The Crucifix on the Catholic Church; some buildings near the church.


A building across from the church; Brno city square


City square; I not sure how much the building weighs, but it looks like these guys can handle it.


Notice the middle spire. Story below. And yes it is an alligator, but the legend goes that it is really the Brno DRAGON. Story below.


The class

Every Wednesday I've been calling my small group back home. For us here it's been either 1:30 or 12:30 in the afternoon when I make the call. For the guys back home it's 6:30 in the morning. i have the class usually say "Good morning" in their language. when I was in Moldova, we had so many different language groups represented that it really was an international "Good Morning" We counted it up after and Good Morning was said in about 12 different languages. Today it was all one language but they all said it together. It was pretty loud too. It was fun to say good morning, even though it was 12:30 in the afternoon.

Here are some pictures of Brno I took last night. It's a nice little city.
The bent spire.
Seems like the city hired this contractor to build this building. they told him that they would pay a certain sum of money. When the time came to pay him, they gave him less, so he made the middle spire tilt, so that everytime someone would look at the building they would remember his story.
The Brno DRAGON:
Someone brought an allegator to the city and was going to show it around, but he died before he can tell people what it was, so they thought it was a dragon.

TUESDAY

The entrance to the church where the class is; Rola, Pavel and me having a discussion. Rola is 70 years old and he is thinking about taking more classes with TCMI.


This is my pigs heart and dumplings; the class at lunch.
The pigs heart was very tasty.

Well, it was another day of class and another day of wonderful discussions and learning for all of us. Here in the Czech Republic they have several different words that they use for worship. One to explain the corporate worship service on Sunday and another to use for different worship services that they might have throughout the week. I haven't decided if that is a good idea or not a good idea. on the one hand having different words does help keep the conversation focused. you know exactly what worship service the person is talking about. but on the other hand it does make it sound like the Sunday worship service is way more important than any other worship that might happened during the week. I really don't like that thinking. Worship is worship. it's to God. How could one worship service be more important to God then any other? Maybe we have made that distinction, but I don't think God has. If it comes from our heart then it is pleasing to the Lord. Interesting though.


It's getting just a bit harder for me in class now. I been on the road for 4 out of the last 5 weeks, and it's starting to take it's toll on me. I have to remember that these students need to hear ALL of what i have prepared and not skip anything just because I'm feeling a little tired. Of course it doesn't help that tonight I'm going out with Pavel. He's going to take me around to see Brno. I am looking forward to it though. It should be an interesting evening.
John

CZECH REPUBLIC

Julia and Anna; The stained glass cross in front of the sanctuary here.


The sanctuary; Signs throughout the church building


A room dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr.

I arrived by train Sunday afternoon and Pavel was waiting for me. He came to the church here in Brno three years ago. We took the tram to the Pension. Brno is a very nice clean city. The pension is very nice. One word, air-conditioning! After I got settled in he picked me up and we walked to the church where dinner was waiting for us and a couple of students who arrived a day early. The pension is only a two block walk to the church. I can either walk on the sidewalk or choose to walk through a park. The walk through the park is very nice and quiet.
Monday
We started class at 8:30 this morning. This is the earliest I’ve ever started a Monday class. Only one student arrived a little late, but everyone else was here ready to go.
You may think it strange that I’m taking pictures of WC’s and names on doors, but I found this church very to get around in because of the signage. It is all in the same font, same size and same color and every door, panel, and every access way is labeled.
John

TCM WORSHIP

Communion meditation





International praise team, Bulgarian, Russian, and American


L.D. Campbell and Russian translator

Here are some pictures of worship last Sunday morning at TCMI. The students put together the service. This service was led by students from Bulgaria and students from Russian and Moldova helped out. It's always a great time of worship. Hearing familiar songs sung in different languages. Hearing familiar songs played just a bit different than we might have played them. Taking communion together. That right there has to be the most powerful part of the service for me EVERY TIME. All of us coming together with the same thought. Sharing this meal together. Seeing how other cultures plan worship. Seeing what is important to them as they worship together. We also had a time of prayer for several students who were from Uzbekistan. We were asked to pray for them because they are living in a country that persecutes Christians. L.D. Campbell was the preacher.

John

Test day

A bank building; Yes that's right +36 that's 96.8 and this is at 7:25 in the evening!!


Old ruine; Vlad the Impaler ruled from 1456-1462


Romanina Othodox church. I went in this church 2 years ago while a service was going on.


A women praying and touching the icon. Later she got up and traced her fingers along the outline of the face.

Everyone passed.... Yeah!!!
Here are some pictures of downtown Bucharest.
John

Romania Thursday - Friday

It’s the last day of class notes (Thursday) and (Friday) the day of reckoning, the final exam.
We finally read through all the students’ papers today. Lidia’s was the last one we read. She typed out her Christian Discipline report in English, so I was able to read it without having to go through an interpreter. She chose compassion and journaling. Who would have ever guessed that, a missionary with a journalistic degree choosing to journal.
She started off by describing her arrival in India and her first night there. Police bust in her room (several of them) in the middle of the night and demand that she open her suitcases and answer questions about why she was here, and what she was doing, and how long she was going to spend here in India. She said she prayed for guidance. She told them that her suitcases were already check at the airport upon her arrival and everything was in order and that she really didn’t have to answer their questions unless they had some kind of legal, authoritative paper that says she has too. At that point she said that the police just stopped what they were doing and excused themselves from the room. But that’s not the part I really want to write about.
It her description of the area she was working in that I just couldn’t fathom. People were starving and begging for food and when they received some, they always set aside some for their offering to their gods in the temple. No matter what age, or gender, or how poor they were, or what physical condition they were in, they gave a portion to their gods. Of course the gods didn’t eat it, but the rats did! To us dirty, filthy, disease carrying rodents. To them reincarnated humans, working their way up to Nirvana again.
When we were talking about this earlier today, she said that, that was example of ‘Costly Worship’. Then I thought about what it’s like in America. As Christians we split hairs over whether our tithe should come from our gross pay or our net pay, or if we should tithe at all. Should it even be more than that? Because it was an Old Testament practice should we as New Testament people be accountable to tithe at all? What a waste of time and air! A little girl in India who is severally malnourished gives a portion of her rice to her gods. (If you can call it that. It has sand and rocks in to make it look like she was actually given more food then was really there) Very carefully and fearfully, she makes her way to the temple gods to present her gift to them. Hoping and praying that it will be sufficient to protect her for another day. Costly worship. Do we even understand what that means?
Her worship was to a wrong god and for the wrong reason. Because of all He has given us and blessed us with, how much more should we want to give Him Costly Worship. How much more should we WANT to give our GOD the worship He deserves.
I don't know... I mean right now, I'm thinking I may not want to do this again next year. These last two classes have made a tremendous impact on me. How meaningless is this piece of paper. Just because it has an M.A. or an M.Div stamped on it does that give it worth? Only because we decide that it does. Is it worth more than the lost children of India? Is it worth more than the prisoner in Azerbaijan who is there because He is preaching and teaching and living the Gospel of Christ?
But I'm pretty sure I will be doing this again next year. I know that even if I make an impact on a few students, they will have a huge effect on hundreds of people I cannot reach or teach. I'll be teaching again, that is if TCM wants me to come back!
Sorry I don't have more pictures to send you. It's so hot here in the afternoon, that by the time class ends, I really don't feel like going out and seeing Bucharest. I will be going out tonight for dinner and I'll make sure I bring my camera.
John
next week - Brno, Czech Republic.

July 2

Finally a break! Even then Soterius is studying. I smell an 'A' for someone!

Wow, today is Wednesday July 2 already!! What happened to June?
It rained a little last night just enough to cool things off for the morning. It’s still a bit sticky, but so far it doesn't seem to be as hot. Of course it’s only 7:47 in the morning right now.
It’s always interesting to talk with the students over the whole week. You find out stories about them over time. Like Lidia. She went to Theological seminary (4 years), then went on to Veterinarian school (4 years), then to college for a degree in journalism (4 years), then to TCMI for her M.A. and now she is going for her M.Div at TCMI. And I just learned that she is also going to college for her M.A. degree in communications. On top of all this don’t forget that she is a missionary in India too.
Aurel my translator told me a little bit about what he does also. He is a missionary to Turkey. His main problem right now is finding work there so he can get a visa to stay more than a month at a time. So he and his wife go for up to a month and then have to come back to Romania before their visa expires. There is just so much you can do in that short of a time span. And then he said that he has to be careful about how many trips he takes like this. If you have a visa like this, you can stay in one country (up to a month) and then just cross over the boarder get your passport stamped, stay one night, and then come back and stay another month. But if this type of activity is noticed by passport control they will start to ask questions, about why you are spending so much time here, and why you don’t have a job here, and other questions that, well, you’d rather not have to answer.
Today I my notes led me to the copyright issue, as it eventually does in every country. And the same issues come up. And so the same answers have to be said. But there is a bright side to this issue. Here is where I talk about raising up Christian musicians from their own country. To have the churches here encourage young musicians to write songs of faith, songs of worship, songs of praise. But I have already written about this in a previous post.
John

ROMANIA 08

The mandolin orchestra; The pizza guy pulled up as church was ending. I just had to take this picture. Seems like my son-in-law has a part time job in Romania!


These are my students; This is with my translator Aurel

Sunday - Tuesday
It’s Sunday night and I’m at the Bucharest Baptist Seminary. Usually the TCMI classes are help at the Provident Baptist Church, but this week there are several different groups there working with Project Ruth. The church runs a school for the gypsy children in the area. Groups from America come over and help out, so I’m here on the other side of Bucharest in the seminary. It’s 10:15 at night it’s HOT. I’m sitting here doing nothing and I’m sweating.
Vasile picked me up at the airport again, like he has done for the other two times I’ve been here. It was good to see him again. He took me to PBC where a worship service was going to start soon.
The worship service had singing, a Mandolin Orchestra, a worship team, and a lot of people who had ‘greetings’ and ‘welcomes’ to say, before the sermon was delivered. It was given by one of the students from one of the groups from America, so it was short! But the service was long.
When the service was over I still had no idea what time it was. I got to the airport at about 4:30; I didn’t not see a clock until it was about 9:00 when I arrived at the seminary building. I’m 4 floors up (well, three according to the way they count floors in Europe) and right now I have the whole floor to myself. My room is okay with a choice of 3 beds. I checked each of them. The guy who wrote Goldilocks must have stayed here. There is a hard mattress, and medium one and a soft one. The bath is down the hall. Tonight it’s all mine, but I have no idea if I will have students here for the rest of the week. I’m only scheduled to have 6-8 students.
I’m hoping someone from our Romanian TCMI contact shows up tomorrow, because I have no idea where I teach, or even what students are supposed to be in my class. I have been working with Andy, He is working with Project Ruth and also helps out with TCMI stuff when Oti, the National Director is not around like this past week. Ito was in the States.
I’m also hoping that I can get to the Internet during the week; otherwise this will be one long post on Saturday night after I get back to Haus Edelweiss.

Well Monday passed. It just might be a long week.
Andy showed up about half hour before class was to start. And that was okay because I had everything ready to go. We plugged the video projector into the computer turned it on and it worked like a charm. Then I plugged the sound in. I even ran a video just to make sure I had sound. Yep, things worked great. Andy left. We needed an electrical extension with a multi outlet on it. We found one and plugged everything in. No video! This is taking too long to tell. It took another 30 minutes to get everything running, but not like it did at first. Now my whole laptop monitor is on the screen and the only thing on my computer screen is my background slide. (I know, but it won’t work any other way.) I spent the whole day looking at the screen behind me and then turning around to talk to the students.
I have 4. Very nice and they all understand enough English that the translation is just reinforcing what they heard me just say. It will be a good class I know. Oh my room accommodations have changed a bit. I’m still in the same room, but now I have 3 floor mates, two girls and a guy. With only one restroom on the floor, this is going to be interesting. So we two guys will use the restroom on the floor below us and the girls will use the one on this floor.
Tuesday
One of the girls Lidia is a Veterinarian. But she is also a missionary working with the slum children in a village in India. She uses her Vet skills to make money and then works with these children. The other girl, Ioana works with the church as a youth and children’s leader. She also helps with women’s ministry.
One of the guys Emilian or Emy is a member of the Lord’s Army. (See my post from Moldova for more about this organization.) He will actually have a paid position within this group. It’s really a new thing for this para-church group to do, hire someone for a specific job. He will work with the youth in the Lord’s Army. The other guy Soterius a church planter. His church is about 5 years old and it’s running around 120 – 150. They are all very sharp!
It’s been another hot day, but the class went well. I even got the correct cable this morning, so everything worked great.

John