Devote Yourselves to Prayer, Being Watchful and Thankful!

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:2

Wow! Where did April and May go? We were half way through May before we realized we had not sent you an April update. We spent much of April absorbing language lessons, continuing on with my English class and Clem's street evangelism efforts, and all of us adjusting to Clem's new hours in the office.

But it wasn't until I read the verse above that I realized how much of our time in April was spent in prayer. As the dust has settled a bit and we've adjusted to our new "norm" a bit more each month, we've had time to reflect more on the vastness of how "lost" those around us are. And

we've been overwhelmed with how closed the people around us are to hearing of God's gift of salvation through His Son. How will we ever impact a city of a million with the Gospel when they don't want to know? I cannot even begin to calculate the time we have spent in prayer to God

about the lost in this city as we've commuted around the city on public transportation and walk the streets running our daily errands and traveling our normal routes. It is overwhelming to travel this city daily and be surrounded by thousands of lost people, that don't know they're lost, and you know that you can't possibly reach them all. We have found ourselves begging God to show us how to do what He has sent us to do in such a way that we can have a lasting and widespread impact on the city around us.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 God has been faithful and has heard your prayers as well as our own. He chose to move in very clear and amazing ways in the month of May and give us many open doors to form partnerships with nationals, to share His gift of salvation with some that he has put in our path since our arrival, and to strengthen some friendships and to begin to clear the path before us as we look for opportunities to share in more detail and in a more personal

context with them. "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him" 2 Corinthians 2:14

So how exactly is God choosing to work through your prayers and our family? We believe He has brought us a very solid partnership with Ondrej, the Czech missionary we have told you about

that works with Ambassadors. With Ondrej's partnership and friendship has come a beautiful new relationship between us and his church family. Ondrej invited us to visit his church and be a part of their missions and evangelism efforts as well. They have welcomed us with open arms and have accepted us as co-laborers for Christ. Through these relationships we have been invited to assist Ondrej at an English camp the middle of July (Clem will teach and the kids and I will interact with the campers during their free time). The church has invited us to join them for their week of camp/retreat time in August, and I have been invited to join the Prague Gospel Choir by it's director, who also happens to be the worship leader at the church. The church is involved with several outreach ministries that we would love to eventually become a part of. Please keep their ministries in your prayers, they're working very heard to reach out to people all over the Czech Republic with the Gospel of Christ. They are involved with drug and alcohol rehabilitation ministries, battered women and children ministries and a Roma (gypsy) ministry.

May also brought with it two very exciting opportunities, just last weekend. Many of you were praying with us for our time of fellowship last weekend and I'm very excited to share those details with you! First, we headed out for an all day hike on Saturday with Honza and Milada. As

you may remember, we were introduced to them through some mutual friends, who were also

located in Prague with the Board prior to our arrival. We've been trying to solidify our friendship with them and find a common ground/interest between us, in hopes of developing a deeper and long term relationship with them that would bring with it many open doors to discuss more personally with them their need for Christ. Well, last Saturday did just that. We had a great time with them and are now talking about taking a weekend trip with them to the southern part of the country over the summer.

After our hike with Honza and Milada we headed out for an overnight stay at the cottage of one of my English students. Tereza and her teenage daughters come every week to English class and invited us to their cottage as a way of saying "thanks". They also invited my co-teacher and her husband. This is a very rare invitation to receive and believe that last weekend with them was designed and orchestrated by God. Not only were Tereza and her girls there, but also her fiance and teenage niece. We had a great time with lots of laughs and talking. Before our arrival, one of the girls asked Sarah, my co-teacher, why their picture of Jesus in their dining room area of the cottage also contained a loaf of bread. (having pictures of Jesus displayed is not uncommon, it usually stems from their catholic roots a generation or two back) Through this question Sarah was given the opportunity to share some with them. Sarah and Clem brought their guitars and after dinner Saturday evening we sat around and played a variety of our, and their, favorite songs. Many of them were worship songs that we haven't heard since arriving, but also threw in several favorites of Tereza's like Twist and Shout! : ) To the amazement of Clem, Sarah, Matt and I, Tereza requested that they play Amazing Grace...and she and her girls sung along! Sunday we took a two hour hike. She took us to a small chapel in the woods that showed pictures of Christ's walk to the cross. This opened up a 30-40 minute discussion between Tereza and I and a full presentation of the Gospel. Also on this hike Clem had the opportunity to share the Gospel with Linda, Tereza's niece. Linda claims to be athiest, and Tereza and her girls believe in mixing several religions/belief systems together to form what they feel works best for them...much of which includes Buddhism. Please pray for these beautiful ladies by name over the coming weeks and months. They are very willing to hear what we have to say about God, Jesus and Salvation, but don't feel they need Jesus for themselves. Tereza told me that she doesn't believe she needs Jesus to get to God and heaven, that she has a natural connection with him on her own and that's all she needs to enter into her version of heaven. She also told me that she does believe in god, but not the same God that I believe in. But again, they're open to dialogue, and we're finding that that's half the battle. My next step is to challenge her to read through the book of John with me. She started to read the Bible once before but said she couldn't understand it, so she gave up. I told her I would read it with her and help her get through it. She hasn't jumped on that invitation yet, please ask God to give her the desire to read His Word, and to lift the veil that is blinding her from seeing and hearing Him speak to her.

Friday Clem and Phillip had an interesting conversation on their evangelism outing. They visited some with a women in the park and were very excited to give her a Bible. She shared with them that when she was younger she heard about God, but didn't believe that he was real. She said she would like a Bible, and that she's never read the Bible before. She was in her 60's or 70's, and it was her first encounter with the Bible. Please ask God to give her a desire and curiosity to read His Word and to open her eyes to His personal message to her.

In addition to the above prayer requests, how else can you be praying?:

* Please be praying for the English camps that we'll be attending and teaching at. Pray that we understand how God desires us to prepare for these camps. We were told today that there will

be some campers at these camps that have never even heard the name of God or Jesus...ever!

* Please pray with us as we continue to seek out who God desires us to share with and opportunities that come our way each day. Please ask Him to reveal to us how we can best reach the hundreds of thousands of people that he has placed us in the middle of.

* Pray for safe travels as we and others in our surrounding countries head to our annual meeting in a couple of weeks in Poland. We're looking forward to some relaxation and spiritual rejuvenation during our week long stay. Also pray for the many volunteers that will be coming from the States to teach, care for and love on all of our children and offer some spiritual rejuvenation to them as well.

* Praise God with us! We received the scholarship we needed for Hunter to attend the Christian international school in the Fall. He and I both agree that we have really enjoyed our extra one on one time this year as I've been allowed to teach him. And he's done great and has caught up quickly and is now where he needs to be to enter the 5th grade next fall. But we also agree that

this is an exciting opportunity for him and he is ready to have some guy friends! Apparently I'm just not that cool anymore! : )

* Please ask God to give us a happy and fun summer. School here ends the end of June, and the kids are very anxious for summer to begin!

Thank you again for lifting these requests up to our Father on our behalf! Please send us any requests that you may have that we can lift up on

your behalf. We desire to have a true partnership in prayer with you and for you!
We will be in touch soon! Until then...

With Love,
Clem, Carrie, Hunter and Allie