PRAHA

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and GOOD NEWS from Prague too!

We also received news from the Rettigs (who are on furlough in the US this summer)...

Proverbs 25:25  As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.

Spiritual birth and physical birth was the news we received from Prague.

Pavel has been preaching regularly in our Pribram services and does a tremendous job. He and his wife, Jana, and faithful Tomas go every week to minister to the small group there. Last week Pavel reports… “But the evening was not over yet....Jana spoke to the lady, Jana,  who was coming for studies and she was concerned about the salvation. We were just about to leave (it was 7:30 already) and she wanted to pray...So we went to study the Bible, to understand what is Salvation and what is the purpose for our salvation. We stayed together (2 more hours) with my wife and Zdenka and taught about sin, repentance, faith in HIM. She was clear on everything and ready so we prayed for salvation and I do believe she is really saved. First person with whom I prayed for salvation..I am so glad Zdenka was there as well. She was crying with joy after we finished and we sang songs...”
Praise the Lord for the second lady in Pribram to be saved and for faithful Zdenka, baptized in May, who is a “Lydia” in that city.


Congratulations to Monika and Roman Kratky on the birth of their son, Simon (She mon)  on June 23rd. Simon weighed in at 4kg, 51cm  (8 lbs. 13 oz. and 21 inches). We praise the Lord for another added blessing to the church in Prague.
Emilie

days of thanks 11/9/2010

 

 

 

I am thankful to God for this great report from Prague.  On November 3, the Rettigs wrote,

In the last 2 weeks we have had a lot of the same people come out to services. From 3-8 people are coming to each service. Tonight we showed a film on creation. We invited by email over 75 of the people who were at the campaign night about the film. 8 people came. That is actually very good!

God has been so good and faithful to answer the many, many prayers of the small group of believers in Prague.

 

Please join in our month of Thanksgiving to God

and link up with Conny at the Hutch Haus  :-)

Prague wrap-up, sort of

First question:  Anyone else having trouble uploading photos on the new blogger? fyi, I had to put them in a picasa web album, then upload from there.


Okay then... Thinking back to Day One:  Here's Petr, Monika, Mrs. Rettig, Amy R., Kaylyn (arrived early from Colorado so dressed up to join with the Welcome), Pavel and Jana (who was on the streets handing out J/R until the day before New Baby was born ~ and was able to attend the Vecer Bible and see the team off again after Baby arrived!)

This is the A Team!
Kate, Kaylyn, Hannah, Tim, Dave, Rebecca, Dixie
Mrs. Rettig also joined them for a few days.

Most days they were assigned a stop on the metro to pass out the John/Romans and an invitation to the Vecer Bible (Bible Night).  Here they are riding a loooong escalator ~ some metro lines go under the river.

Thursday (16th) was their Free Day to tour ~ Here's the astronomical clock with the twelve apostles who come out the doors at the top on the hour.

St. Vitus Cathedral , which was 400 years in the making (finished 1911?) They actually saw this on Sunday (12th) ~

A group of musicians performing (and hoping to sell their CDs from the briefcase parked in front of them) ~

In Prague, you "pay as you go"  :-)  Even at McDonald's.  You know what a "WC" is, right?

Evenings they had dinner at various restaurants.  This is pork schnitzel and potato salad; the other option that evening was chicken.  One restaurant provided them a choice of wild boar or venison!

Friday (17th) Kate was surprised with a birthday party after dinner.

Here's a map of Prague hanging in the hotel lobby ~ {Edit...Another map is hanging in their meeting room where they got their assignments each day at the hotel -- see picture towards end of post.}

If they weren't at a metro stop, they were stuffing mailboxes at apartment buildings.

Sunday (19th) they went out of town to the fortress of Terezin.  In November 1941 the main fortress became a Ghetto, a concentration camp for the Jews.

This room had two walls of bunks and housed 600 people.  They had two "toilets' to share as well.

Back in Prague, they found the church where Jan Hus preached~

And a memorial for the 20-some nobles who were hanged here in 1621 for financing the printing of Scriptures.

The Old Town Square and Tyn Church~

Monday (20th) evening Tim & Kate went downtown instead of joining the group for dinner.  They found a nice concert to attend as well as seeing the Old Town lit up.

Tuesday evening they had dinner at the Restaurant Rapir, decorated from the Medieval era~

Hannah & Kate

Kate enjoyed this potato pancake with veggies ~

Tim's Kate's typical breakfast at the hotel~

At last it was Wednesday, September 22 ~ Ready for Vecer Bible!

The Czech believers were amazed to see people begin to arrive more than an hour EARLY!  They said Czech people are always late...

This was just before the rush of people arrived.  They added chairs, opened the curtained area (see photo above), and seated people in the balcony (where Tim took this photo) ~ and still they came!  More than 800 people!

At least 400 filled out the response card and received a complete Bible in the Czech language ~ Edit: Emilie says that 800 Bibles went out the door that night!

What a beautiful prize!

We will be praying for this little nucleus of strong believers ~ 7 Czech and 3 American
Note the map behind the group ~ the areas colored red were covered by the team!

Tim & Vladmir at the airport.  Tim was especially blessed by hearing the testimonies of these dear Czech people ~

♥  God is so good!  ♥

it's Wednesday in Prague!

It's late Tuesday for me and Wednesday morning for Tim ... I'm so happy to have another email from him!  :-D

Monday we skipped the supper with our group and went down town. The city is very pretty at night and there was a concert in an old church so we decided to go, it was very nice.  There were a half dozen string instruments, a trumpet, organ and soloist.

Today is our last day, time flies it has been a good two weeks. I think we have handed out over 100,000 john romans plus they mailed 100,000 before we got here they also mailed around 20,000 invitations to the meeting tonight. People here know something is going on. The church had visitors both Wednesday and Sunday so that was a blessing. 

We will go out for a while today and then come back to prepare for this evening pray that people will come the auditorium has room for around a thousand we are excited to see what God will do.

Kate,Hannah and Klynn [edit: Kaylyn] played Lead me to Calvary on Sunday piano violin and clarinet it was very nice. They might be doing it Again tonight I am not sure.

Should be home in about 48 hrs

+ěščřžýáíé=´ those are the symbols below the numbers across the top of the keyboard.

  

The meeting is at 7pm, which is noon here (CST) ~ Please pray for God's protection and blessing!

Here's a photo of the special music from Sunday with Kate at the piano (Thank you, Mrs. Rettig!)  The violinist is Kate's roomie :-)

update from Prague

Tim & Kate have had today off for touring Prague on foot.  They found a pay phone and gave us a call  =)

• First three days of campaign (Mon-Wed) they have distributed ~45,000 John & Romans.  Tim says it's a huge rush of people when the buses/trams arrive, but many refuse the scriptures.  The Czech church members tell him it is good he cannot understand what those people say to him as they refuse.
• As of Thursday morning, Sept 16, the complete Czech Bibles that were ordered from Korea are still in GERMANY.  They are hoping to see them arrive yet today ~ don't know if they will have to go and get them instead.  Please Pray!
• Kate is rooming with a 16yo girl from Colorado.  She is on Mrs. Rettig's distribution team ~ Emilie says that Kate is working hard!  It is quite cool there ~ they are thankful for the couple sweaters they took along.
• This coming Sunday they will visit a death camp.  They haven't made it to the Jewish Quarter of Prague yet.  They did see a museum with medieval tools of torture today.  Sunday they saw a cathedral and castle with parts dating from the time of Wenceslas.  They have eaten at a Chinese restaurant twice already ~ Tim is looking for something a bit more native  ;-)
• We have had issues with gmail ~ please pray that they will be able to have contact with us that way.  Today's phone call was $$expensive$$!
• The big evangelistic meeting is Wednesday, Sept. 22.  I'm guessing at ~7pm, which is Noon here.  Please pray for many to attend and hear the gospel clearly presented!

Prague pics

Mrs. Rettig is keeping up a blog as well as working with the Couriers for Christ team  :-)

And she's sweet enough to email me some photos too!  I believe these are from Sunday (day 2).

"A few snap shots...the Czechs singing, our meeting in the morning, and
Chinese food."

Prague day 2

woot, woot, I got an email!  (sort of like getting this postcard with a handwritten message from my mister...)

And, lucky you, I'm going to share most of it with you (without much editing) ~

WEll it is 3 am and I cant sleep so I thought I should take advantage of the internet since all the reasonable people are in bed sleeping. This keyboard is weird there are buttons with 4 symbols on them, the numbers at the top have three symbols on them so it took me a while to figure out how to make an @ sign -control alt 2- . Sunday we had church at the hotel some people went to the Rettigs but there isnot room for everybody . In the afternoon we toured a castle and cathederal, the cathedral took 500 years to build - parts of the castle dated back to king wensceslas you know the christmas song guy.   Today we will head out to the streets to hand out john romans. Thursday we have a free day . Next wednesday is the special meeting so not much time to do any sight seeing so might have to come back with my sweetheart and see the rest.   Kate is doing great she is rooming with a 16 year old who came with her pastor from Colorado.  Tried to call you but cant figure out thehotel phone so might have to find a payphone somewhere.  should have brought a laptop tthere is wireless hotspots in the hotel.    The kids would like the breakfast buffet because they have hotdogs for breakfast.  Found an atm and was able to get some cash 2000 crown in 1 bill around 100 dollars  we are getting along we are enjoying our time but miss all you.

Prague day 1

I haven't heard from Tim or Kate directly since they left Chicago, but Mrs. Rettig sent a few pictures of their arrival at the airport in Prague  :-)

Looks like the greeting included some kolaches!

Look below for my girl in the lavender polo...

It's 10:30 pm now in Prague, so I trust that their very long Day 1 is over by now  ;-)

If you can read Czech

...you can read what's happening in Prague ~ soon!

If not, you can read about it in English here.

Photos from the Rettigs in Prague  :-) 

(sidenote: Do you see some familiar letters at the top of the first photo?)


In other preparations...

  We made some trail mix last night Tuesday night for Tim & Kate. 
Think it'll be enough??

~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~

No time to come back and finish this post properly... 

Because TOMORROW ~ as in, we need to be AT the airport in TWELVE HOURS ~ they will be OFF on their adventure!

♥ Thank you for praying!  ♥

busy (normal) days

~~~  Three days to get Tim & Kate packed for their travel to Prague.   ~~~

More pictures at Mrs. Rettig's blog here.

I'm letting everyone sleep in today, so I'll try to post some pictures before they need breakfast...

On Wednesday I took Miss Music Box to the orthodontist and then shoe shopping.  All.three.downtown. shoe.stores!  Where we found at least five different pairs of good shoes she liked.  We left them all there and bought groceries. 
Thursday morning the kids went with Tim and my dad to the Farm Progress Show ~ and came home with a P>I>L>E> of loot!  Blue spruce seedlings, hats abundant, kettle corn, and more!  and the Computer Geek won a fold-up lawn chair!
Thursday afternoon we returned to all.three.downtown.shoe.stores with Tim and the Computer Geek along to find shoes for them as well.

Miss MB settled on the Keen Kaci Lace from Brown's Shoe Fit. 

Tim liked the Clark Mover at Emerhoff's ~

and I talked him into buying a pair of Merrell's to replace his worn-out New Balance tennies.

And the Computer Geek found his new tennies at Lazy M ~ so we made purchases at all.three.downtown. shoe.stores!  :-)  Plus the coin shop for the CG.  whew.

 Back at home...
A nice young man (Ben) installed our garage doors on Friday...

On Saturday our friend James came again to help Tim with siding...

Meanwhile, the girls started baking on Friday... so that on Saturday they could sell goodies at my SIL's antique mall.  (and Miss Artist couldn't resist the camera...)  Four batches of bread, soft molasses cookies, these choc. chip cookies (Cookie Mama Cookies), pumpkin sheet cake (in the form of cupcakes), and cinnamon rolls.

On Sunday we celebrated Miss Music Box's birthday (early) with Grandma & Grandpa (sorry, the pics of them together didn't turn out since I had the camera set wrong)...

and our "adopted college student" Lora (in the middle below)  =)

And, the Cattleman was baptized Sunday evening!

...along with a friend J.  Here's a nice pic of them with Pastor after church...

We had a nice little fellowship with J.'s family and the B. family afterwards  :-)

The girls baked MORE food on Monday and returned to the antique mall...
2 batches of bread, Perfect Brownies, apple crisp, and more choc. chip cookies [which did not sell well  :-( ]

And the guys (including James) worked all day on siding! 

(for those of you in the Midwest, you know the wind ~ it was a-blowing)

Did I tell you that the Cattleman now has his very own drill?!

And check this out:  the last piece in the peak!

What you can't see is the rain cloud behind me... We scrambled to move boxes of siding from Tim's truck into the garage, and the bikes... as the rain began to fall!  (and thus, I didn't take time to get a full picture of the front of the house)

Today I hope to see our chiropractor  (I, um, primed half of the garage ceiling on Friday and gained a migraine) ~ and take Tim along since he put something out of whack yesterday morning at Menards loading siding ~ and win the battle with Mt. Washmore ~ and maybe even serve meals in a timely fashion...  Oh, already blew that one for the kids' breakfast, didn't I?

And what are you all up to on this fine day?