FBCPortland Service 1

It is 6 o'clock in the CR and we are at Olovi where we will be bunking for the evenings. It has been a long day with no access to telephones or e-mail until now.

9 hour flight went pretty well actually. We drove about 45 minutes and stopped for lunch, and then another 1.5 hours. We are nestled in the mountains. It is really a gorgeous out of the way place. We are to have dinner at 6:30 and the next thing will be preaching in the morning.

10-7

Just a note to say hello! We have already been to church and finished our lunch.

Church went well. Richard & Jane Ellen played a duet - What a Friend We have in Jesus

Some of us sang "Awesome God." (Richard, Jane Ellen, Heidi, Greg, and Ragan) Keith sat this one out!!

Heidi and Ragan shared their testimony.

Greg preached. I think all in all it went well. The church has a really good praise band. We recognized some of the tunes. There were probably about 60 people there plus our team. Keith will help them set up the soundboard we delivered to them tomorrow. They are excited to have it and want his help in getting it right.

I am praying for our church services today in Portland. Thanks for praying for us.

Today we will tour Loket (a castle) and Carlo Varly (a mineral springs spa that has been visited by Roman emperors in 1300's).

Tomorrow begins our work of pouring concrete and remodeling at a location we have yet to see. Our housing provisions are very nice and they are feeding us like kings and queens.

Some of the best opportunities for sharing our faith will come Monday - Wed nights as we have English speaking gatherings. Czech's are interested in learning better English and we will attempt to communicate around pictures, food, small talk on these nights. We are hoping for some of the church family as well as the students from the local high school will be there.

We will visit two classes in the Sokolov High School on Tuesday.

It is a beautiful place and we are asking the Lord to reveal the beauty of His grace and mercy to the people we have opportunity to meet.

Had a good day of touring the castle, including the torture chamber. It was pretty neat to see this 13th century structure. We also went to Kalavory Vary. This is a neat town with hot springs, known for its spas and people come here from all over the world to drink of the fountain than naturally flows all the time. After drinking a little, I guess I should live a long time!!

We begin our concrete work tomorrow morning. It is almost 9:30 and we are tired, so I'm going to try to get a good night's rest and will e-mail tomorrow if things go well computer wize.

10-8

Things went well today. We worked hard. some poured concrete shoring up an existing building. It's kind of like a footer around an already existing wall. Others poured a floor in the basement of this old farm house. It is rather large as well. When I say poured, I mean we had a couple of electric mixers like they use in the states to mix brick mortar. We mixed it poured it in wheel barrows, lifted it over the forms and poured it in.

Others cleaned up brush and debris around a well that was about 100 yards from the house. I helped with concrete and then picked up bricks and hauled some sand.

We met with the English Speaking fellowship tonight. There was one girl there and one guy there that was not a part of the church. I talked with the girl. She is 15 and was very sweet. She knows enough English to talk to.

At the end of the evening, I did ask her about God. She is not sure He exists, but she does think He has helped her before. I gave her a track with the 4 spiritual laws, and asked her if she knew how God felt about her. She said no. I told her that God loved her, and then asked her if anyone had ever told her that before. She said, no. I am praying that the Lord will save that sweet little girl. My heart is kind of heavy right now just knowing that she has had no one in her life tell her the truth about Him. I invited her to come to the states and hang out a couple of weeks with our family. She laughed and seemed to like the idea if it were for free!!! There was another guy that Keith talked with. We are hoping that both of them will be back tomorrow and maybe follow up a little.

All in all, we have worked hard today. We are tired. And maybe we will sleep well.

10-9

Today we went to the high school and shared in 4 classes. Two teams in two classes. My class had 12 and then 16. They were very kind and only had a few questions, but tonight the kids really came out for the Conversation in English with "Native" something. We are the natives!!! I didn't get a count, but the room was full, probably 20 students and a total of 40??? The pastor was excited. He said this was the largest gathering of youth in the history of their church.

The girl I talked to yesterday came back, but I will not see her again. I gave her something to read by Josh McDowell and the gospel of Luke. Maybe the Lord will speak to her mind and heart. Shared tonight with a boy. He has very good English and has studied a lot of world religions. What makes Christianity the right one??? We talked for 20 minutes or so and then I saw another local Christian talking with him. Seeds planted. I don't think you can even call this watered just yet.

Keith, Ragan, and Richard didn't go to the school. They went back to the farm house to pour concrete floors for the day. We picked them up after the school thing and went to Germany for about an hour and a half! Looked for something to buy, but found nothing. Very expensive. A US dollar is worth about 70 cents in the Euro. We did see a snow blower that we could buy for about 15,000 American dollars!

We have one more day of working left. We will all be at the farm tomorrow doing whatever they need us to do. (More concrete, etc.)