9th at 14:00
WHERE: Starokošířská 695/3, Praha 5 Košíře (Tram stop UzVonu, two stops past Andel)
HOW: Look for the Calvary Chapel Praha sign on the building just down the steps from the tram stop. There will be someone there to greet you, (but if you’re late ring the buzzer marked Calvary Chapel and someone will buzz you in.)

For everyone (regardless of where you live!), can we ask you to join us in prayer for this?

• Please pray that God would lead this service and fill it with His Holy Spirit
• Pray that God would draw to the service the people that He has called.
• Praise the Lord for the worship team from Roudnice that will come help us out on this first Sunday and for Tomaš who will be translating. Pray that God would fill them with His spirit and strengthen them to be used by Him.
• Continue to pray for a worship leader and for additional translators.
  

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.

Breaking bread together...

There's nothing that draws people together more than sharing food. Jesus understood that and that's why we so often see him in the New Testament sharing a meal with people.

Jason has the gift for inviting people to dinner and thankfully Cara has the gift for cooking so half-way through the week of evangelism with the CC Kyiv drama team we had a dinner at Cara's with some of the people that we had met during our street evangelism.

Sergei (remember him from a previous post?) came and brought his friend Vitaly (also from Ukraine). The drama team had planned a traditional Ukrainian meal complete with "shashlik" (Ukrainian shish kebobs) and "Olivia" salad (a kind of Ukrainian potato salad). So naturally, as any good Ukrainian men would do, Sergei and Vitaly volunteered to man the grills.

Along with Sergei and Vitaly, five young Czech guys surprised us by responding to our invitation to join us for dinner. Three were brothers, and all were from areas just outside of Prague.

We have been repeatedly told that Czechs are very closed to the Gospel and that it takes a long time for them to feel comfortable coming to someone's home, etc. so we really felt blessed that God drew these guys to this evening of fellowship!

Along with all these guys, Zarina and her sister Aiya - from Kazikstan - came, too. Cara had met these two at the Russian language church here in Prague the week before. The girls are new Christians, having only a month before given their lives to Jesus! They are hungry for fellowship and although our group was an interesting mix for them, they enjoyed themselves.

Added into this inter-national mix were Cara's roommates Elizabeth and Ruthann, the drama team from Kyiv, Petr (our friend and a student from Slovakia), Jason, and Young (our friend from Korea)!

When Jason shared with everyone what we are about as Christians, gave an open invitation to the weekly Bible study and prayed for the meal - Zarina helped translate. But since she speaks Russian but not English, Cara translated into Russian from Jason's English, and then Zarina translated from Cara's Russian into Czech! It was an interesting, but great evening!

Please pray that God will continue to draw all these hearts to Himself.

Ukrainian Drama Outreach: Part 2

"How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace. Who bring glad tidings of good things!"

Romans 10:14-15 NKJV

[This guy stood watching the skits for awhile and then later stood for some time reading the Bible we had given him.]

We were so blessed during this outreach because all total there were five different fellowships that sent individuals to help us out. From CC Roudnice Pastor Milan came and used his gift for evangelism to speak to the crowds that gathered to see the skits. (Milan's son was there making sure Dad stayed on track!)

Petr and Hunza came from a fellowship outside of Prague to help translate, along with Igor who joined us from the Russian language fellowship here in the city.

In fact, we have been told that there are appr. 130, 000 Russian speaking people living in the city of Prague. 100,000 alone are from Ukraine.

Here Yanna, the leader of the drama team translates as Jason talks with Sergei, a Ukrainian now living and working in Prague. Pray that God would continue to speak to Sergei's heart!

Finally, there was the drama team themselves, a gift sent on loan from CC Kyiv, Ukraine. We are so thankful for not only those who came and served with us, but also those who stepped out in faith and sent them. Please pray that God will strengthen the team as they return to Ukraine after a draining week here and the long bus ride home.

Pray that God would bless the different fellowships that sent folks to help out, and that God would continue to build unity among the Body of Christ here in Prague. Also pray for the many Russian language speakers here in Prague and for what our part might be in ministering to them.