Welcome to my House! (Rutledge update)

Since our return to Zlín from our "visa exile" on February 1^st, we have dug deeper into the language and culture. We were invited to attend our first ball! That was a great cultural experience, especially waltzing with hundreds of Czechs!

Our first ball (a very common thing here in February)

Let us introduce you to some new friends! We began attending advanced Czech classes twice a week and have met some nice people through that. Our teacher, Igor, also teaches elementary school and asked us to do a presentation at his school about America in April! Pray that God will use that relationship to His glory.

We also started private conversation sessions twice a week with a wonderful, Christian lady, Šárka. Although those times with her are very intense and tiring for us, she is giving us exactly what we need and is a real answer to prayer! From her, we are learning how to sensitively discuss spiritual things with Czechs… how to word our questions and things that are cultural “red flags”. Her husband, Samuel, is a true evangelist (rare here). We see God bringing these people into our lives to build relationships with.

Czech conversations with Šárka

From our Czech classes, we have our first Russian friends! There is a couple around our age from Moscow (Valentina and Valerij) and a young lady from Siberia. Her name is Nastya and we have hung out a few times. She confided to us that she has started reading the Bible for the first time! This is exciting to see how the Holy Spirit moves us and puts people together. Pray for Nastya that she would recognize the truth of God’s Word and that she would be protected from false teaching, as she explores other spiritual books.

The bad news is that Jan turned 50! The good news is that we had a great party because of that! We invited our whole church and our whole class and some people we barely know. Out of about 65 invited, 48 showed up and we had a house full. Our house is the perfect place to host a party.  We wanted it to be a time where believers could mix with non-believers and have meaningful conversations and that’s exactly what happened.Praise God for a successful party! 

All of our Russian friends came, as did one of our French classmates with his Czech wife. The Russians said we were much more Russian acting than Czech. Wow. Who knew? Samuel had a long conversation with Valentina and when he told her about how he knew he had security with Jesus from the Bible, she said she was going to go home and check her Russian Bible and see if that same verse was in there! He assured her it would be. Pray that that conversation would open the door for further reflection.

Vikorka (landlady's daughter), Marija (Ukrainian landlady), Valentina (Russian classmate)

Some of you have heard about Mrs. Mikulikova, an elderly lady we befriended at the bus stop near our home. She is very lonely. She was amazed that we invited her to our party and when she saw all the people, she said, “I don’t know how to act here. I’ve never been with so many people!” We took good care of her and she had fun. She said that she had never met so many nice people in one place! Isn’t that the way we want to be perceived by people who don’t know Jesus? Šárka had a long conversation with Mrs. M and when she learned that we knew most of the guests through church, she said, “Oh! Are they a sect?!” Šárka said, “No, no! They are believers in Jesus Christ and I am, too!” They talked a while and then Mrs. M said, “Oh, well, I’m a believer, too, I just don’t know in what!” Later, she sang a John Denver song along with Kevin with gusto! She sang in Czech, while he sang in English. Pray for Mrs. M that she will contemplate what it means to believe in God and crave the love she sensed from many at the party.

Mrs. Mikuliková singing John Denver with Kevin!

Our Ukrainian landlady also came with her college-aged daughter and it was very good to reconnect with her. Kevin was telling them stories of romance… how he felt God brought us together and how God brought our son-in-law, Theo, to Abby and how that was an answer to prayer. He could tell that they were touched by those stories and maybe it was a new thought to pray about those things. They attend an Orthodox church at Christmas and Easter, but they are interested in the spiritual things we have shared.

There is something about a social event in your home that endears people to you. We hope to have many more parties like this! These stories are snapshots of our life here and the kinds of people we meet. All of these people want to spend more time with us. That can only be God, working behind the scenes, creating mutual interests and opportunities.

In addition to all this, we bought a car! Yay! It is a Czech-made car, a Škoda Fabia 2010. We also bought some patio furniture, which we christened at the party. Next on our list to buy are some bicycles.

Spring is slow to come to this part of Europe. We have had temperatures reach 60, but the nights can still be below freezing and there is not a bud in sight. Late May will bring us the Spring that you may be having in the South in March. We're looking forward to it!

Pray for us to be aware when God is matching us with new friends. Sometimes we don’t realize when God has put someone in our lives for a purpose. However, when Nastya told us she was reading the Bible for the first time, I felt like God was waving a flag at us and pointing to her, saying, “Pay attention to this relationship!” Got that message, God!  

Pray that we would have wisdom as we talk with new friends! Pray that we would say YES to every invitation, and even if we are tired, that God would give us the energy (because you know, I’m 50 now…).

Pray that it would become clear to us all, how God wants us to use our time.

Pray for our next outreach event, Ladies' Day, on April 8th.

Pray that our Czech language would continue to progress, because it’s literally at act of God to speak correctly when you have to decline 7 cases, 3 genders, living and non-living, singular and plural with every word. Oh yeah, and watch your pronunciation!

Thank you all for your interest in our lives and ministry here.