As much as I love to travel, I sure love being back home and seeing my flowers blooming and sleeping in my own bed! However, Laura and I had an excellent trip! The highlight for us was getting to see our Czech friends and catching up with them and seeing what is going on in their lives.

That is the focus of this blog. I was struck by the living faith of the Czech men and their families that we met with. All of them were excited to talk about how God was directing them in their ministries. I truly believe these men are at the core of an awaited revival in the Czech Republic! These are the men that God is using now to awaken the Czech people who according to David Loula hasn’t seen their population of saved people be greater than 1% of their population since the Thirty Years War which took place from 1618-1648! When I was there, one of the Czech men gave me David Loula’s book, “Czech Wells: The Heritage of the Czech Reformation” and I love the example it gave when talking about the Czech church today. It compared the Czech church to a stump of a tree that was cut down but now has new buds forming from it. This image comes from Job 14:7-9, “For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant.” It is so exciting to see and hear about the work going on in the Czech Republic, and I hope that God will keep them on the straight path.

Compare that vigorous faith with the ornate churches we visited in the Paris and London. These churches were beautiful and took hundreds of years to build. Grand structures that are architectural wonders and are filled with gold and gems. But, they were mostly tourist attractions today. Yes, most of them still do have services that take place in them–one oddly enough while it was open for tours. (It was one of the oddest feelings I have had in some time, I paid about $27 (18 pounds) to see Westminster Abbey because I knew that it where one of my faith heroes, William Wilberforce, is laid to rest and as I am in the middle of the tour there was a communion service going on. It felt like it was almost staged.) It really made me appreciate the vibrant faith of the Czech families we have had the fortune to meet and that God is using to bring honor to His name!

More to come…
Jeremy