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Raus’ Family News Letter
2003
One Year Evaluation
On July 13th we realized that we have been just for one year
back from the States. It has been for sure a good and important year. We have
been involved in many things and God has opened a lot of different doors.
Family Adjustment
It has
taken until Christmas before we felt back at home in
Prague
. After quite dramatic beginning with serious flood in the country and the
process of looking for the school for Jana in August things finally started when
girls began to go to their schools. God has opened an opportunity for Jana to
start at English speaking Christian school in
Prague
and we felt that that was a best choice even though for us rather expensive
one. Jana has been struggling in the school as the approach of some teachers was
very new for her and she did not fit in. Fortunately, there were several other
new students with the same problem and they became friends and were helping each
other. God opened the way for Jana to the
Czech
High School
for next year. That will be still a transition as her adjustment is gradual but
we trust that God will help her and bring out good things of that experience.
One good thing which happened in Jana’s life as result of the uneasy struggle
was that she started together with Julka and another lady from our church a
Bible study for teenage girls. It was great to see how God brought good things
out of the pain.
Kristyna
continued in her school after return and the cultural adjustment seemed to have
been smooth for her. She has been involved in the Church youth group and in
different Church activities. But we know that she has been missing friends,
school and the church from the States as the rest of us in our family.
We had
decided that Julka would have taken another job in the church what was not our
desire but it became a financial necessity. Julka was very busy in the Fall and
Winter because she needed to create whole accounting system and correct previous
year for taxes. It was a lot of work but she enjoyed to work with people in the
church.
God also
gave me and Julka a great opportunity to teach together one course at
theological seminary. It was a precious experience and we wished to teach
another course in the Spring term but Julka was too busy with her job so we did
not manage to finish together. Students loved it and we did as well.
I was
very exhausted in June after the whole year. It was just time to take it easy in
July. We spent one week with my mother and one week with Julka’s parents. It
was good year but busy
Pavel and Julia Raus’ Family News
Letter July - September / 2003
Parakletos Ministry
Parakletos
is striving to equip the Church in the
Czech
Republic
for the needs of the third millennium.
Introduction
We had the hottest summer in
Europe
in last 500 years. It has been therefore nice to have a cooler Fall. It feels
really good especially because here the climate is mild and no one has air
conditioning in their homes. We enjoy the Fall season very much.
Ministry
Activities
We were very exhausted after the whole last year. So we minimized the
activities during summer to those we had already arranged and to the necessary
work with individual people. We really needed that and we feel now stronger
again.
The Fall started to be very busy. Pavel has 7 seminars or conferences
with major lectures or speaking opportunities. Just this weekend we had a
seminar for a group of people who are already involved in different
organizations in work with people. There would be a greater interest in such a
systematic training but at this point we are developing the training program and
cannot take more. The seminar went very well and people are highly motivated to
learn. It was a joy to work with them.
Next Sunday we begin a lay counseling program in one of the churches in
Prague
. Our friend, Richard McKnight, a missionary in the
Czech
Republic
is going to help with the program and we are looking forward to work with him
very much. The church is very interested in the program because it there are
many needy people. We are excited with that opportunity because that is very
much our vision to help the churches to have such programs.
Pavel is going to begin his classes at the Evangelical Theological
Seminary in October. During September he was preparing the classes and
collecting the materials. As usual that is a rather frustrating process as the
access to the resources is very limited. We are going to teach one class,
Marriage and Family together with Julia and we are looking forward to that as it
was a good experience last year. This time we plan to make it more lively by
shoving some videos. Part of teaching is to develop relationships with students
and we enjoy that very much. We only wish we had more time to give to the
students.
Pavel continues to meet with about 15 clients a week. He has a waiting
list with others interested. It is hard to see our resources for help so limited
because the need is great. We, actually, feel that Pavel should decrease the
number of clients even more because of other involvements he has. That is,
however, to reject the needy person who asks for help.
Pavel is going to speak at the pastor’s conference next week. Even
though we are not able at this point to develop that part of ministry very
quickly, Fred Prudek, another friend and missionary is going to build contacts
with pastors and be in encouraging ministry to them. We are very glad for his
involvement.
We are also thankful for the research and writing grant Pavel received.
Pavel would like to work more on the father issues. He wants to begin personal
three years project as father. He has plan to develop two seminars about healing
the father wound and as the help and support to fathers. Hopefully, he is going
to write a book about father what he was asked to do by one publisher.
We limited very much radio programs activities because we do not have
capacity to give it. Pavel has one radio program in October and even though
there more much greater interest he is not able to do more than one program
every three months.
Story
One lady who was for just one year in individual counseling just
terminated. In her evaluation she wrote, “The counseling helped me greatly.
Through that God really changed my life. Without it I had probably already left
my husband and might have asked to be received to the psychiatric hospital. I
felt for the first time that someone understands me and accepts me as I am. It
has been so much easier after that experience to trust that God loves me the
same way. Thank you very much!” That lady together with her husband who is now
also in counseling decided to support Parakletos and want to help our ministry
as much as they can. We have had several similar stories just lately. Another
lady with marital problems with whom we were affirming the fact that God is
loving and accepting her. She said, “How is it possible that I did not get it
in ten years in the church?”
God has been very obviously working in many people’s lives.
Prayer Requests
This school year will be hard for us. Sometimes we feel at the limits of
our possibilities. We know that God has been faithful and we trust Him. He has
been working in the lives of people and that has been very motivating and
encouraging to be part of that. But we also feel at the limit of our capacity
and we would appreciate your prayers for the strength we need for what we do.
We are very thankful
for our new office in the center of
Prague
. The problem we are fighting now is the high humidity in the room. It is an
underground space in a very old house. The solution would be quite costly (about
$ 1,000). We also still need to equip the office.
Family
We have been very thankful for our daughter Jana. She started to go to a
new school this year. She is in the first year of high school. It is Czech
school so she after three years returned back to the Czech school system. We
were very worried because she missed so much and Czech schools are mostly
intolerant of any differences.
Thanks God she has been doing very well during first month. She found
friends there and even though she has a lot to make up for she has been able to
keep up with her duties. She is not overly stressed even though the change is
huge. We feel that has been an answer to prayers.
Kristyna is doing well. She continues in the same school as last year.
She is going to have a difficult year because she will have IB exams. But she
seems to be working hard and enjoys most part of her studies.
Julka continues to work for Parakletos part time as an administrative
assistant and part time in her accounting job. The accounting takes a lot of her
energy and time. Our desire would be that she might get involved in Parakletos
with me more. Just lately four young ladies asked her to be mother to them and
she has been involved with teenage girls. We would wish to develop together help
to struggling marriages. We continue to teach a course Marriage and Family at
theological seminary together. There are many opportunities but for financial
reasons she needs to keep her job.
Finances
We are so thankful for several people who decided to support us just
lately. God has shown his mercy to us through them. We are, however, still in
need of another $ 300 of monthly support.
For financial support you
can send tax deductible contributions to:
Bridge
to Life Ministries,
POBox
5024,
Muskegon
,
MI
49445
Would you, please, make the
check out to Bridge to Life and designate the gift for CCMCR (Christian
Counseling Ministry in the
Czech Republic
). Thank you!
October - December 2003
Last three months were very
busy for us. We were really looking forward to the Christmas time. We had a nice
time of the rest over Christmas, visiting church and friends and spending time
together as a family. Pavel’s mother was with us for several weeks during
Christmas and after. She has difficulty to walk but she is still able to take
care of herself in her home town most of the year.
When we reflect about last months we realize how many opportunities God
has given us. We have had the
privilege to be involved in many different people’s lives and feel that we are
touching real needs of the church and people. Whatever struggles that might
represent, still we are excited to have the freedom to do what we do and seek
God in all he has given us.
Ministry
Evangelical
Theological Seminary
In the Fall Pavel decided to increase, at least officially, his
involvement at the seminary. That in reality did not mean more work because
Pavel had already been doing more that was required but it was more an official
and financial recognition of the real level of his involvement.
In the Fall we taught one course, Marriage and Family, together with
Julia and Pavel taught two more courses. We were very pleasantly surprised by
the level of the interest of the students. Many of them in that class were from
broken homes and some of their comments touched our hearts:
“I
expect a lot from marriage and family but I am very very afraid that I may not
have all that is required.”
“I
did not realize for a long time how dysfunctional my family was until I visited
the class. I wish to be different but only see how I copy the behavior which I
hate.”
“The
main issue for me is hope. Is there a hope for the person like me to succeed in
an intimate partnership?”
In fact we made some changes to our material and added the whole class
about the hope for a good marriage. We have encountered profound levels of
despair but also the desire for a real honest close relationship in the
marriage. The students were sucking in our stories and experience which we
shared with them. Their questions were brutally honest but fair. We attempted to
give them as much as we could. And that made it a great experience of sharing
our lives together. In his evaluation one student wrote: “I started to
understand that my life is a walking path not riding a bus trip. I should not be
in a bus which my parents of someone else drive for me. I understand that I need
to step in and, for the first time, I decided to take responsibility for my own
life!” Can there a better reward for our work?
Also other two classes had a good response. In her evaluation of the Role
of the Father class one student wrote: “That class touched me deeply. It was
for me probably the most important class during my studies.”
Speaking
Opportunities
Pavel spoke at several seminars and conferences. Some of them were major
meetings like Annual Evangelical Theological Conference which this year focused
on pastoral care. Pavel had two lectures there together with the main speaker of
the conference, Dan Green, Parakletos board member. There was a very good
response to the conference and we hope it was a breaking point for churches to
realize the extent of their need for pastoral counseling.
Other Speaking opportunities included Church’s
Youth
Leaders
School
, Annual Youth Conference (with more than 1000 young people present), lectures
for the Churches, Sexuality seminar, Pastor’s Conference, and Christian Radio
programs.
Training Seminar
We continued in the training seminar for people from different churches
who are interested in receiving more training in counseling. Even though the
program started spontaneously it seems to be developing into a systematic
training program.
Lay Counseling
Program
We started a pastoral lay counseling program in one interested church in
Prague
. There is a very good team of 14 mature people. We are building the internal
qualities of the team this year with the prospect of offering the care for the
people inside and outside of the congregation. Our hope is to offer the program
to other churches after it was developed.
Other Programs
Pavel also continued in other programs like individual and marital
counseling (15 people weekly). The demand is great and there are several people
on the waiting list.
The support for the Christian leaders (5 of them) seems to be appreciated
in the culture where many Christian leaders burn-out or work at the edge of
burn-out.
Care for Pastors
We received the financial support from one Czech person for the research
about the most urgent needs of the pastors. We are in the process of
establishing a consultation group which should discuss the results of the
research and come up with the specific program to address the needs of pastors.
Because the needs are many and resources limited we want to be sure that we will
set the program most effectively.
To a limited extent we were also able to offer an individual help to
pastors.
One program financed completely from Czech resources is the pastor’s
families retreats. For the year 2004 we have an opportunity to offer that
retreat to 10 pastor’s families.
Julia
Julia continued with her Teenage Girls Church Ministry. There has been a
kind of brake-through during a sleep-over weekend. Some of the girls are though
still struggling to give themselves to Christ and do not seem to have a good
understanding of what it means in a real life. The ministry is definitely having
an impact both on the girls and on two other leaders Julia is working with.
Julia is naturally developing another young women’s mentoring ministry.
She has that type of relationship with four ladies at this point and there
clearly would be more interest if she had more time to give. Julia’s struggle
is to find a compromise between her accounting job which we still need for the
income it provides and ladies and teenage girls ministry what would be her
desire.
The church
situation
There has been a tension which finally led to a conflict between pastor
and elders in our church. It is a one of a few growing churches in the country
and with it’s many struggles we like it very much. Especially Pavel’s
position has been lately as a negotiator in the conflict. The question we need
more clarity from the Lord is how much capacity Pavel can give to any future
church involvement.
Jana found it hard to return
back to the Czech school. But she has friends there and there is no Christian
she would know of at the school.
Kristyna knows parts of Lord of the Ring by heart and makes our lives
miserable by citing those passages at every occasion possible. Otherwise she is
doing well ate school and in her youth group and is also involved in a Christian
organization which offers evangelism and other programs for different kinds of
needy people.
For financial support you can
send tax deductible contributions to:
Bridge
to Life Ministries
POBox
5024
Muskegon
,
MI
49445
Would you, please,
make the check out to Bridge to Life and designate the gift for CCMCR (Christian
Counseling Ministry in the
Czech Republic
). Thank you!
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