It’s been another long day!
We started out in Liboc today, spending most of the day working on the halfway house. It is really coming along. We cleared out a ditch and brought the ground up level to the house. There’s been a few injuries, but nothing major.
After cleaning up from our work on the house, we went to the church in Sokolov for a Bible study. It was definitely interesting. They stand when they pray and remained fairly expressionless during the worship songs their band played. But the service was very enjoyable and we heard a testimony from one of the former residents of the halfway house.
The people here are doing some awesome work with the former prisoners. The man who gave his testimony was a former drug addict living on the streets. Through the ministry here, he came to know Christ as his Lord and Savior, got a job teaching other former prisoners at the halfway house work skills, and is now married to the pastor’s daughter. God does life-changing things in people’s lives through willing vessels.
After the testimonies and songs from both bands, I preached while Dr. Solc interpreted into Czech. It was definitely an odd experience working with a translator. Last night, I shared the Gospel with a man and his son; what normally would have been a 20 minute conversation was over an hour long. They were seekers who know that there is something about this Christianity thing because they see the difference in the lives of the Christians here. Unfortunately, the Christians here are looked down upon and ridiculed openly, which instills many with fear of giving their life to Christ.
Anyway, preaching through an interpreter does have an advantage. Since our interpreter is also a teacher at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, he could correct any mistakes I made without the Czech’s knowing about it.
At the end of the Bible study (about 1 ½ hours), we stayed around and talked to the people who had come. The youth managed to get several of the kids back to the church, even knowing that it was a Bible study, which is rare. As we were loading up to leave, we noticed 4 youth were missing. Immediately we began looking. Of course it was our FBI agent that found them. It was a great moment when we found out they were witnessing to the kids from the school. They gave them Bibles and invited them to church after telling them about salvation. These kids never cease to amaze me!
Well time to round up kids for bed!
