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Update from Vsetin
Printable Newsletters
July 2008 Issue
June 2008 newsletter from the Lighthouse Church in Vsetin, Czech Republic
Grand Opening
On Sunday May 18, 2008 the Lighthouse Church officially became an independent church (This means that we have become a new official church as far as administrative and public goes. In Czech Republic it is very important to be a part of a denomination and to be officially recognized because then people do not consider your church to be a cult. So far the church has been a part of our mother church.)
We had many guests that Sunday. It is not very common to establish a new independent church in the Czech Republic. That is why we had this Grand Opening. The president of our denomination and pastor Pavel Cerny that we appreciate very much preached in the morning. Other guests came in the afternoon together with our friends and even our town´s municipal board. Also the vice-president of the Government of the Czech Republic Jiri Cunek accepted our invitation and came with his wife (they come from Vsetin and he is our longtime friend).
Atletico 3D Run
"Dear friends, I am excited. I am excited about you and your approach to Atletico 3D Run. I am excited about God who was there with us and helped us organize an event that, I believe, could truly be 3D (develop spirit, soul and body – all start with 'd' in Czech).” – Event Manager Jiri Stanislav
We organized a racing competition for our town on the last Saturday in May. We wanted to make the Lighthouse church more known in public and build trust. It takes an enormous effort to build trust in the Czech Republic (people are afraid ofchurch, they have huge misconceptions and 65 per cent of the population is completely atheist).
Since this idea of organizing a racing event is a very new one to our town we were able to involve many of our non-Christian friends, the town of Vsetin, police department and headmasters of different high schools. The main streets in town were closed; there were tons of volunteers and organizers all over the place.
Thanks to God the afternoon focused on sports went very well, a couple hundred people came and the atmosphere was just awesome. People could see that Christians from the Lighthouse Church can prepare a great afternoon and form a part of the town’s culture. We had three main runs – a Vsetin mile, a long distance 10 km run (approx. 6,5 miles), a sprinter run and Happy mile.
The main runs were launched by the town´s mayor. Regional TV showed a video from along the tracks and the newspaper covered the event in a very positive way.
Feedback about the event:
- "It is great that such an event can happen in Vsetin. Definitely continue another year.” – town´s mayor
- "You have a great advantage in having so many volunteers.” – head of the police department
- "The organization of the event is on a very high level – somewhere between marathon in Prague and
in Vienna” – 10 km runner - "What else do you do?” – one of the sponsors
This first big public event was a great encouragement for us. Mainly because we caused people to think about God, built a great deal of trust and made quite a few friends. With God’s help we would like to organize a similar event next year.
The Bridge of English
Our English classes where we try to build friendships with new people were getting close to its end in May. The English classes moved to our new premises. We are happy that people like the new environment and that the majority wants to continue with classes after summer vacation.
The last class was quite a special one – anyone who wanted could practice his/her communication with native speakers. Johan and Mindy Alfredeen, a young couple from the MVCC church in the US, came to visit us (they are the people on the right side of the picture). We talked about their family, living in the US, nature in Colorado, place where they live, their jobs ... And then there was a chance to tell them what it looks like to live in the Czech Republic. There was also time for questions that our guests tried to answer. Thank you very much for your visit, Johan and Mindy! Please pray for our new friends so that they can know God more and trust him with their lives.
