Beautiful People with Beautiful Stories – pt. 2

So, about Jozef.

After the church trip was ending, our coordinator, Heather, indicated that Jozef was going to be traveling to the Czech Republic to represent Slovakia in a big Christian ministry conference and would need a place to stay in Bratislava for the night. Since my roommate was off working with one of TWR’s partner ministries out in Portugal for the month, I obviously agreed to host him.

The ride home was a bit tricky, since he spoke very, very little English. He still managed to communicate his testimony for those of us riding in the car. He has a very powerful testimony, one that details Christ’s victory over his life of sin, struggle with homosexuality, and many other things. When we were walking to go get dinner that evening, he told me of how God saved him from that lifestyle of sin and spent years cleaning and refining his heart. He showed me a picture of his fiancé, a beautiful blonde girl, and quickly informed me of the obvious: she was not a Roma. He told me how it was difficult being accepted by his fiancé’s family. For those of us from the US, think of it as something like interracial marriage many years ago. A lot of people still have some hard feelings regarding this kind of a relationship. But Jozef didn’t need to convince me. They were both waiting for marriage. He was passionate about Christ and serving to His glory on this earth. I didn’t need convincing, but Jozef made a strong case in his soft, loving words. I could tell in the way he said it, the way he smiled about it. God is good and was unfolding some beautiful blossom before them (and me).

We weren’t really able to communicate on too much of a deep level because of the language barrier, but I did what I could to try and make him feel welcome and safe for the night he’d spend with me. When we woke up the next morning, I asked if I could get a picture with him so I could ask people back home to remember to pray for him, his ministry, and the other Christians he serves with. So here I am, posting this picture:
After he left, I hugged him and wished him well. I wished I could have spoken with him more. He had a beautiful, tender spirit and I still wished I could have had the time to know him better.

So, that was in May. This evening, September 5th, Jozef and his now bride, Julia, made an appearance on Slovak national television. National television!

A fellow Christian in the village back where they served had written in to this television show that tries to help bless people and help them with whatever they are struggling with. It’s kind of like a Slovak Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, only without the home part. She and her village wanted to bless Jozef and Julia with a honeymoon somewhere nice, but had absolutely no way to afford something like that.

Whether it was by God’s grace, the compassion of the show producers, or the producers smelling good ratings with a controversial episode, they were blessed to be selected. This Slovak film crew came out to Cinobaňa to film them, get to know them, and show where they lived and worked. Essentially, this was the storytelling stuff for the tv show.

As all producers on a major network seem privy to do, they spent a lot of time focusing on Jozef’s past in homosexuality. This actually turned out to be huge, though, because their entire episode turned into them preaching the Gospel and testifying of how God had changed them. Sure, the whole show was in Slovak, but some friends were loosely translating as we went along. It was awesome! I couldn’t stop smiling, and I usually despise these kinds of shows. Jozef spoke about his past, how God found him and changed him, and Julia spoke of how they believe in purity before marriage. It was so awesome. The show host and some of the live audience were getting visibly and audibly uncomfortable.

The show came out and filmed the whole wedding for Jozef and Julia in August. My friend, Heather, went out to see them get married. I would have loved to go, but I was just that stranger that admires from afar.

I managed to snap some shots of them getting married. Strangely enough, they got married in this church in a nearby town that I played bass for back in May. Here are some poor cell phone pictures of the TV that a bunch of us were watching:

The film crew then followed them around and sent them to Turkey for a beautiful and expensive honeymoon. Even there, they had these long moments of only speaking about God and how Christ had changed their lives. Even though we were watching this show about two people getting married, virtually none of it was them talking about themselves. God bless those two.

After the wedding and honeymoon, they all came to Bratislava to shoot the actual show in the television studio. A bunch of the friends and family from Cinobaňa were in the audience. I recognized a lot of their faces. Here is a shot of Jozef and Julia with two of the Christians helping minister in Cinobaňa:

The show host and the producers spent a pretty inordinate amount of time focusing on Jozef’s dark past rather than expounding upon any other element of his life, work, and ministry. Quite frankly, it made me angry. This is the exact reason why I hate shows like this. Producers and show hosts are out for blood, trying to milk every bit of any controversial detail from something for the sake of ratings or sheer controversy. My already short temper for these kinds of things was getting awfully close to being set off. I think all of us watching the show were praying that the show wouldn’t try to use its slick editing to manipulate the testimonies of these Christians into something it was never intended to be.

When speaking in front of the audience, Jozef’s past in homosexuality was again brought up and, again, he and Julia spoke with authority and confidence that I can only assume was a blessing from the Holy Spirit. They handled the show host’s ignorance and willful refusal to understand or validate their claims as legitimate with grace and slight wit. The show host flagrantly disagreed with their beliefs about sin and homosexuality, going on his own rant that it was nature and such. Jozef and Julia gave a pretty good attempt at explaining what temptation was and how all sins are the same, regardless of what they are. They were giving the Gospel. The show host was quick to try and shut this down and went out into the crowd to ask for other people’s opinions. I was ready to explode. I saw the train coming off the tracks, as some idiot was unhappy with being confronted with a reality he didn’t agree with and was trying to turn the crowd against them. Keep in mind that this show was supposed to be about blessing them by giving them a nice wedding and a wonderful honeymoon. It was more of a debate about morality and sin. My skin was going hot with anger.

Thankfully, though, when going out to the crowd, the show host handed the mic to another one of the guys that works with Jozef in his ministry out in Cinobaňa. I met the guy. You may recognize him from the picture in part 1 of these blog posts.

I never knew his name, but he was a blessing. He affirmed Jozef’s grace and mercy towards him when he had nothing and nowhere to go. It was beautiful, even in the midst of a jumbled English translation of a Slovak television show. You could see the conviction on his heart. God bless that guy.

So, anyway, in all of this ridiculousness, there was such a glorious opportunity to be the Gospel on Slovak national television. Do you have any idea how huge that is? They just preached Christ. On national television. On a popular channel. Channel 3. I am beside myself with how amazing of an opportunity that was. And, to Jozef and Julia’s righteousness, they did not squander it one bit, even for their wedding, which they already said was preserved as a testimony to God’s glory.

Maybe I’m a sentimentalist, but I find this all so precious.

Here they are, singing together on national TV

I’m spitting proud. Who knew that the stranger I could barely communicate with in English would have such a massive opportunity to serve Christ and present the Gospel to the entirety of Slovakia?

Strange how God has a way of blessing you through the beautiful lives of other beautiful people.

Beautiful People with Beautiful Stories Pt. 1

A few weeks after I first came to Bratislava, I was given the opportunity by a coworker and some friends I met when I first visited Slovakia in 2010 to go on a church trip to South Central Slovakia. The church group was actually a combination of two churches. One, an international Baptist church from Vienna, Austria and the other, the international Baptist church in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Our purpose for going on this church trip was to help with some manual labor and do some community outreach in a place called Cinobaňa (See-no-bonn-ya). Cinobaňa is host to a large Roma community and my friend, Heather, has been really passionate about trying to support local Christians in their ministry to fellow Roma. They are particularly heavily involved in mentoring, tutoring, and living the Gospel to the younger kids in this village.

In order for me to try and explain to you the significance of their ministry and the reason why it’s so special that we got to be a part of this, you must know a little more about them. The Roma people are also known as gypsies, though this is a derogatory term and, unfortunately, the more common name for them. I won’t go too much into the history of this people group, but Roma is a subgroup of Romani people originating from northern India who are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Central and Eastern Europe.

Behind the Jews, Hitler’s hatred for the Roma people earned them the horrific title of being the second most populous victims during the holocaust. Much like the Jews, their hatred and discrimination is nothing new. Persecution has carried on for quite some time. Common stigma associated with the Roma is that they are thieving, unclean, alcoholic, and conniving individuals looking to take advantage of the government’s socialist welfare systems. While I am here to try and give you as accurate depiction as I can, I also recognize that there are always truths in stereotypes. There are always bad eggs in the large batches. Being from the Southern US, I certainly get labeled with all kinds of rude, though sometimes true, stereotypes.

For a number of reasons, the Roma have been and still continue to be a popular center of controversy. Because of their migratory behavior and extremely unique culture, they are often singled out by hate groups as problems and a scourge upon Europe. Discrimination is quite normal in this region of Europe. A combination of generational poverty, cultural misleading, and political, economic, and educational prejudice has brought about very serious hardships on these people. In Slovakia, unemployment among the Roma was estimated at over 80%. I find that astounding and horrible. As a result, the poverty that results from unemployment feeds back into the cycle of raising another generation of people to be alienated from education, political status, and fair wages.

Thus, you can see why something so simple as tutoring kids with homework is such a huge deal. In this community, it’s quite common that the parents mock the child for trying to learn and do homework. They are ridiculed for getting an education. The Christians living and ministering in Cinobaňa were there to try and provide these kids with help so that they can break free from the chains of generational poverty and, hopefully, recognize the love of Christ while doing so. This small group of Christians in this community were so beautiful. They were there with clear, Godly purpose to live life with these people and be Christ to them. Beautiful.

One of the leaders in this ministry to Cinobaňa was a guy named Jozef. Jozef was a soft-spoken, respectful, and handsome man. Though quiet, he knew exactly how to interact with children. He had all the confidence he needed to lead these children around all day and night. I didn’t get to speak to him much while I was there, since I was helping some of the manual labor guys from the churches with rebuilding a playground for some kids. Here is a picture of Jozef:

We helped install a heavy duty steel swing set (the kind you used to see back when America made things to last), sand away rust on some playground obstacles and slides and paint them over again.

In the afternoon, we set up a bunch of inflatable slides and jumping houses for the kids to come play on. Those that didn’t want to jump on the inflatables had the opportunity to go get their faces painted or other arts and crafts-related things. As for the older guys, I joined with a few of the younger guys from the churches to play soccer and basketball with the older kids. It was awesome. Extremely hot. I ripped my jeans big time in the crotch while playing goalie. I guess I deserved it. It was my second pair of jeans to bite the dust since I came to Slovakia. It was so nice being energetic with the kids. They were so much more in shape than any of us, but there was so much joy in the exhaustion.

Here is a picture of one of the guys in that group of Christians living in Cinobaňa and ministering to the community. Note the tattoo on his left arm:

I know I say this a lot when I talk to people or write blog posts, but I cannot convey to you just how beautiful these people were. The kids were absolutely stunning. Every single person I encountered there had eyes to make your heart stop. Dark skin, dark hair, and the most gorgeous, colorful eyes. I cannot convey to you just how awe-inspiring it was. I’m a people watcher at heart, so I love to appreciate things about every person. Perhaps that plays a part in my enjoyment of photography.

I would have taken pictures during this time, but I did not feel it appropriate to haul out my camera gear to take pictures of them. Me, a complete stranger, and a Westerner at that, flourishing my expensive camera around to take pictures of them. I didn’t want to give them the idea that I was either flaunting my wealth or taking advantage of them by taking pictures of them. I really wish I could have taken pictures, though, because all I saw was truly unique beauty. The kind of unfettered beauty that so many people miss out on. Sure, there were tattoos, piercings, and all kinds of abnormal stuff, but it was so precious and unique.

I helped play bass for the community outreach program in the town later that evening. It was a time for drama skits, dances, music, and testimony to speak the very communal Roma village. In the back room, we had set up a giant banquet of food and drinks for the community to come and take. It was a gesture of love and sincerity. The kids swarmed it.

My time there was excellent.

The entire point of me writing this post was to actually talk about Jozef, but I felt that you needed to have some context before you would understand the gravity of what came next.

Freakstock 2012: Pt. 1

On Wednesday, August 1st, my roommate, Paul, and I headed off in our rented Fiat Panda from Bratislava, Slovakia all the way to Borgentreich, Germany.
Our drive, at around nine hours long, was awesome. Windows down, driving with no set speed limit on the Autobahn, music blasting. The scenery was beautiful; there were seemingly endless fields of corn, sunflowers, and massive walls of forested areas. Beauty was as abundant as the ecstasy of driving with no speed limit.

Once our nine hour drive was up, we arrived at Freakstock and set up the tent some fellow missionaries lent us. At this, I failed miserably. I was rescued by two friendly German ladies living in Zurich, Switzerland. They were awesome. Paul and I quickly became friends with them. They also came to Freakstock far more prepared than we did. They had eating utensils, a stove, plates and cups. All around, those girls showed us up. To their credit, they saved us with their generosity. Sure, Paul and I brought groceries and water, but these girls fed us, gave us things to drink, and let us share their plates, silverware, and cups. They were such a blessing to us, even if it was embarrassing for me.

At the festival, I also met up with several of my old Dutch friends from years ago. It was extremely good to see them, catch up, and see what God is doing in their lives. It was so good for my heart to hear the Dutch language spoken, as I have a strange affection for it and the people that speak it.

Paul and I were sent there to gather video interviews from different people about the issue of reconciliation. What is reconciliation? What does it mean to you? Have you experienced reconciliation with God, yourself, or others? What is necessary in order for forgiveness to happen?

The purpose for these interviews is to create a video or series of videos that expound[s] upon the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation. This video is to be used next year for a massive partner’s conference in which a vast majority of our European partner ministries will attend to discuss the theme of reconciliation. Our part in this is to help give them a look into the differing views on reconciliation. This is a pretty huge task, but a very important one, one that I am so glad to be able to help with.

The video interviews were especially difficult to shoot for a number of reasons. We were at an alternative Christian festival in Germany, with the vast majority of attendees being German. Finding English speakers was difficult, let alone English speakers that would be able to understand and answer our questions in a coherent manner. This was a lot tougher than I had predicted.

After a few failed attempts to interview some Germans, sure enough, true to form, my Dutch friends came in to help. As the Dutch are well-known for being adept with understanding and adapting to other cultures, most of the Dutch people I know are very comfortable with the English language. From personal observation, the Dutch people I’ve encountered are fluent inasmuch as to start incorporating slang and accents into their English-speaking. They are an impressive group of people to be sure.

They quickly introduced me to other Dutchmen and women to help with the interviews. This made my job a lot easier, as they felt fairly comfortable expressing themselves. That being said, the nature of the question meant that every single person I interviewed would struggle for a while to find an appropriate, honest, and relevant answer to our questions. We were asking them questions about an abstract concept in English, a second, third, or fourth language, and asking them to give a genuine answer. Pretty tall order, I’d say. But, nonetheless, they did a fantastic job. We got some eclectic answers.

We were also massively helped out by our Swiss-Germans (or German-Swiss?). Sure enough, they were willing to help answer some questions for us. We obviously didn’t want to pressure them into answering in a foreign language, so German was their language of choice. We work with a fair amount of Germans, so someone speaking in German is not an issue. Subtitles are an easy solution. What was most important in this situation, though, was hearing their original thoughts in an original way. They really did such great jobs with answering our questions. It’s been a few years since I’ve used my German, but I could lightly follow along with what they were saying. I am so thankful to God for those two girls. They were such blessings to Paul and me. Here’s a picture of them with Paul:

Pt. 2 will be continued in a separate blog post

The First Months Abroad

Here are some clips of a few of the places I’ve traveled, people I’ve come to know, and things I’ve had the chance to be a part of.

More to come, for sure!

Another Letter

Hi everyone,

I know it’s been a while since I’ve actually posted something of substance up here to read, but that void is coming to a close. If all goes well, I should be meeting up with some missionaries as they head from Budapest, Hungary to Prague, Czech Republic. They’ve been very kind and gracious to carry my laptop overseas. Saturday, June 30th, I should have a laptop that I can write more articles, edit photos from my travels so far, and post more videos I’ve made! You’re in for a lot of treats soon!

Here is a letter that had been translated for us. As I said before, my job is to monitor things that come in or go out of our area of ministry to make sure that sensitive details are omitted to protect whoever it is that sent the communication and whatever they might be involved in. My job also includes me taking the often very broken letters we receive and connecting the dots to make sure that their intentions are accurately communicated.

Aside from security, the most important thing I seek to accomplish with these letters is the accuracy and purity of their letters. Obviously, I don’t want to fill in sentences to help make the story more interesting or even more complete. No, then I would be writing the letters myself and people would be praying for imaginary people constructed by my own brain. I absolutely don’t want that. It’s an awful thing to think about. Conversely, the cool part about what I do is that I try to leave in all these little intimations of how these people feel, think, and express themselves. Even if it is grammatically or structurally incorrect. How else would people see the beauty of their stories or sincerity of their needs? So if you see things that sound awkward, misplaced, or misspoken, don’t assume it’s my error. These are their words, to the best of my efforts.

Anyway, here is a story I worked on today. These things come in very regularly, so don’t go thinking that this is me spreading propaganda in selfish efforts to support or validate the ministry I’m a part of here in Slovakia.

Letter from a Kazakh Listener

“My name is J. I’m a Kazakh in northwest China. I’m a college graduate and in my late 30s now. My family follows the local religion and ever since I was a child, I was taught that there is a God who governs all things. In the year 2000, I hit a low point in my life and my career. When I was shepherding sheep on the mountains, I used to listen to radio to search for comfort. By chance, I came across TWR’s Christian broadcast one day. I still remembered the resistance in my heart back then.

However, my heart was deeply attracted to God’s Word. On one hand, the traditional legalism of the local religion was binding my head. On the other hand, a totally new teaching and faith were challenging my heart. I was facing an intense struggle then. Eventually, I decided to just listen to it and began to take notes on the message—including portions that appealed to me and portions that I didn’t understand. I had two thick notebooks with my notes from the broadcasts. The more I listened to the message, the more I longed for His Word.

In those days, I desired for a Bible but couldn’t find one. Three months later, the broadcast was encouraging listeners to pray a sinner’s prayer, and without second thought, I followed the presenter in praying the prayer. After that, I felt total relief and a bubbling joy deep down from my heart. I had never felt this in the past; I then threw the items from my past religion into the fire. From then on, I kept listening to the broadcast. I got a Bible later and continue to read it daily.”

God is good.

Finding Food in Bratislava

Here’s a short, simple video of how we stay alive in Bratislava.

The edits are simple and there are no post-processing due to me not having a computer, so don’t judge me too much. Enjoy!

We’re hungry bachelors.