The Bed Count - April

With our change in location out to BC, the numbers this month are up. We spent a lot of time on the road and got our rest on air beds, regular beds, bunk beds and under-sized futons.

February = 6
March = 5
April = 10
Total = 21

Volcanoes are Never Convenient

What Comes After a Tragedy

With a total of 96 dead, Poland's political, military and religious infrastructure has been left with a large gaps. With funerals still pending and bodies still being identified, Polish officials are already working on filling in these leadership voids. Elections are expected to take place in mid-June.

Imagine how different Poland will be as a new batch of leaders take the helm years before they would if the political process would have progressed normally. Poland could be looking very different in the near future.

It is odd for us to feel connected to an event that happened so far away, in a nation we barely know, and yet we do. Watching the news we've seen images of thousands of people lining up to pray and kneel beside the coffins of the president and first lady and our hope is that in the midst of the tragedy and the search for answers, that people discover a very real God.

Tragedy in Poland

Today a plane carrying the Polish President and 80 other prominent government officials crashed in Russia while making their way back to Warsaw to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre (where thousands of Poles were killed by Soviet forces during WWII). The Polish Prime Minister has declared this the greatest national tragedy since WWII and has established a week of mourning.

For more information you can visit the BBC's report by clicking here.

We do not live in Poland yet, but they are already on our radar, in our thought process and now we keep them in our prayers.

For Mozaika

Mozaika has been trying to purchase a piece of land in a developing part of the city. This would give Mozaika roots within the community and make it clear that they are there to stay. Over the last year Mozaika has been in negotiations with City hall regarding this parcel of land that would put them in the middle of a growing, family oriented area.

We spoke with our friend and church planter, Miro, in Nitra this week. He shared with us that City Hall has denied their request to purchase the land. The Vice Mayor, who we befriended during the I Love my City project, fought for us, but a particular party voted down the application.

Mozaika has changed locations 5 times (often not by choice), has been rejected from numerous rental applications and now this. Nitra consistently roles out the "unwelcome mat". Pray that people would not become discouraged and that God would give Mozaika and it's leadership momentum as they move forward from this.

The Bed Count - March

The count has not grown as high as we thought it would by now - but we are ok with that. The count got a good boost with Amber speaking at EMERGE in the USA and Matthew still in Canada.

February = 6
March = 5
Toal = 11

Cliches About Cliches...How Cliche!

With our upcoming transition to Poland, we've been thinking about what are the essentials of church. Our mandate is to start a community centre, but more than just pick-up hockey, it must be a place where people can come encounter God and develop a relationship with him. The question on our minds has been how do we transport the essentials of a Christian community and allow them to take shape in the context of a community centre?

By now we've all heard the expression "think outside of the box" (a cliche about cliches that has become cliche - what a kicker). Within modern Christian culture there seems to be a stigma attached to anything in the box. Personally, we are grateful for Hillsongs, Billy Graham books, the present day church and programs. After all, they helped get us to where we are today. Christians are part of a subculture with our own celebrities, vernacular, and community practices. All of these things are "in the box", but none are necessarily bad. The real challenge of thinking beyond our borders is how to take the core elements of our faith and move them outside of these now commonly found forms.

We posed this question while speaking at a youth group and it was a good dialogue - we're not pretending like we have this all figured out. Within 15 hours of this talk, God put our own words to the test as Matthew had a great time with a self-proclaimed "orthodox atheist" (because modern atheists have gotten soft and he is from the old school of atheism) and Amber shared about life and understanding God's plans with a Pakistani Muslim lady living in an arranged marriage.

Admittedly we are working on the answers to the question "what is church?", but what is clear is that God is going to take us up on this question.