Granny’s Eyes and the Little Lost Bird

I returned from the Budapest, Bratislava, and Vienna trip feeling very tired and ready for a rest from traveling.  We had stayed in hostels the whole 2 weeks, so having a bedroom all to myself with a door feels like unbelievable luxury.  Of course, my hostel roommates were all very considerate—even those who were strangers—and I had no trouble sleeping.  But still, there is something about having space all to yourself.

When my plane landed at Milan Malpensa Airport and I turned on my phone, I received a voicemail message from a cousin that I had never met.  His mother had contacted me some weeks ago, asking if he could come stay with me.  He arrived in Milan the very same day that I did: Sunday.

My cousin is a big, sweet guy from Texas who goes by BC.  That’s very Texan to go by initials instead of a name.  This is his first trip to Italy, and he travels very light.  BC is 28 years old, very adventurous and open-minded.  When we wandered around a bit, looking for the tram stop in an unfamiliar area, it didn’t faze him one bit.  BC just takes things as they come.  He’s also a kindred spirit, with a big wanderlust and love for Europe.

He started out in Portugal, where he has friends.  After a few days there, he made his way down the coast to Spain, saw the Rock of Gibraltar, and back up the Mediterranean coast to France, then Turin, Italy where he spent the night Saturday night before coming to see his missionary cousin in Milan.  He showed me pictures of his trip, and they included some pictures of his mom, my dad’s cousin.  I saw a resemblance to my great-grandmother.  She looked like I would imagine that Granny had looked as a younger woman.  Her eyes were especially like Granny’s.  BC might look like his dad, who I never knew, but the family resemblance in his mom is unmistakable.

I took BC around the center and showed him the castle, the cathedral, the galleria, and La Scala opera house.  It’s amazing to be with someone who isn’t tired of seeing churches and castles.  It’s almost like seeing these things for the first time again.

Milan’s cathedral, the Duomo, is beautiful and a real wonder.  It is the 3^rd largest cathedral in the world, after St. Peter’s in Rome and Notre Dame in Paris.  It was under construction for over 500 years, and has over 3000 life-sized statues built into its façade.  Although we didn’t go up there, it is possible to go explore the roof of the cathedral.  From the roof of the cathedral, you can really grasp just how enormous it is.  And from there, a whole lot more of the cathedral is still far over your head—all of it very intricately carved.

Inside the cathedral, BC and I went into the crypt that is behind and under the altar.  There lay the mummified remains of San Carlo (St. Charles), who had been bishop of Milan a few hundred years ago.  I had seen it before, and it still creeps me out.  BC was also creeped-out.  I also pointed out the statue of St. Bartholomew.  I had seen pictures of it, but had never spotted it before.  The saints are always depicted in the way that they were martyred.  According to legend, Bartholomew was skinned alive.  So the statue (which stands inside the cathedral near the side exit) shows him standing skinless with his skin draped over his shoulders—also very creepy.  Creepy religious art seems to be an Italian thing because I can’t remember even once seeing anything like this in any church in any other country.

When BC had spent 2 nights here, he declared himself to be rested and restless.  He said that he wanted to go by train to Como and on into Switzerland from there.  So I took him to the train station, helped him buy his ticket from the machine, and we said our goodbyes.  Yes, he is kin and a kindred spirit!

Today as I was finishing writing about BC’s visit a bird hit my window.  I was surprised to see that it was a parakeet.  It wasn’t afraid of me, and let me pick it up.  I took it downstairs to the custodian.  “Does anyone in our building keep birds?” I asked.  She said no, but advised me to ask the custodian of the building across the street.

I carried my little friend across the street and asked the custodian there.  She keeps birds, but both of her parakeets were still in their cage, which is enormous.  I asked if anyone in her building keeps birds, but she said no.  She opened the cage and told me to put it in.  At first the bird was reluctant to let go of my finger, but finally went into the cage.  It proceeded to investigate its new surroundings, while the other birds came closer for a good look at the newcomer.  There was a moment of tension while one of the birds fluttered at the newcomer, but soon they seemed to settle into a posture of guardedly watching each other.

“Thank you for taking the bird,” I said.  “Of course,” she chuckled.  “The cage is big enough for all 3, and I think they will get along.  I’m glad you brought it.  Left outside, he would surely starve to death.”

As I crossed back to my apartment building I felt grateful that I had been home when the bird hit the window.  Otherwise the poor thing would have died sooner or later.  I realized that it feels really good to have helped the little bird, and also to help the people who pass through my apartment.  Not that the people are in danger, but it’s good to help them on their way.  This is what I do.  God is good!

A Planned Meeting and a Surprise Meeting

I returned to Bratislava to meet with a missionary here.  However I had gotten in touch with her late, and her village is 6 hours away by bus, so that meeting didn’t happen.  But I did manage to meet with one of our new Slovak friends, Zuzana (see Kebap Shop Breakfast (part 2 of the double post, titled Sweet Slovakia) and Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem).  Zuzana came with us to Budapest and also to Vienna to pray in those capitals.  When she returned from Budapest, her boss told her that she was fired, no explanation given.  Of course she was very upset at first, but Pastor Ivan’s daughter had already offered her a housecleaning job, so she decided not to let it get her down.  Ministry carries a price tag.  Jesus told us repeatedly that we will have to leave our homes, our families, and that we must count the cost.  For someone so young (20), Zuzana is surprisingly mature.

Slovakian Presidential Palace

So I met with Zuzana, and she took me for a walk in the park behind the Presidential Palace.  It is a lovely park with flowers and wide paths.  She said that Pastor Ivan’s daughter is from his first marriage, and she is not saved.  She said that Pastor Ivan wants her to share her faith with his daughter.  She admitted that she feels some pressure about this.  I told her about my 3-point method of sharing my faith:

1. I was . . .
   1. Everybody has their own unique story of their life B.C. (before Christ)
2. Then Jesus changed my life
   1. Usually the smile on your face is enough to convince people of the change inside
3. Would you like to know Jesus?

Simple and easy, you don’t have to be an expert in theology or to know the Bible inside and out.  People don’t care about those things.  All they want to know is that Jesus is real.  They want to know what Jesus can do for them.  And nobody can argue with you about your experience because it happened to you.  They might not respond the way you hope, but sometimes the seed planted today will begin to grow next year.

Then I told her about my conversion and re-conversion (see Gotcha! and Gotcha! Part 2), and the suicidal depression I had endured.  Zuzana then told me her story.  She had also been suicidally depressed, with demonic apparitions.  To look at the 2 of us, you would never imagine that either of us were so down.  So I said, just tell her what Jesus has done for you.  God will give you the right time to talk with her about it.

Uniformed Guards at the Presidential Palace

Then we walked back to town, to her favorite coffee shop.  Zuzana told me about one time when she had been reading her Bible there and God showed her that the woman next to her was crying. The Holy Spirit told Zuzana: “Tell her that I love her, and that she is precious to Me.”  So she did.  The woman was startled and resistant at first, but then listened as Zuzana told her about the wonderful love of Jesus.  As we found our seats in the coffee shop, she said, “And she was sitting right there.”  I turned and looked where she pointed, and said, “Right there?  Where Anushka is sitting?”  And we began laughing like maniacs because we had not expected to meet her there in the coffee shop.  Anushka (see double post Sweet Slovakia and Kebap Shop Breakfast) was sitting there writing on her laptop.  She looked up when she heard the laughter, so we told her about Zuzana’s story and how she had pointed right there without realizing that Anushka was there.

So I got another chance to say goodbye to Anushka, and I had a lovely visit with Zuzana, and was able to encourage her.  Zuzana will probably be joining us on our next trip, to Ukraine and Belarus.  She will be useful in both of those places as a translator.  God is good!

Austria’s Identity

The Hitler Balcony

Yesterday we went to the balcony where Hitler addressed Austria as the leader of Germany and the Nazis.  There we prayed and proclaimed that no more lies would come from that place, but only words of righteousness and truth.  I was standing by a very evil-looking sculpture that had a beak like a bird.  In Budapest one of the locals had given me a rubber bracelet that I have been wearing ever since.  I put the bracelet around its beak as a symbolic/prophetic act to shut the mouth of lies.

I shut his lying mouth!

Next we went to the Austrian Parliament building, but we had no connections, so we were not able to get in past the lobby unless we entered as part of a tour group.  If we did that, then we would not be able to stop and pray, so we went outside the building and prayed from there.  Our hosts told us that there is no Christian in the Austrian Parliament at all—perhaps in name only.  It was a difficult place to pray from.  The Hitler balcony had been prayed over many, many times, but the Parliament had obviously been neglected in prayer.  It was the most difficult prayer session since that first evening in Vienna (see God is Doing a New Thing).

The Austrian Parliament Building

After lunch we had our debriefing, and all of us had felt the same difficulty praying at the Parliament building.  I had 2 impressions about Austria.  The first one I noted in my blog yesterday (An Emotional Day), about how in prayer my emotions had been up and down and up again—but only in prayer.  And I noted, as on the first day (God is Doing a New Thing), that I believe Austria has a female identity—and may I add, that she seems hormonal.

My second impression about Austria is that it seems to me very strange that there was no indigenous Austrian who went to pray with us.  They did pray with us in the church, but not out in the city.  To my knowledge, this was the first time that only foreigners prayed in the capital.  However, I have not been on all the prayer trips, and I was told that it was also this way in Luxembourg. 

The thing is that Operation Capitals of Europe (OCE) does not come in to do our own thing.  Rather, we want very much to come alongside the indigenous believers to support them in what (we hope) they are already doing.  Otherwise nothing lasting will result from our prayers because we cannot possibly return and return and return to pray for their capital—there are something like 50 capitals in Europe (not all are recognized, like Cardiff, which comes under the UK, but is in fact the capital of Wales).  Anyway, we did our best, and the local believers did seem encouraged by our visit and our efforts.  Much remains to be done in Austria, but we did what we could to help things along. 

Last night the team said their goodbyes to the local church, and today we said our goodbyes to each other.  I have returned to Bratislava to meet with a missionary here, then I will go to Budapest tomorrow, and fly early Sunday morning back to Milan.  It has been an interesting time, and there is still so much to pray about.  If you would like to pray for us, here are a few prayer points:

• One teammate was unable to come on either this trip or the last one (Sofia & Skopje) because of illness.  This is obviously a spiritual attack because she was healed of this illness, so it should not have returned.
• Others might likewise be attacked in the area of their health, especially due to the exhausting nature of these trips (see below).
• Several of us on the team are over 45, and these trips are physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausting.  Because of exhaustion, tempers sometimes wear thin.  We need to give each other a lot of grace and compassion.
• Team unity has been gravely threatened by rebelliousness.  Nevertheless, we were able to remain united and to stay focused.  I suspect that the enemy will continue to try this tactic to divide the team.

All in all, I feel like this has been a very good trip—a challenging trip, but very good.  God is good!

God is Doing a New Thing!

Greetings from Austria!

Actually I am on the train from Bratislava to Vienna, and we just crossed the river.  There are lovely yellow fields of flowers.  It is a beautiful, sunny day, and my mood is equally sunny.  I just feel very hopeful after having such powerful and successful prayer in 2 capitals: Budapest and Bratislava.  It’s funny, I don’t know what to expect in Vienna because I’ve only passed through on the train.  But I feel a kind of breathless expectation.  This trip is pregnant with possibilities.  More later!

—Several hours later—

The mood swung dramatically when we entered the church.  Our hosts started right into a slide show about the history of Vienna, with emphasis on the spiritual realities here.  For me, the most impacting was the final slide: a map of Vienna 1913-1914, showing that Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky, Tito, and  Freud were all living in Vienna within a few miles of each other.  It occurred to me that Vienna is a spiritual womb (see my comment above, written on the train: pregnant with possibilities!).  At that time she birthed some pretty horrible things, but through prayer and worship, Vienna can birth great things for the Kingdom of God.

However, before receiving that revelation, we tried to worship, and it was a disaster at first.  The worship was weak, and only the English-speakers were worshiping.  One of our teammates pointed out that our hosts were not singing.  An Austrian host told us that what they need is not worship, but prayer, and prayer warriors for Vienna who will seek God’s face and pray these things through.

We tried to explain that prayer and spiritual warfare is exactly what we had come to do, but that we enter into prayer first with worship, like the priests of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20).  At that, a missionary who has lived here for 26 years put on a worship song in German, and we all worshiped together—some in English, and some in German.  That was an important turning point.  After that prayer began to breakout among our hosts, and that depressive atmosphere lifted.

Afterward, we enjoyed a lovely meal prepared for us by our hosts.  Friendship and fellowship developed, and there was lots of laughter and love.  God is good!

Kings and Castles and UFO’s

The Slovakian Parliament Building

Yesterday we all met at the Slovakian Parliament building.  There are 2 Members of Parliament that are born again, and another 8 who are Christians, but perhaps unsure about the whole “born again” thing.  We met with 1 of the born again MPs, Boris.  He seemed very discouraged and hopeless.  I think he feels very alone.  Boris started a prayer meeting with the other Christian MPs, and he said that usually only 4 show up.  He said that the meeting lasts about 30 minutes.  The meeting starts by Boris reading a Bible verse about righteousness, they meditate on it for about 5 minutes, then they pray about it together.

Whenever there is an important vote, Boris calls a prayer breakfast for his supporters who are believers, and they pray together about the issue.  However, we were told later that he’s not very organized about getting the word out, so the prayer breakfasts are only about 10 people.  In reality, Boris has many more supporters who would come and pray if they knew about the prayer breakfast.  So we prayed for Boris and for the Slovakian Parliament.  It was powerful.  At one point I felt very strongly the urge to kneel as I prayed.  When I opened my eyes, everyone around me was also on their knees, including Boris and his translator.

After lunch we took a trip out to Devin Castle.  At the foot of the castle was a monument to the victims of Communist terror.  This was where the iron curtain separated east from west, at the Danube River.  From that spot in Slovakia, you could see Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria.  There more than 400 people were killed trying to escape Communism.  A few members of the team said that they couldn’t pray there because it felt so heavy.  So before praying we decided to do a prophetic act and worship.  So we marched through the gateway of the memorial singing a worship song.  Then we went to the riverside and poured wine and salt into the water (another prophetic act).  Then we sang more worship songs.  The songs started out weak, but became strong.  Then someone noticed that a couple of snakes swam across the water and the frogs began singing louder.

Bullet-riddled monument to the victims of Communist terror

Then we climbed up to the castle.  Up there we heard a strange buzzing noise.  I laughed and said that it was a UFO.  Well it was unidentified and it was a flying object.  It was a photographic drone, which after the place of so many Communist murders gave me the creeps.  There was a big team up there, taking pictures with equally sophisticated equipment.

It was a good day, with wonderful prayers and lots of hugs goodbye.  Today we travel to Vienna.  A couple of teammates are going by riverboat in order to pray and worship on the river.  God is good!

Sweet Slovakia

Greetings from Bratislava!

I apologize, I wrote this 3 days ago, but in the absence of internet service, I forgot to post it.  So this is a double-post.

The first thing you notice about Bratislava is that it doesn’t seem to have the eternally crumbling infrastructure of the rest of the formerly Communist world.  The downtown area is sunny by day and well-lit at night.  The sidewalks and pedestrian area are nicely paved and not terribly crowded, although there are plenty of restaurants, shops, and cafes.  And the Slovaks themselves are light-hearted and open, which is probably the most surprising thing of all.  Communism left many people as scarred as their lands.

So how did the Slovaks survive Communism to flourish so nicely?  I think we heard a clue in the Slovakian National Anthem.  Anushka translated and explained the lyrics, which in part tell the story of a woman digging a well.  She dug deeper and deeper, and deeper still.  Then she looked into the well, thinking that she should drown herself in the well.  But she decides not to do that.  These are strange lyrics for a national anthem, but in it you can see the unhappy scars of Communism that tempted the woman (Slovakia) to kill herself.  Somehow she finds the resilience to survive.

The Slovaks, like the woman, bear the scars of Communism, but have turned their attention from the dim past to the bright future.  Slovakia does indeed have a bright future.  The economy here is the best of all the formerly Communist world.  Of course, economic crisis is global, and Slovakia is not immune, but the youth are not fleeing Slovakia like they are from many other East European countries.  In fact, we have met young people here who have come to Slovakia looking for a better life, instead of going to the west.

Our first evening here was at a local church that meets in a movie theater.  It was a youth prayer group meeting, but like none I had ever been to before.  Youth from all over the city, from various churches, came to the meeting, which had over 100 people.  There was worship in music and dance, there was teaching, and there was prayer, both corporate and in small groups.  In fact, when it was time for small group prayer, the leaders asked the people over 30 to pray over the youth.  That means that most of our team sought young people to pray for.  I found 2 university students, sweet, smiling girls, and prayed for them.  They were very encouraged by my prayer, and thanked me for praying for them.

Later I heard that the churches all over the city regularly cooperate and meet together.  It gave me such hope.  Unity!  I would love to see unity like this in Milan—or even in America.  The Bratislavan churches do not compete with each other.  They recognize that the different expressions of faith and worship are simply a matter of the individual character of each church family.  People are not regarded with suspicion if they go to a meeting at another church.  I would guess that there is probably less church-hopping, as a result.  Because giving people the freedom to visit and learn from other believers conversely will instill in them a feeling of familial pride in their own home church.  Plus the home church benefits from the sharing of prophetic insight and instruction.  It’s really how the Body of Christ was intended to function.

Young people are the most precious resource that Slovakia has because young people have not yet lost their idealism or their positive outlook.  When a country loses its youth, it loses something really valuable.  It loses its future.

If you want to see the most flourishing of all post-Communism, you should come to Slovakia.  There is a sweetness here that will make you want to come back.  I know I do!  God is good!

 

Kebap Shop Breakfast

Greetings once again from Bratislava!

I woke up early this morning, and left the hostel in search of coffee.  I was surprised to see on the streets that there were a lot of drunken people, mostly young people, at 6:30 in the morning.  A few were staggering, but mostly I could tell that they were drunk by the volume of their voices.  I’m not sure if there is something about having lots of alcohol in the bloodstream that renders a person incapable of hearing as well as normal or if it’s just a matter of having spent all night with thundering music.  The drunken people on the streets all seemed to know the places where they could find food, which was mostly kebap/falafel shops.  The first place I stopped didn’t have coffee.  The counter person acted like it was strange to want coffee at such an hour of the morning.

The next place I stopped had coffee and seating indoors, so I sat down to drink my coffee.  A young man entered soon after me and asked for his kebap in English.  While he was waiting to pay, I asked him where he was from.  He said, “Ireland,” with some pride in his voice.  He paid and sat down with me.  He told me about his night, which had been spent with friends drinking in bars.  I asked his name, which was Sean.  He ate only half of his kebap, declaring that his eyes had been bigger than his stomach (something my dad had often said).   I asked him what time the bars close, and he said they close at 6.  He said that he was the “last man standing,” and that if the bar hadn’t closed, he would be happy to continue drinking because “I’m Irish,” (again said with pride).

Sean works in Bratislava, but travels often between here, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague.  Because he talked so much, I got the feeling that Sean is lonely here.  Perhaps loneliness is something that he is trying to escape with alcohol.  He looked at my cross and said, “You’ll probably feel better than me in the morning.”  Then he stood up and walked out.

I felt bad that I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to share Jesus with him, but I don’t know how much his boozy brain would be able to really understand or accept.  Anyway, I prayed for him.  He is probably my son’s age, and already very much an alcoholic.  It was a sad way to start a Sunday.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to a very good Sunday because today I am going to kindergarten.  Actually, it is a church that meets in a kindergarten.  The church also runs the kindergarten.  Zuzana is a girl I met on our first night in Bratislava.  We met at that prayer group in the movie theater church.  Zuzana took me to her church, just to show it to me because it was close to where we were meeting, and it was interesting because of the kindergarten meeting there.  To her surprise and mine, the pastor was there—Pastor Ivan.  Immediately I felt a very strong urging by the Holy Spirit to pray for him.  It was a prayer very much led by the Holy Spirit, and it encouraged Pastor Ivan very much.

So when we talked about going to church last night, although I like Anushka’s church very much, I don’t feel like I’ve made quite the same connection as I did at Pastor Ivan’s kindergarten church.  Since it is close to Anushka’s church, and since Zuzana was sitting next to me, I asked if it would be OK if I go to her church instead.  Nobody had a problem with that, and Zuzana was very pleased to hear that I wanted to visit her church.

Most of all, I want to encourage Pastor Ivan, who has had some problems lately.  Sometimes the simple act of showing up can be very encouraging.  I think he will be very encouraged to see me again this morning in church.  And encouraging him will also encourage me.  In God’s work, everybody is encouraged and blessed.  I love working for the Lord!  He really is the best Boss ever!  I often tell people that my Boss is like a Father to me.  God is good!