Do you love me?

Do you love me?

Of course, Lord! You are the Christ, my Savior!

Yes I am. But, do you love me?

Definitely! Everything I do, I do it for You.

Lord, haven't you noticed?

On the contrary! 

I know about your desire to bring good news to the lost;

I see you singing for my glory;

taking care of children and the old ones.

I see your tithing.

You pray, you read the Bible.

I know about all those things very well,

and you won't miss your reward.

But today I want to know something else:

Do you love me?

.................

I've written this poem few years ago and yesterday,

 during Rob Trenckmann's talk at JV fall converence, I got reminded of them.

I don't know about you, but I started with this:

Believing and accepting love changed everything; 

my presence, my future,

 my identity.

And yet, there are times when I get stuck. 

In my head I know God loves me, but it doesn't get to my heart.

It is just a knowledge.

Instead of living out of love I live out of obligation.

As a good Christian I try to do good things, obey, be thankful...

/even non-believers know how the good Christian ought to behave, right?/

... but something is missing.

Something is wrong!

God did not reconcile me with Himself to become a spiritual robot.

He gave his life freely so my relationship with Him could be restored.

Relationship built upon trust and mutual love.

L.O.V.E.

Love doesn't demand but has requirements.

Once I believed Him, He wants only one thing from me:

my love in return.

It actually makes so much sense.

The more I know I'm being loved by someone,

it makes me want to love him back.

And love's manifestations just as

making right decisions, doing good deeds, 

being able to give up selfish desires and 

pay the cost of following Jesus

will naturally come out of the deep conviction of 

being loved by my Creator.

.............

Well, I know how this works, but I still can be stuck.

So what do I do?

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;

knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives;

the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocs,

the door will be opened." /Matt.7:7-8/

Ask, seek and knock. 

There is this promise that if I go after the reason,

He will reveal it,

confront it, lead me to repentance if necessary 

and most of all I believe,

He will assure me about His love again.

What about you?

Do you love Him?

Do you want to love Him?

"I like staff meetings!"

I am very much aware that not everyone can say such a sentence

and that makes me even more thankful for where I work and especially

whom I work with.

Staff meeting in September belongs to my favorite ones.

Sharing different experiences from the summer (how we've seen God at work)
is actually a great way of kicking off a new season!

 Clara and Danny Jones were with us this time as well. 

To hear the history of TCKompas from the mouth of someone 

who was there at the very beginning was very inspiring to me!

Saying good-byes isn't usually very pleasant. But saying good-buy to our colleague,
Zuzi Potocka (who meanwhile became Mrs.Sabol)  was different.
Looking back and see the outcome of how God worked in and through her is
in fact a reason for celebration!

We got to Žilina from several Slovak cities and villages and it felt so good
when Žilina's staff took care of us.
Kim and Zac, thank you for being such a great host!

So this is how our team looks like together with our interns and friends with same vision.

And the vision is:

"Being a part of a movement of God amont the youth of Slovakia 

that finds its home in the local church and transforms society."

About an extraordinary Thursday!

Thursdays are usually ordinary days.

But not the last one!

I've been invited to sing at Christian festival Semfest.

And I am really thankful for this invitation,

because I literally had to brush up my old songs

and work on music outside of Fusion. 

The added value was that I was performing with my brother Ivan.

An unexpected thing was that 2 days before the concert our parents decided to go with us.

They took it as a celebration of their 38th wedding anniversary!

It was challenging to put all 4 of us into one car together with instruments

but we had fun.

Talking about different things,

drinking (for me definitely disgusting) energy drinks,

laughing and sharing

...

all of this is now part of our family history.

Of course one needs to prepare before performing on stage!

 I'm not talking only about song/music rehearsals. 

The most important part for me are those moments with God, 

when I pray and ask for THE playlist.

What a reward when people show up after concert telling

that they've got encouraged!

.....

One of the songs was about not giving up. 

Since I've no recording (yet), you will have to make up your own music :)

Even though I’m standing on the edge of my life once again;

and I don’t see much meaning around;

I will carry on, I will be strong.

Cause there must be something more,

more in this fallen world.

I refuse that some fate just plays stupid games

and humans like me try to escape away.

Many times I’m hiding behind my wounded heart;

and my eyes are blind to understand;

but somewhere deep in my soul

something stronger than me knows:

That there is something more,

more in this fallen world.

I refuse that some fate just plays stupid games

and humans like me try to escape away.

When enemy comes,

fear tries to steal,

and misery seems so real to me –

that’s the time I’ll stand on Your word about the promised land.

And even though war blusters around

I still can be sure that I...

I will survive,

I will touch eternity,

I will be forever

cause I believe (in) 

You, in You.

You are my light shining through the dark,

You are the reason why I’m risking my life.

read more ... elsewhere

my last blog post was about the process of a new fusion start in bratislava. well, since then we even launched another new fusion in eastern slovakia!!! so much work, so many good memories and a lot of God's mercy

.march 11
.beginning of Rača's Fusion

the morning began in the cultural house where the sound, lights, stage, and band were set up. after an hour of a great program prepared by one of the fusion choirs, students were given invitations to the first rehearsal that was happening that same evening.... read more

.march 19-22

.kpm

this year, we invited they youth leaders into the kingdom. we wanted to talk abou our instincts and the possibility of their deception toward us. what if there is still some knowledge of the reality of the kingdom that we ignore, because functioning through those principles would be unnatural for us?... read more

.april 10-12

.fusiondary

fusiondary is a festival for all fusions around europe. statistics of this year: cca 450 people, 5 countries, 12 concerts. read more .... this is a slovak blog, but you can use the language bar and read google translation (sorry)

.april 24

.fusion #5

their first concert together with the first official rehearsal went well. pictures can tell o lot, so visit their fb album

that would be it! 

for now :)

Seventh out of ten

Yesterday I got an email from a girl asking what would be the most important prerequisites

 for starting a new Fusion.

Good question.

When you go to our TCK web, you'll find 10 steps for a successful Fusion launch.

The first one says it all - if I don't have a burden for the lost teenagers, 

I don't even need to continue.

These people in Rača got it. After the second training ...

... there is step #7 ahead of us - preparation of the first rehearsal.

I'm excited because this means that in one week we launch Fusion there!

Till then, still lots of water will flow under the bridge 

and we need to take care of many things.

Just like today, while I was working on some details,

our Fusion students were creating and rehearsing a funny skit 

for the opening concert.

What a huge smile on my face and thankfulness in my heart!

We didn't even exist 2 and a half years ago and look at them...

...they are helping with the launch of a new Fusion in Bratislava!

Now it's Rača's turn, and then,

the next one will arise!

Fusion as a dream job?

Working with Fusion sounds like a dream job. 

It could be true.

Especially if this statement is based on fb pictures. You can think that we spend our days just hanging out with bunch of teenagers and having fun. We sing, we laugh and most likely we eat.

There is so much more work behind all of this, but I am just going to hope that you believe me.

Because instead of listing all proofs and details of what I'm doing, I would rather focus on what Fusion does to me.

Look at this picture.

Or this one.

You and me see the same thing. But I dare to say, you don't make the 'awww' sound  like I do right now!

These people are so precious. I have the privilege to know stories behind those faces. I see a boy who came blushing, trying to hide himself in a crowd and now he is able to stand in front of others and sing a solo. Or a girl who went from being able to play only few guitar chords to writing and performing her own songs.

Doing Fusion means getting out of your comfort zone! Being an extrovert doesn't matter in here. We don't like to try out some things as well.

Conducting? (Never!) Sound? (What is this cable for?) Admonish someone? (I'm here just to smile at people.)

And yet...

Fusion teaches you a lot about parenthood. You feel so proud of "kids" and there are moments when you would like to kill them. You worry, you sacrifice your free time, money or energy and they don't even notice. :)

Fusion is a team work. It's like in that African proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." However working in team might be difficult, it's always worth it. I call it a character growth booster. I've learned so much about myself and my reactions because of the interaction with our team members. It makes me aware of my natural tendency to 'my will be done' which is quite humbling. But also it brings joy when I discover that my gifts fit in and enrich others.

Fusion is God's work.  You can invest in people but you can't change them. He can and He does. Seeing Him in action is huuuuge! My faith grows, so as my desire to see even bigger things!

To sum it up....Fusion has really some good effects on me, so I guess, I could call it a dream job :)