two different emotions in one day...#9

hello everyone,

i ran the gamut of emtions today. today i will see tomas who i led to christ two years ago and tonight i will play a concert at a bar that the owner invited me to yesterday. friday night jess, jack, danielle and i left the market square outreach and drove to bonovce.

we met a friend of jess named mayo. (mayo is seventeen and a very good looking guy. i think he looks like brad pitt, so i refuse to call him mayo, i only call him brad. he thinks this is quite funny and so he always answers to brad.)

we toured the church we helped do contruction on two years ago. they have done so much work since then and now the little house has been transformed into a two story building with much room for a church of about 200 people. they still have a lot of work to do, but it is very encouraging to see their vision for the future.

we visited the internet cafe where we spent a lot of time two years ago. tomas was not there, but the owner of the cafe named andre was there and he was sooo excited to see us. he gave us big hugs, and reminded us that we celebrated his birthday two years ago and now it was his birthday again. so we sang happy birthday to him and had a great time hearing his stories and he ours. wow the smile he had on his face reminds me of the great impact we had on this town two years ago. it was truly an inspired trip.

we hit the sack, and the plan was to meet tomas on saturday at 1pm at our hotel. i was hurting pretty good, since from the time we reached bonovce, my allergies went crazy. some thing they farm in bonovce really messes with me. i don't remember that from two years ago. but my throat is swollen my nose is stuffed and runny at the same time (is that scientifically possible???) but it's definatly happening, and i dare not touch my eyes or they will turn red and become extremely itchy.

all this makes for a very terrible night of sleep, since they don't have a/c in europe, so to stay cool we have to have the windows open. i cough and sneeze all night long. when i wake up the next morning i feel like i have been hit by a truck (this is becoming a commen feeling for me here :). but today feels different, i really sense the holy spirit tell me to pray and give this whole dayto him. this is something i will do a lot, but not in a formal way, usually as i'm going through my day. but I had a strong sense i needed to intentionally give this day to god. so as i sat on my bed, i just said "god i give you this day whatever happens, i am here for you, use me as you will...i love you"

we stumbled though the morning eating and finding a pharmacy store so i could pop some allergy pills. i think they were totally a placebo, but when you are dying from allergies you will take whatever you can to make it stop.

as 1:00pm approached we found some chairs by the front door and drank some beverages waiting for tomas. i was eager to see him again. i had some gifts for him and i just wanted to hear what was happening in his life....

we waited and waited....by 3:00pm it was clear he was not coming. i went to the internet cafe and emailed him again, but i knew it would not happen. we ended up going to brad's house (mayo) and having some coffee and snacks with his grandma and mother. they live in one of the old communist flats that are all over eastern europe. it was nice to see what they look like on the inside. soo depressing, but mayo and his family were so happy to have us there. i layed my head back on the couch and tried to just stay alive as my allergies were giving me a merciless beating. finally we left bonovce, twenty miles away, my allergies cleared up and i felt great!!! so odd

we made it back around 7:30pm...i had some time to run through some songs on my guitar. i'm still bummed about not meeting tomas. i keep thinking "what happened". spending time with tomas was my whole reason for coming to slovakia and now i won't even see him. i'm trying to figure out what went wrong. then the holy spirit starts speaking to me. i think back about how I was originally going to spend the whole weekend with him, but because of the posters that promised an american band, i decided to shorten to just saturday morning and afternoon. then the holy spirit reminded me that if that hadn't changed, that i would have had to turn down the bar owner when he invited us to sing at his bar on saturday. so now we have this incredible opportunity to witness and sing praises to jesus to a group of people that would never have heard. as i sit on my bed i thank god that his ways are always better than mine, and i pray that he will take care of tomas, since tomas is his child not mine!!!!!!

we arrive at the bar and richard the bar owner is very excited to see us. we set up and then all our team and many of the slovak believers show up. his bar is packed to the brim...probably about 60 people packed in.

i sing my guts out for three hours. i start with songs i have written as well as some pop songs thrown in. then we do an hour set of gospel/worship songs. i have matusch one of our translators sing with me in polish on "lord i lift your name on high", "open the eyes of my heart" and "i could sing of your love forever". we fill that bar up with praise to jesus. i get to share that we are all there in slovakia to talk about how much we love jesus. since slovakia is very catholic, it was great to share the difference between religion and a relationship with christ.

many of the team got to have great conversations with the people in the bar, including one with the bar owner's friend. he was deeply touched about jesus.

i finished the time with some more songs i had written and a few pop songs thrown in. one of the best moments was when i sang "with or without you" by U2. every body in the bar joined in singing. this was probably one of the sweetest moments of my life. there is just a tremendous feeling when strangers and friends join together. when i got done...i was so pleased. i love to sing and worship. i don't get to do it very often, so tonight was a very special nght in my life. God was soooo good to allow me this opportunity.

i went home completely exhausted, but filled to the brim with so much joy....thanks jesus

tata...scott