Frisco Bible Church | July 6–13, 2025

What a week! As our team wraps up an unforgettable mission trip to Word of Life in upstate New York, our hearts are full—with gratitude, growth, laughter, and most of all, the presence of God.

This trip was more than a service project—it was a living testimony of teamwork, discipleship, family bonding, and the power of stepping away from the everyday to serve together.

? Spiritual Highlights

We began each day in God’s Word, and every devotional set the tone:

Day 1 reminded us that God works through those who show up in obedience.
Day 2 taught us the connection between justification, sanctification, and glorification.
Day 3 deepened our focus on prayer and perseverance.
Day 4 inspired us with servant leadership and the power of “next steps” in faith.
Day 5 challenged us to resist temptation and glorify God in the big and small.
Day 6 encouraged us to choose eternal over the expedient

Throughout the week, kids and adults alike reflected on what it means to follow Jesus practically—through sweeping, painting, serving meals, and listening to one another with love.

?️ Service Projects Completed-720 Hours of work with $10,000 in materials donated by our team

• God gave us strength, humor, and plenty of bug spray to accomplish a lot:
• Painted the train station and completed touch-up projects
• Finished a new roof on the Ranch office (thanks to our awesome dads!)
• Cleaned the Huskies soccer field, The Den, and Bollback Student Life Center
• Prepped and cleared walking trails for better accessibility
• Weeded landscaping and refreshed spaces around the Bible Institute
• Helped support kids’ camp programming and outdoor games

Every chore became an opportunity to serve with joy.

? Relational & Family Moments
From worship at the Ridge Rally to pulling weeds competitively, from hiking to ice cream at Martha’s, this trip was packed with unforgettable relational moments:

• Campers made faith decisions at the Ridge after powerful evening rallies
• Our team bonded deeply—sharing meals, devotions, and lake walks
• Younger children stepped up to serve boldly alongside adults
• Families laughed, prayed, and rested together under God’s open skies
• We ended with a night at the Word of Life Rodeo—a fun, festive finish!

❤️ Gratitude
We’re deeply thankful:

To Word of Life staff for welcoming and guiding us
To our servants —parents, teens, and kids—who served with excellence
To our church family, who prayed us through this mission
To God, who made every moment meaningful

? Final Takeaways
This trip reminded us that missions don’t always require a passport. When we step into service with humility and joy, God uses it—whether it’s painting a building or holding a kid’s hand during a game.
We return home encouraged, unified, and eager to continue living on mission—at home, at church, in our schools, and beyond.

“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” — Matthew 5:16
? Until Next Time…
Please continue to pray for those we served, and for our team as we carry the mission back to Texas. God is not finished—this is just the beginning.
With love,

The WOL NY Mission Team 2025

Frisco Bible Church

July 11, 2025
by Chandra Shekhar Manne

We began our Friday morning with a powerful devotional titled “The Weight of Glory and the Dumbbell of Temptation.” It centered on the importance of glorifying God in all we do and resisting the daily temptations that try to pull us off course. It was a timely reminder as we prepared for a full day of both service and celebration.

Morning: Paint Brushes & Power Sweeps

Our group split into two hardworking teams:

• Team One returned to the Train Station to finish the last touches of painting. It was satisfying to complete the job we had started earlier in the week, knowing future campers will enjoy a refreshed and welcoming space.
• Team Two, made up of volunteers and energetic kids, tackled cleaning the Huskies soccer field, The Den, and the Bollback Student Life Center. Sweeping, scrubbing, and tidying as a team gave us a sense of shared purpose—and more than a few giggles as we worked alongside each other.

After the cleanup, the kids were rewarded with some long-awaited fun and games at The Den and the Living Area. Their joy was infectious as they ran, played, and let loose in the afternoon sun.

Afternoon: Sweet Treats & Scenic Moments

Following a quick lunch, our caravan headed into town for a special treat: a visit to the famous Martha’s Ice Cream in Glens Falls. With cones piled high and sundaes in hand, we enjoyed a sweet time of fellowship—laughing, sharing stories, and simply savoring a cool break together.

From there, we made our way to Lake George. The younger kids splashed and played in the water, while others explored the arcade. Families strolled along the lakefront, enjoying the peaceful views and local shops. It was a refreshing pause from the busyness of our service projects—a time to soak in God’s beauty in creation and one another.

Evening: Rodeo Under the Stars

As the sun set, we gathered for one of the most exciting highlights of the trip: the Word of Life Rodeo. With horses galloping, music playing, and crowd cheering, it was an evening full of energy and joy. For many, it was their first rodeo—and it did not disappoint! It was a perfect way to end a day full of meaningful work and rich community.

Reflections

Today beautifully balanced serving with joy and resting in fellowship. Whether sweeping soccer fields, finishing paint jobs, enjoying ice cream, or cheering at the rodeo, everything pointed back to glorifying God—just like our morning devotional reminded us.

Today was our 4th day at Word of Life Bible Institute. After a delicious breakfast of pancakes, we went to the train station at Ranch / Ridge area to continue painting. With brush in hand, the two of us started edging the walls of the train station building in yellow. Almost the entire team went to paint except for two dads who were finishing putting the new roof on the Ranch office.  
That job took a long time, but thankfully the kids got a break and went to the petting zoo. (Warning - Donkeys may bite!)

After lunch, we were promoted to "paint rollers". Then Ms. Denise organized a weed pulling contest for the kids. Jake was the first to pull 100 weeds. Luke got the most weeds pulled overall. Ms. Denise then rewarded us with candy (Thank you Ms. Denise!). There is still some painting to finish for tomorrow, but the roof was completely and utterly done.

Later that evening, we went to dinner (Shout out to John the security guard.) After that, we went to the Ridge Rally where Mr. Tiago spoke to the middle school campers about taking Next Steps in their faith.

We feel that this week at Word of Life, we learned how to work hard with the right attitude.

A delicious breakfast of pancakes fueled our work today, just like reading God's Word fuels our next steps in faith. (Lanyard drop!)
Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes! 

This mission trip in New York, the state, is wonderful!! My (Elizabeth, E) favorite thing has been getting to play with Natania and having fun with her. My (Natania, N) favorite thing has been holding the chicks in the petting zoo. The service part I (E) have enjoyed the most was making a hiking trail through the woods and my (N) favorite service part was painting the walls of the train station. This week I (N) have learned that God is the Savior. I (E) was reminded how God made everything, even the beetles and bugs. While we were weeding flowerbeds, we discussed John 15. Summarized by Elizabeth: "Jesus is the root of the plant; the parts that are broken and crumbled will be burned and the good pieces will produce fruit. The bad parts will be cut off with clippers, but the good ones will live forever." Part of our service project is taking care of the tasks we are given and all of the glory goes to God. We get to take care of the gardens here like Adam and Eve were told by God to take care of the garden and animals.

We had lots of fun today and worked really hard to bring glory to God. We went on a boat trip around Lake Schroon and saw the Word of Life Island, used for the high school student camps, then I (N) saw a really old house on another island.

Some of the dads worked on the roof all day. In the morning the ladies and kids weeded, and in the afternoon we joined the other dads painting the train station.

We ask for prayers for rest and good food. (Parents ask for patience, haha). 

Our team attend Dedication Night at The Ridge.  These are middle school students who are dedicating their lives to serve and follow the Lord. Our team did all the new mulch for the benches on Monday. It was very exciting to see our work come to full fruition.

Day Two at Word of Life! Today we did various projects around the Bible Institute campus, including roofing at the Ranch and weeding flowerbeds. While we were working, we started thinking about how these projects apply to our life. We discussed how our work here at Word of Life ties into a Christian life through justification, sanctification, and glorification.

During the day, the men in our team worked on tearing off an old roof and putting on a new one. We thought about how this is a picture of the justification Christ gives to believers. In Ephesians 4:22-24, Paul says, "Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." We saw that the men taking off the old, deteriorated roof is a parallel to putting off our old, corrupt selves, and how putting on the brand new roof is a parallel to putting on our new selves in Christ. Our former manner of life was dirty and unclean like the old roof, but because of Christ's justification, we are in God's true righteousness and holiness, just like the new roof we put on today. Now that we are justified by faith, we need to daily live for Christ.

Today, the women on our team were pulling up weeds in the gardens around the campus. As we were working on this, we noticed that this is a good picture of how we sanctify ourselves daily as justified Christians. 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This shows that we need to continue to repent of our ongoing sin, just like the weeds we pulled today will need to be pulled again. This verse says that when we confess, God will forgive us and cleanse us of our sin. This is similar to how when the weeds are pulled, the garden is "cleansed" of its hinderances and is free to grow. Our goal in the sanctification of our life is to enter into the glory of God after death.

Looking at the big picture of our work here at Word of Life, we saw how the greatness of camp happens because of the smallness of people's service. In Matthew 25:21, Jesus says, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." Today we saw that our simple, small task of pulling weeds and roofing all make the much bigger camp possible. All of camp is greater than the sum of its parts. Our glorification will be complete when we enter into our Father's joy and can praise God with all we are.

Our justification, sanctification, and glorification are essential parts in our walk with God. Ultimately, today, tomorrow, and every day, we need to praise God with our works and live a life that is glorifying to Him.

Wow! What a fantastic first day of work!
After a rather restless and hot night (no AC in the dorms), we got started with a devotional on God's Sweetness. A verse that resonated throughout the day was Psalm 104:34: May my meditation be pleasing to Him, as I rejoice in the LORD.
We ate breakfast and started the morning picking weeds. The weeds here are happy to leave their earthy homes and have no spines, certainly not Texas weeds that prefer to dig in and protect themselves with spines and chiggers. This task was interupted by an untimely fire alarm in the dining hall that required all personnel on site to relocate to the soccer field. Luckily it was nothing of note, and we were released quickly to get about the day's work. Our next stop was the campfire area with amphitheater seating up a hill. There we had a nice hangout time by the lake as we waited for the mulch and equipment. The kids took that time to get some playing in! Then mulch was unloaded at the top and we spread it around the benches to prevent weeds. Beginning without wheelbarrows, we improvised by shoveling the mulch onto tarps and dragging that to wherever it needed to go. The kids and several diligent adults then took that mulch and spread it around. Fortunately, two wheelbarrows did arrive and we got a rhythm down and knocked out the rest before lunch.
 

After lunch we got to work on two areas. One crew headed off to clean the Bible Institue buildings, and the rest of us went to a project I loved! We began creating a walking path for the younger campers to be able to walk to their meeting hall without being on the road with vehicles. This meant we got to explore the wooded mountainside!  Eventually the path will be leveled for golf carts to be able to use it also, but we began by just identifying a trail. Then we started the clearing process and marked it out with logs. We (at least the kids and I) had a great time finding logs all through the woods to use. Below you can see the entrance to the trail beside the tired, but content crew.

As we walked back to get much needed showers, Chandra recalled what Paul said about Onesimus in Philemon 11: Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and me. Both crews were certainly useful today! We worked hard, but have a great sense of accomplishment, success and usefulness.
Tonight we went over to see the gospel presentation for The Ridge camp (middle schoolers). As about fifty kids came forward as first time believers in Jesus Christ, I teared up thinking that in heaven I'll get to talk with all of these young brothers and sisters and say "I was back there, praying for you and cheering you on." Years from now when other kids sit on the benches or walk the path we worked on and the Holy Spirit moves their heart to belief, what a privelige to know I got to be a part of God's plan.

Yes indeed Lord, as I rejoice in you, may my meditations be pleasing! (And may the night be cooler)

Last Sunday, our Word of Life Summer Mission Team was prayed over and commissioned by our Frisco Bible Church elders and congregation. We are excited to serve the Lord in whatever capacity He brings our way next week. Our team leaves early Sunday morning through DFW. Please pray for smooth flights and good weather. We know that God is in control. Mission trips are a wonderful way to get out of your comfort zone and experience the power of the Holy Spirit's working.  As with all of our mission trips, the goal is to leave the trip encouraged, energized and reminded to make each day of our lives a "mini mission trip". We will have several of our team members blogging throughout the week, so stay tuned for more.

Here is the disciple who stood in the back of the crowd at Jesus’ crucifixion, and, when he was asked if he was one of Jesus’ disciples, he exclaimed loudly, “I never knew him.” He had been at the very front of the crowd when Jesus had performed His many miracles, including raising the dead to life, and, yet he fled when Jesus’ died on the cross. However, turn to the book of Acts and you see an emboldened disciple who became a leader in the Christian faith named – Peter.

From the book of Acts, we know that, after Peter witnessed Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, he ministered in Jerusalem, Lyda, Joppa, Caesarea, Antioch, Corinth, and Rome in 67 AD where he says he was imprisoned and awaiting his death (2 Peter 1:14-15 AD). He went to Samaria where he encountered the magician and faith healer, Simon Magus; to Lydda in the Plain of Sharon where he healed the paralyzed Aeneas; and to the town of Joppa where he affected the cure of Tabitha (Dorcas). Then he went north on the Mediterranean to Caesarea where, through the conversion of Cornelius, he introduced Gentiles to the church, which brought the opposition of Jewish Christians because he ordered Cornelius and other Gentiles to be baptized without first being circumcised. This act probably led to his imprisonment there by King Herod. However, an angel delivered him from the jail  and he made his escape, going immediately to the house of Mary, the mother of John.

It is clear to many New Testament scholars that he assumed a missionary role. By the end of the 1st century, there existed a tradition that Peter lived in Rome and further evidence is found in the Letter to the Romans by St. Ignatius, the early 2nd century bishop of Antioch – among many other historical documents.

John 21:18-19 is the earliest reference to Peter’s future death where Jesus says to Peter, “ ‘...when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will carry you where you do not want to go.’ (This He said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.” In the ancient world, “stretch out your hands” frequently referred to crucifixion. With this statement and others (John 21:19, 13:36), Peter lived his life after Jesus’ resurrection with the full reality that he would face martyrdom as Jesus did. In 2 Peter 1:12-15, Peter writes knowing his death is imminent, and 1 Clement 5:1-4 (AD 95-96), attests to Peter’s martyrdom during the Neronian persecution of Christians. So, the many references to Peter’s death by crucifixion are quite reliable, and some of them mention he was crucified upside down.  

What made this dramatic change in Peter’s life? He said it was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Now, if this was a lie, as some today argue, would any man go long distances from his home and die in such a horrendous manner for something he knew was a lie?

Summer Mission Trip 2025
Our Summer Mission Team is making their final preparations this coming week. We covet your prayers and are excited to serve with our Global Missionaries, Tiago & Amy Braganholo.
Here's our prayer request below. 

Andrew was a fisherman and a follower of John the Baptist when, one day, Jesus was passing by and John said, “Look, the Lamb of God.” When Andrew and another man heard this, they followed Jesus and spent the day with Him and the crowds. When Jesus saw them, He turned around and asked, “What do you want?” They asked, “Where are you staying?” Jesus answered, “Come and you will see.” So, they stayed with Him until evening. Then, the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Peter, and tell him, “We have found the Messiah!” and he brought him to Jesus. (John 1:35-42). Consequently, Andrew was Jesus’ first disciple and the first to call him, “Messiah.” 

The Bible doesn’t say much about Andrew, but the Gospel of Matthew’s report of the feeding of the 5,000 has a significant account of him. A multitude of people had spent the day listening to Jesus, and as evening approached, the disciples came to Jesus and suggested that He send the people away so that they could buy themselves some food. Jesus replied, “They don’t need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Peter responded that 200 days’ wages would not be enough for each person to have a little bit. However, Andrew bravely brought a little boy to Jesus who had only five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus multiplied them to feed the whole crowd with twelve basketfuls of broken pieces left over. 

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, Andrew is said to have preached in areas around the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and he established the early orthodox church at Patras called the Church of Saint Andrew. At one point in Andrew’s ministry, the Roman Proconsul Aegeates was visiting Patras. His intention was to put an end to the new Christian religion and convince Christians to honor Roman gods and offer sacrifices to them. When Andrew heard about this, he ran to meet Aegeates telling him that the Son of God came on account of the salvation of men. Of the Roman gods, he said, “...these idols are not only not gods, but also most shameful demons and hostile to the human race…” Aegeates was outraged and carried out a long dialogue with Andrew suggesting Jesus’ teaching was false doctrine and His death was foolish. At the end of their conversation, Aegeates ordered Andrew’s crucifixion. Andrew did not see crucifixion as an instrument of torture and death but as sharing Christ’s suffering and redemption. So, he ran to the cross and embraced it wholeheartedly. He insisted that the cross take an X shape instead of a T and was bound to the cross instead of being nailed to it.

Andrew’s relics are at the Church of St. Andrew in Patras, which was renamed to Constantinople, and is now Istanbul, Turkey.

James, the son of Alphaeus is one of the least known of the twelve apostles. H.S. Vigevno calls him “the unknown apostle.” Apart from the lists of the twelve apostles, he appears nowhere else in the New Testament. So, in order to know about him, we have to turn to extra biblical sources. In doing so, we run into a problem. Since there are numerous references to James son of Zebedee, James the brother of Jesus, James the Less, and James the More. We don’t know for sure where he went after Jesus’ ascension, but we can be confident that he went somewhere to spread the gospel.

Jerome (345-420 AD) says James was Jesus’ brother, a leader of the church in Jerusalem, and author of the book of James in the Bible. Tradition has James establishing Christianity in Spain, and he has become the patron saint of Spain. Nicitas (324-337 AD) tracks his travels through Elevtheropolis, Gaza, Tyre, and multiple smaller towns. And. Nikephoros (802-811 AD) suggests he wound up in Egypt in the city of Ostrakine.

There are equally several accounts of his death. Hippolytus (170-235 AD) says in Hippolytus on the Twelve, “And James the son of Alphaeus, when preaching in Jerusalem, was stoned to death by the Jews, and was buried beside the temple.” Two other traditions say he was crucified, places his journeys and crucifixion in Persia, and reports that James preached from the cross. The final story worth mentioning states that he was pushed from the pinnacle of a temple and then beaten with a fuller’s club.

Although it is difficult to know exactly what James’ life and death were like, The Center for Online Evangelism comments, “But even though we don’t hear much about who James was or what he did, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do amazing things for Christ. After all, each disciple was chosen specifically by Jesus. James, the son of Alphaeus, was selected by the Son of God to learn from Him, minister with Him, and represent Him to the world.”

The name, Bartholomew, appears in the New Testament only in the lists of apostles. There is nothing describing him or his work. However, it may be that Bartholomew was a family name meaning “son (Hebrew – bar) of Tolmai or Talmai (9th century tradition). It is possible that his first name  was Nathanael. There is a story in John 1:43-51 about Nathanael  being called by Jesus into discipleship with Philip. When Jesus saw Nathaneal, He said, “Behold, an Israelite in whom is no guile.”  Since Bartholomew is mentioned nowhere except in apostle lists in the first three gospels, and Nathaneal is mentioned and explicitly described in the book of John as a disciple called by Jesus but who is never mentioned in the apostle lists, it is possible that the disciple’s full name was Nathanael bar (son of) Tolmai.

Bartholomew has been mentioned in many accounts as having ministered in India, Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia (in Iran), Lyconia (in Turkey), and Armenia.  It is reported that, when 4th century Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea visited India, he found a Hebrew copy of the Gospel of Matthew which had been left by Bartholomew (Ecclesiastical History). With Jude Thaddeus, Bartholomew brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Both Jude and Bartholomew are considered patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. According to Armenian traditions, Bartholomew is the second Catholicos Patriarch of the Armenian-Apostolic Church.

According to Hellenic tradition, Bartholomew was kidnapped, beaten unconscious, and thrown into the sea to drown. He was martyred because he had brought Christianity to Polymus, the local king. Enraged by his brother’s conversion and fearing Roman backlash, Prince Astyages ordered Bartholomew to be flayed (skinned) alive and then beheaded. Other accounts identify Bartholomew’s murderer as Agrippa (identified with Tigranes) or Sanatruk of Armenia. There are various accounts of Bartholomew’s death, but they all unilaterally agree that Bartholomew died as a martyr – executed for reasons tied to his faith.

In the 13th century, the St. Bartholomew Monastery was constructed and identified as the supposed site of Bartholomew’s martyrdom in Vaspurakan, Greater Armenia (now southeast Turkey). Azerbaijani Christians say Bartholomew was the first person to bring Christianity to the area. This church existed until 1925 when the Soviet campaign against religion demolished it.

Our team is so excited to serve the Lord together next month at Lake Schroon, New York with our missionaries, Tiago & Amy Braganholo. It's been a wonderful process to see the Lord bring just the right team together. Three families are coming to serve: The Chandra family; the Miller family and the Nicholson family. We have enjoyed two team meetings so far. Our first meeting we met at Braum's Ice Cream shop and last weeks meeting we had a team picnic. At our first team meeting, we decided on a team mission statement and team verse. At our second meeting, we discovered our Basic needs and how these can come into play during a mission trip. Our team has also been preparing physically through personal exercise to get our bodies ready for whatever the Lord brings; as well as spiritually through personal reflection questions. We would love your prayers and we continue to prepare.

We will leave you with this fun silly picture. We are looking forward to serving the Lord with great JOY and FUN

Thank you all for your prayers. If you'd like to financially GIVE towards our trip, you can do so https://friscobible.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2284/responses/new

Sunday, April 13- Today was our final full day as a team. We woke up this morning and headed to church in Prague via the metro subway where Matt and his wife Patty worship. The name of the church is Cirkev Bez Hranic (CBH) which stands for Church Without Borders. Matt and Patty have attended this church since their time in Prague beginning in 2017. CBH has a smaller church plant in Sedlecany which is where we spent the most of our week. This is where the connection began for English week in the public schools and where we served for the past week . CBH also hosts a summer english camp week in the Czech mountains every July and both the Prague & Sedlecany Churches come together. The church meets in a few quaint coffee shop, The Crowd Cafe and you can purchase coffee while you worship. Speaking of Worship, what a joy it is to worship the Lord in a different language. It gives us just a small glimpse of what heaven will be like! 

Here's part of our Texas team: Makenzie, Jaime, Sherry, Karen, Kelly, Jennifer, Jefferson & Jennifer

Today's Scripture was on 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. We were reminded to change our mind about Christ. As I've shared before in this blog, Czech's might acknowledge God but do not acknowledge His Son, Jesus. To a Czech, Jesus is the baby at Christmas time that brings presents. The Pastor reminded us that Yeshua is God and so metanoia- repent & come to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Our team was grateful for Petra, who translated the message via WhatsApp, isn't technology amazing! Our team went to the first service as the church as been growing. That is so great to see God moving and His Spirit allowing many Czech to metanoia about Jesus.
After church we headed over to lunch and had a delicious Czech dish, Snitzel. Have I told you already how amazing the food is? And you can drink the water, it's delicious! There is no need to avoid the food and drink here.

During lunch, Sherry did the last devotional time with our team. She reminded everyone that "everyday that goes by, we get a little closer to Jesus". Our team has really seen God work, from bringing together twelve individuals into ONE UNITED team with a purpose. It's so amazing to think that we will all worship the amazing Yeshua and our prayer is that our students would also come to personally know Yeshua themselves.

Here's one of our team members, Jefferson. Cheers to Jefferson! Everyone needs a Jefferson! He's been contemplating God's calling to join Matt & Patty in the Czech. This trip was an exploratory trip for him. Would you pray alongside Jefferson? We can't wait to see where the Lord places him.
After lunch we had some time as a team to go into old town Prague to see the Astronomical clock. It's a famous clock that moves and chimes each hour. Then we had a chance to do some last minute shopping in Wenceslas Square. It was so beautiful with all of the Easter markets out.

Our team enjoyed this last full day in Prague soaking it all in and basking in all that the Lord did this week. Some fun reminders from our trip- Czech's love their dogs and they don't place them on leashes. As you walk along the streets be careful of "dog bombs"... Yep! that's right.  Chimney cakes (like a cinnamon roll minus the frosting) were a lovely dessert while shopping or just people watching on this beautiful spring day.

Overall, this mission trip has been amazing. Sherry and I both have a great love for the people of the Czech Republic. Will you continue to pray for our students in Sedlecany and for the country of Czech that they will come to know the Savior Jesus and to understand "No Greater Love (John 15:13)". Thank you to all of our readers who have read to the end of this page and our blogs over the past ten days. Our team is currently preparing to travel back to Texas. We look forward to taking everything that we have learned and pondered into our hearts. We pray that we also will live out "No Greater Love" in our lives as well.  All Praise be to God. He gets all the Glory!
This concludes our blog- Czech Mission Trip Out...

Saturday, April 12
This morning our team was able to sleep in before heading back to Prague. We packed up all our things from the Community Center in Sedlecany and moved back into our hotel rooms in the big city where we will spend today and Sunday. Although we spent a day here at the beginning of the trip, to be quite honest most of us don't remember much because we were still adjusting to the jet lag- ha! Now, it's time for us all to enjoy time in Prague. Our team dropped off our luggage and headed into the meeting room for lunch and some orientation about riding the metro around the city. Then we were given our bus passes and tickets for the day to enjoy the Prague Castle Complex. 

The weather was beautiful today! A little history about the Prague Castle is the largest castle complex in the world with an area of almost 70,000 square meters. We also walked and visited St. Vitus Cathedral and walked the oldest bridge, Charles Bridge

After all of those steps we were ready for dinner of Czech Dumplings Housekove Knedliky (meat, gravy & dumplings). It was a beautiful time of celebration for all that the Lord did for us in Sedlecany this past week- Cheers to an amazing day, week & team that the Lord put together!  We look forward to worshiping with the our Czech brothers and sisters on the Lord's Day tomorrow.

For those interested, here's accommodations of the the community center where we stayed in Sedlecany. The center contained a full kitchen, 2 dining rooms, a large entry way and large great room, 5 washrooms, 2 shower rooms, 10 bedrooms- 5 of those bedrooms were large rooms that could sleep 2-4 people per room. 

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Friday, April 11. Well, here we are it's Fri YEAH! Our team cannot believe that a week ago we began this journey to the Czech Republic. We've had emotional mixtures full of fun, frustration (from time to time for each team member), flexibility, and now the finality- the final day in the classroom with our students. Today our students and us as the teachers needed to flex and teach at another school campus today because the 16-18 year olds were participating in standardized testing. The good news was that this campus was much closer to our lodging at the community center and so we were able to sleep in just a tad bit more this morning. We began the day with our team devotions. I, Denise your daily blog writer had the privilege of leading the team this morning. We read from Zephaniah 3:17 "The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over you with singing." I reminded the team that knowing God fiercely protects and delights in us should give us peace especially when we face unfamiliar environments. His protective LOVE provides a refuge and safe place no matter what challenges or fears we may encounter. I encouraged our team to boldly rely on God's presence & protection while rejoicing (even through maybe a few tears of good-bye today) in the security of His presence not only for us but for our students that we will be leaving behind in Sedlcany. 

  Today's english topics were Camping because Czech's love nature ( yes, their country is full of nature) and Culture.  We began the day with discussing english vocabulary words and played the game, Headbands. Oh my goodness, they loved this game. We as their teachers are so proud of the improvement and confidence in their english since Monday. The students were engaging with one another and really practicing. Although every once in a while we would have to remind the class "this is english class, english only please."  Then our class went into an Indirectly direct discussion about how could all this the nature come about, was it chance? luck? fate? or could their be a Higher Being with Intelligent Design at work? We encouraged the students to think through these questions. A few students agreed that nature could not have "just happened" and that there MUST be someone who MADE it all.  Sherry and I encouraged our students to come back this afternoon for our last afterschool activity. 

After our twenty minute morning break, we began our discussion about Culture. Sherry and I wanted to bring in traditions and values. Since the Easter holiday is soon approaching, we decided to focus on how we in America celebrate Easter. We shared that Easter is a celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son from the dead.  We explained that this is called "Passion Week" for us beginning with last Sunday called Palm Sunday where God's Son rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey while the people celebrated His entrance with Palm Branches then a week later the same people killed God's Son; He died and was buried on a Friday. Then on Sunday, God raised His Son from the dead. This is why we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of God's Son from the dead. We also shared that we have the symbol of the Easter egg and how we hide the eggs. Then we asked the Czech students how they celebrate Easter. The students shared that they celebrate Easter on Monday. Boys gather branches and braid colorful ribbons together. Then they go from house to house, whipping girls so that they stay healthy and young all year round. The boys in return receive colorful eggs and chocolate as a reward for their whipping. This is called Sibacka (we as a team were already prepared in our training time about this). The girls shared how much they hate this tradition and don't like being whipped while some of the boys like this tradition, there were a few boys that did not necessarily enjoy this celebration and agreed that they like the American Easter celebration instead. We also had a discussion about freedom & dreams. I asked the student if they had the freedom to dream in the Czech.  One very brave student, who really didn't talk much at all during the week, raised their hand and boldly shared that they like America better because we have the freedom to dream BIG. I'll just let that one sink in. We finished our last day with a time of reflection and encouragement for our students. Sherry and I wrote each student a note of encouragement and invited them to come back to the community center this afternoon for Games and snacks.

This was our fun colorful english conversation board at the school promoting our afternoon activities. Students could write notes to us and we as teachers could write notes to them.

Our afternoon activities were a BLAST. Sherry and I taught our students to play "Mexican Train" with the Dominos. We also played Skipbo with other students as well. We so enjoyed interacting one last time with them before we leave tomorrow back to Prague. We had about seven student come to our event and four of them allowed us to pray for them individually. The prayer of our hearts is for our students is that they would know the Savior is Present and He LOVES them Deeply.

It was the first of "lasts" for our team- last day with our students in the classroom, last day doing afternoon activities, our last day in Sedlcany, tomorrow we will pack up and head back to Prague. We will enjoy a wonderful day sightseeing tomorrow in Prague. But for now we will say good night & sleep. 

Thursday, April 10
Well we cannot believe that it's Thursday already. Our team agrees, "the hours are long but the days are short" on a mission trip. We are tired but joyfully working by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are experiencing God's sufficient grace and His grace is ENOUGH.
We began the day with our team devotions. This morning Mark led us in 1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does no boast, it is not proud."  We were reminded that God's love waits, guides and encourages us even when we fall off track! oh boy! haven't we all fallen off track from time to time and yet God's love is patient and He never gives up on us. We were encouraged to look for opportunities to display God's love even in moments of frustration. We all agreed that there have been moments when frustration has set in this week whether it be with an english lesson that didn't go as expected or with a student who seems uninterested or disagreeable and maybe possibly with a teammate. In any of these cases, this Scripture reminds us to trust God to use these moments to reflect His heart clearly to others. We reflected upon the question of "how we could intentionally practice this in our classrooms and with our students today ? " We each resolved that each interaction today would be an opportunity to reflect God's love.  Today's english lessons would allow us lots of intentional opportunities to do this. We are all really getting to know our students better and they are engaging with us in the classroom and with the afternoon activities. It is such a joy to see God move and work in answering our prayers.
 

   Sherry began our english lesson today discussing the food groups. She has done an excellent job of engaging and encouraging our students to practice their english. It's been a great watching Sherry work by the power of the Holy Spirit and step out of her comfort zone and serve the Lord.  Her love for the Lord and the students is evident. We saw a lot more confidence in our students and a willingness to step out and be confident. We played some really fun games to encourage conversation, categorizing and spelling. Our class discussed how to read a recipe for Nestle chocolate chip cookies and did some role playing on how to read a menu in english and order food from a restaurant. We even did a Scavenger Hunt in the classroom pertaining to food & cooking. This was done intentionally to invite the students to our after school activity. The incentive that Matt gave to the students was this, "come help your teachers at the Scavenger Hunt this afternoon around Sedlecany, the losing team's teachers do not get dinner"- WHAT?! more on that later.

Speaking of our class, Sherry and I have just adored our class. They are really a great group of hard workers. They shared with us today that they feel so much more confident in speaking english because we have shown patience and love to them and we don't scold them for making a mistake. Ah! that's exactly what our devotional was about. We smiled and let them know that we are all those things because we serve a HIGHER Being who is patient, kind and loving to us even when we make mistakes. We have also used this phrase all week with our students when they get frustrated or make a mistake that needs correction to help them, w say, "english is HARD BUT not impossible" and this makes them smile and just take a deep breath. 

Here is our amazing class. We must take this time to have you notice our feet. You see in the Czech Republic, you have outside shoes and house shoes. When you come in from the outside, you must take off your outside shoes and put on your slippers or house shoes. And yes, this also occurs in the schools. In fact when we walk into the school, there are two large locker rooms, right side for the girls and left side for the boys this is where you place your jacket and outside shoes to change into your house shoes.  And you don't have to worry about anyone stealing your shoes, they just don't do it.  Class time was wonderful today and went by very quickly. We finished the day with a reward game of Pictionary because that has become our students favorite activity.  Our team was also given some special gift bags from the school and teachers. 

Then we had lunch and quickly went back to the community center to prepare for the SCAVENGER HUNT.
  We prepared a few SNACKS and KOLKA (soda) for the students as they arrived afterschool. Matt placed us into groups with our students and gave us a list of 25 items that we had to find in Sedlecany. The rules were simple- find all 25 items within the time limit of 1 1/2 hours and you had to take a group selfie as the proof.  Sherry and I were so excited that five of our students came. We called ourselves, TINY BUT MIGHTY.  The goal was to use this time to have intentional gospel centered conversations. We had a wonderful time talking, running, talking, running and finding all 25 items and seeing all of Sedlecany. Guess what? Our team came in FIRST place!  This was so much fun, but the better story was that one of our students came specifically for the scavenger hunt to help so that we would receive dinner. In fact when coming to the community center, this student let us know that their father was a good cook and he would cook us dinner if we lost! Ah! don't you love that. 

Here's Matt and one of our students calculating our team total and making sure that we found all 25 items. Our team won a TROPHY and you guess it, a large CANDY of their choice.

Then we had more snacks and soda for the students while spending time talking with them. We let them know that we pray for them every night and will continue to pray for them even after we leave. Two of our students let us know that they have never had anyone pray for them and that this made them very happy. They wanted to talk more about that but had to go home and finish up homework. Would you as the reader, please pray for J, A, E, AA & L for us? Pray that the Lord will bring them back tomorrow for our last afternoon activity. Pray specifically that we will have the chance to physically Pray with them so they can experience God's love and care for the first time. Then we headed out for dinner (yes, everyone received dinner- ha! We have been eating really good on this trip) Afterwards, our team was invited to a special Czech movie (with English subtitles) at the local theater. It was a late night but super fun experience. Our team is tired BUT Full of God's abundant grace. Until tomorrow- Ciao!

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Wednesday, April 9th- well it's "hump day" or the middle of the week for our team. The team woke up needing a little bit more coffee/tea as our afternoon with the students would begin promptly after lunch because the school lets out earlier on Wednesdays. This morning our teammate Trinity led us in team devotions. She shared about God's giving love through a passage of Scripture that we are all familiar with- John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." The generosity of God is amazing that He would love us so deeply to send His one and only Son so we can have eternal life. This is a very impactful verse for anyone who has ever been on a mission trip because you experience God's amazing love of the world when you go into other parts of the world and leave the comforts and easy of home. We each thought about the ways we as the english teachers can reflect God's generous love in the Czech Republic. Trinity reminded us that we are all giving generously of our time, resources, kindness and simply being fully present in the classroom and the afterschool activities with our students. Every act of generosity can show others the incredible giving of God's love to those who do not know Him.
Speaking of teachers, our team had the chance to meet the english teachers at the school as well as the Administrators. They expressed their gratitude for us as "english experts" being here this week and the great opportunity for their students. Each teacher will sit in on our english classes tomorrow for a bit. 

    Let me share with you about Nadia. She's the one in the middle with the bright smile & glasses. She is a teacher at the school & has been an amazing host this week. Our team has felt so welcomed each morning when she greets us. She makes us a coffee, cappuccino or latte during our first break so we can have energy and checks in with us to see if we need anything.  We have all really enjoyed getting to know her this week. Remember our why? part of our time in the schools is helping our missionary Matt begin to make spiritual conversations & connections in Sedlecany. We've been praying a lot for her and our desire is that we are displaying God's amazing love through our words and actions.
      Today's english lessons surrounded the topics sports and health. The students enjoyed learning english vocabulary words. We played a game called "swat it" with our english vocabulary words. The students loved this game because we used fly swatters for them to identify the health words. Most of the games we play are competitive as the students I mentioned are ages 12-16. And yes, CANDY was definitely involved along with the phrase, "english only please".  Our team agreed that the students are beginning to come "out of their shells" and are feeling more comfortable talking and interacting with us. Sherry had this great idea to make invitations for our students to invite them to the afternoon activities that are planned for the rest of the week. Our students loved getting these personal letters and many of our other team mates did some creative advertising for our afternoon events. Sherry and I tried to be very intentional to bring in some gospel centered words throughout the day. Denise shared a brief bit of her testimony to the class during her sport lessons. She shared that sports is where she learned that there was a HIGHER BEING WHO LOVED her and her identity was never about achieving her in sport but instead was rooted in a perfect love established before the foundation of the world. Denise and Sherry both reiterated that if any of the students wanted to learn more about this LOVE, to please come to the afternoon activities. We both pray that seeds have been planted for the future.

    After our english lessons for the day, we had lunch in the school cafeteria (lentils & rice) and then we headed down to the gymnasium for our afterschool activities at the school. This was a great strategy to get more students to come as many take buses back to the their villages. Some ride the public bus for over an hour to get to school. Our team enjoyed seeing so many of our students come to the gym to play games. We taught the Czech's some American games like Dodge ball & Telephone while the students taught us their Czech version of dodge ball (yes, it's different) and handball (yes, it's different too and uses a volleyball net) . Matt led a "camp game" that they play for their english camps each summer called "Ship & Land". All we can say is that there was a lot of running, dropping and other antics involved & tons of laughter. We also just got some one-on -one time with our students. Our team agreed that we burned a lot calories and were ready for dinner of Ovocne Khediky (fluffy dumplings with fruit- blueberries, apricot or forest fruit which were mixed berries). Ah, yummy! they were amazing and tasted so good after all the fun today. And yes, Czech pronounces all the letters in their words. We will you with pictures from our delicious dinner tonight. Thank you for those who are reading this blog. We would ask that you continue to pray for our team as finish up our last two teaching days. Ciao!

This morning our team woke up to the clean fresh morning air of Sedlecany ready for another fun day of teaching.  We began the morning with our team devotional. Jaimie lead us in reading Isaiah 43:1 "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you: I have summoned you by name; you are mine."  Our team was challenged to remember that God's love is personal. How incredible is it that the God of the universe knows us personally, calls us by name, and claims us as His own? We were challenged today in the classroom to remember that God loves our students- they are not just another face in the crowd; they are uniquely cherished by Him even though many of our students do not believe in God. God has redeemed each one of them and all they need to do is BELIEVE & RECEIVE Him. We all agreed to commit this day of teaching of being intentional with our students to show each one of them how they are individually seen and valued by God. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, our personal touch of His love can change everything.  Our fun topic of the day centered around travel with the topics of America & Texas.

Oh this was going to be a fun day. Sherry started off our lessons helping our students learn more about our country America. Students learned about Washington DC and some of the national monuments and their importance. She did an excellent job with lots of good extra research on her own. Our students were fully engaged and enjoyed the discussion and asking questions while practicing their English.  Then we discussed travel. Students practiced their English conversation within situations that they may encounter while traveling by airplane. They had a lot of fun role playing and reading. Sherry and I were impressed on how much english they could read. 

Then after our break, we moved into our fun discussion of TEXAS. Oh boy this was the highlight of the day! From learning Texas vocabulary words, playing Texas BINGO & Pictionary to learning and singing "Deep in the Heart of Texas", our students had a blast. They all agreed that Texas is a BIG FUN place and they would all love to visit. Our students work diligently and we noticed a bit more talking and engagement with the lesson today. At the very end of class, we invited our students to come to our Afterschool Game Time activities at the Community Center. We enjoyed a great Czech lunch of Ratatouille and headed back to prepare for the afternoon of board games and SNACKS. 

Oh did we mention that we hand out CANDY to our students throughout our lessons as incentives to practice their English. Yeah, it really works. 

Afternoon game time was a blast. Our missionary Matt said that normally a few show up for the first day but more would come as the week goes on. We prayed that the Lord would send us at least 15 students for the afternoon and guess what? We had 33 students come that afternoon! We prepared loads of SNACKS and Soda for them to enjoy as we set up tables and chairs around the great room at the community center. We learned very quickly that their favorite snack are PRINGLES. The games the students loved were UNO, Dominos, Spoons, & Monopoly. After about an hour of playing games, Matt took a few minutes and shared with the students about God's love for them. He encouraged the students to ask us the teachers about this special kind of LOVE. We are continuing to pray that the Lord allows us as a team to have those gospel centered conversations during these afternoon activities. We ask you as the reader to allow the Lord to guide us in this experience and to be BOLD for the gospel. May we remember the personal touch of His love can change everything. 

After the afternoon activities, our team cleaned up and headed to a local restaurant for dinner. Then we prepared our lessons for tomorrow and are headed to bed so we can be well rested. Most of our team is finally over the jet lag and able to sleep through the night. Tomorrow we anticipant our English lessons with Sports and Health topics along with our afterschool program of gym time games. We have been in awe of the Lord bringing Unity and Connection for our team. Please continue to pray for this and another wonderful day of teaching tomorrow as we are half way through our week. Thanks for continuing to read - Ahoj!

Today was an exciting day for everyone on the team as this was our first day in the classroom. We began our day with a team devotional. We were reminded of God's unconditional love as we read Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were sinners, Christ died for us."  The team agreed that we were grateful for His unconditional love towards each of us personally and asked that the Holy Spirit would fill us today with His love and have it naturally pour out onto everyone around us both with the team, in our classroom with our students and interactions within and around Sedlecany. 

Sherry and I were ready to meet our students. We had sixteen Tercie Beta (13/14) year olds for the week. We were super excited to meet our students and begin our teaching lessons. We enjoyed a brisk cool walk to the school from the community center & saw a few snow flurries. The town of Sedlecany was bustling with people getting to school and work for the first day of the week. It was so nice to see all the shops and bakeries open for business as everything was closed yesterday. Then we were at the school. The first thing we learned was that in Czech you don't wear our outside walking into schools and homes, so you must carry a pair of indoor shoes with you. As soon as we entered the school, we took off our outside shoes and wore our "slippers" or indoor shoes. Our team agreed that this was pretty nice and we could get use to wearing our "slippers" to work. After a brief tour of the school, we headed to our classroom and anxiously awaited to meet our students.

The school bell rang for second class and then we welcomed our students. There were six teaching teams of two from our group. Ages of the students ranged from boys and girls sedkuna alfa & beta (12/13 year olds); Tercie alfa & beta (13/14 year olds) and kvarta alpha & beta (14/15 year olds). Then the lessons began for the day at 8:55 am with four small teaching breaks in between concluding before lunch at 12:35 pm. Our teaching topic was learning about our students, their families & friends. We had various assignments, lessons, games and group projects and we interacted with them.  Everyone on the team agreed that our first day was loads of fun and that teens are the same even all the way around the world. We did have a few funny stories- one classroom the girls prior to school that morning tried to pierce their ears in the bathroom. Several students wanted to take "selfies" and many students wanted a career as teachers, doctors, nurses and social media influencers!  

After our classes we enjoyed lunch at the school and then headed back to the community center. This afternoon we were able to relax, walk the town, enjoy a coffee & pastry or just rest.  Beginning tomorrow afternoon and for the rest of the week, we will have afternoon activities with the students. This is our chance to really get to know not only our students but the other students at the school. It is here at these special activities that we have the opportunity not only to show God's love but to share about Him as well. We ask that you pray for amazing gospel centered conversations & connections. Then this evening our team enjoyed a lovely home Czech dinner of potatoes and vegetables. Afterwards, we prepared our lessons for tomorrow and Wednesday. We look forward to tomorrow and all that the Lord will do in us and through us. We've included some more pictures of our teammates in the other classes as well. Enjoy

Sunday, April 6= Today was our first full day on the ground. Our team woke up from our first full night of rest. We were ready to get started. We began the day with breakfast and then our first team meeting before we traveled Sedlecany. Matt challenged our team by saying "God does the biggest work when we are uncomfortable while we put others first.". We were asked to focus on our team "why", why are we were in the Czech Republic? Well, simply put, our team agreed that our why was three fold: we were using an English conversation program in the public school to connect the staff & students to the local Czech Church; to support our missionaries, Matt & Patty and their local church and most importantly share and show God's love.  Then our team did some "get to know" questions and jumped right into cultural differences and how this would come into play while in the classroom. Here's just a few to make you ponder:

• Czech's don't smile; they are private and very much keep to themselves
• Czech's live in a beer culture- they are known for their beer. Drinking beer is much cheaper than water and.
• Czech life is one that is NOT about the "rush". They ENOY life, love nature- hiking, biking and skiing.
• Czech biggest meal of the day is LUNCH. They typically eat desserts for dinner. Two of the famous dishes are palacinky (crepes) and ovocne khediky (dumplngs with fruits)- hmm yeah, we all agreed we could get on board with that last one!
• Czechs aren't religious but spiritual. As mentioned before in another blog post, when referring to Christianity, it's best to reference God in the Creator (Elohim) context first not with Jesus first because Czechs only see Jesus as the "baby Jesus". 
• as far as our students, cussing is acceptable and that we were not to be surprised while in the classroom. why? because most of the english that the Czech students are exposed to is from films, tv series & social media. Because english is not their native language, they look at cussing as adjectives and don't consider it unacceptable & or rude even though they would never cuss in Czech. Ah! plus we are teaching in middle school- all middle schoolers despite their cultural differences express these freedoms anyway.

How do the Czech's think about Americans? well, they believe that all Americans are loud & rich, & highly educated. They believe that education is linked to richness. This is why coming to a public school as the english expert allows us the opportunities to do what we are doing this week. After learning about these cultural differences, we packed up and headed onto the bus for Sedlecany. It was a beautiful drive with lots of scenery and acres of land. We arrived at this beautiful town and settled into the community center where we will be staying for the week. Our team settled into our rooms and then prepped our lessons for Monday. Then we walked over a restaurant for some authentic Czech food. It's Sunday, so the town is super quiet and most of the stores are closed so families can enjoy time together. Our team agreed that we can't wait to see the hustle and bustle of the town tomorrow as we begin. Then we got ourselves ready for bed so we could begin our first full day of teaching. I'll leave this post with a few pictures of our team meeting. Please pray for us tomorrow as we begin teaching in the classroom. Our lessons will be about getting to know our students & their families. We look forward to all that the Lord will do with our "why". As always on a mission trip, "Flexibility is the BEST ability". Thanks for reading.

Here's a few pictures of our team meeting in Prague before we headed to Sedlecany

For you "foodies" out there- Beef Tartar, a local Czech cuisine dish.

We began our journey as a team on Friday, April 4. As we've shared before, our team is comprised of four different groups of people coming together as ONE for this week in Czech. Our Dallas team of five meet at DFW to begin the process of checking in our bags and supplies to board our plane to Frankfurt and then onto Prague. The other part of team of three were coming from Florida via Munich and meeting us in Prague. We were praying and hoping for eight total and God came through with twelve of us from different ages and stages of life to ministry in Czech as ONE. Our Dallas team got to experience unity and connection right away because Lufthansa's electronic system was down and everything stopped. What normally takes about 45 minutes to check in your group and bags took over two hours! Mackenzie our fearless leader was amazing and the counter agents had to do everything "old school" with pen and paper! Anytime you are on a mission trip, you are told to expect delays and be flexible. This was one of those times so our team made the most of this opportunity to connect with one another as we waited. We were already seeing God work in amazing way. We enjoyed getting to know each other better and ask questions and even engage with the people around us. One bonus to this delay was that going through security was really fast and as you can imagine due to this delay so was our flight. Again, we saw God's faithfulness in answering prayer for more connection with teammates over some good Chick fil a lunch. Our team was finally able to board, and God answered our prayers with no severe weather. Though there was flood watches and weather around us at the time we took off, God calmed the skies for us to take off and we had a great smooth ride to Frankfurt and we made our connection to Prague.
When we arrived in Prague, we were grateful that all the bags and supplies made it. We meet the missionary with Teach Beyond, Matt Schonhoff and we were off to the hotel to check into our rooms and then take a walk to enjoy the city of Prague, have some coffee and explore the Easter markets. After our walk tour, we meet the rest of our team for dinner and had a delicious meal before heading to bed to catch up on sleep and adjust to the time change of six hours. Tomorrow we will begin culture classes and lesson preparations before heading to Sedlucany, the village of 7,000 where we will be teaching.

You can also find more pictures each day on our Facebook Instagram page: friscobiblemissions

Just before He was arrested, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. His prayers were very intense and sorrowful, but the apostles all fell asleep, numerous times. Jesus said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners” (Matthew 26:45). At the last supper, Jesus had said to all His disciples, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me,” (Matthew 26:31). John reports, “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your home, You will leave me all alone” (John 16:31). So, when Jesus was arrested, everyone, including “all the disciples deserted Him and fled”  (Matthew 26:55).

When Jesus was taken before Caiaphas, the high priest, Peter alone followed at a distance right into the courtyard and sat down with the guards to see the outcome of Jesus’ trial. While he was sitting there, a servant girl came to Peter and asked him if he wasn’t with Jesus. He replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” (Matthew 26:70) Then he went out to the gateway and another servant girl said to the crowd that Peter had been with Jesus. Peter again denied with an oath that he didn’t know what they were talking about. After a little while,  the people standing around went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away. Then he began to call down curses and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!’” (Matthew 26:73-74) When Jesus was crucified, the only ones watching Him from a distance were many women, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, the mother of Zebedee’s sons, and John. Other than John, none of the disciples were there at the crucifixion.

All of Jesus’ disciples deserted Him. These men who had followed Jesus for three years, cut out and left Jesus behind to be killed. However, after Jesus’ death, all of the disciples, including Jesus’ brother James (who thought his brother was crazy before Jesus’ death) and Paul (who persecuted the Christians) spread to the ends of the then known countries preaching the Gospel and most of them died a martyr’s death defending Jesus Christ. What happened to make this spectacular change and what do we know about each apostle’s life after Jesus’ death?

Let's find out together...

Greetings Readers,
We'd love to share with you the lessons that our team has prepared to teach next week. Our typical schedule will be in the classroom Monday through Friday for two ninety minute lessons each day. Our prayer is that these lessons will be more than just English lessons, but an opportunity to share the gospel and invite students to the afterschool events each day.  We'd love for you to be praying alongside our team each day.

Day 1 Monday
Introductions and Names
Family and family traditions
Friends- friendship is a very difficult concept for the Czech culture. 

Day 2 Tuesday
Travel- learning about the United States and our capital
Texas- learning about our great state of TEXAS. We will also play a Texas Bingo game and teach the students the song "Deep in the Heart of Texas"

Day 3 Wednesday
Sports- learning about different sports and the english verbs
Health- learning vocabulary words associated with health & hospital. We will also play some role play games as the students practice their english.

Day 4
Food & Kitchen- We will have a fun scavenger hunt and learn about the food pyramid. We will also do some kitchen role play and learn how to read an American cookie recipe.

Day 5
Camping & Culture- we will play some games as the students learn vocabulary words. Our culture lessons will be very impactful as we discuss American customs, roles, rituals, courtesies, values and behaviors.

Prayer for Day 1-5
We are hoping that these lessons will lead us into a discussion about Jesus. Two verses continue to come to mind:
John 15:13 "No greater love has a man than this, that one lay down his life for his friend"
Romans 10:13 "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news."
Please join us in prayer for those two specific verses this next week.

With Love,
Denise & Sherry

Greetings to all of our readers. Thank you for reading. Today, we want to share with you a little background on the Czech people especially the youth that we will be working with in Sedlcany. We hope this background helps so that you can specifically pray for our team as we teach.
Czechs consider consider themselves atheist. In fact 72% of the population would claim that. The background that has led the people to this conclusion was the Thirty Year War in the 1600's. These religious wars were fought on Czech ground but never involved Czechs but other larger neighboring countries such as Germany, Poland, Austria & Hungary. Because of this, Czech's consider God to be a tyrant and would never follow an organized religion. In fact, Czech's loath organized religion and consider it to be oppressive. To them, Jesus is "baby Jesus of Christmas only" and a type of "Santa". They love to celebrate Christmas and Easter but only in the traditional secular sense. The youth and young adults believe in "Jedi"- yup that's right think Star Wars, that there is a FORCE controlling everything around them. They believe that when you die you just don't exist anymore and become non existent. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and dying for our sins means nothing to an average Czech because they don't believe that anythings happens to you when you die. Though Czech's do believe in a "hell" for really evil people but they do not believe in a heaven. Because of this ideology, life for the average Czech is HOPELESS. Czech love Americans and this is where the strategy to plant gospel seeds begins with teaching English classes. Like many Slavic countries, when you first meet a Czech, they are like COCONUTS, hard on the outside but once you gain their trust and friendship they are liquid on the inside and you become immediate family to them. Please pray that Sherry, myself and our team will quickly break through the coconut this week and have wonderful gospel centered conversations with our students, facility and the people we interact with.
Devkuji Vanm (Thank you) for praying
Denise & Sherry