Totzke Prayer Communique
From: Sylvia Totzke [mailto:syltotzke@wideopenwest.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 7:31 PM


Dear Praying Friends,


On Wednesday, June 4th we will be leaving for Prague! Your prayers, love, encouragement, and financial support have made this a reality for us, and we are taking each one of you with us in our hearts and prayers.



There has been one change to the plan. The prayer team, part of a larger GBIM European field initiative, which was to come in June, has been cancelled because of lack of participants. Instead, we will be using that time to go to the outlying villages to pass out more flyers offering people the Jesus film and to visit people who have received the Jesus film. These visits will give us the opportunity to find out if they have additional questions about the film or the Bible, and to sign them up for the correspondence Bible study if they haven’t already. It will also give us a chance to meet more Czech people personally and to share with them what our relationship with Jesus means to us.



We have been in frequent communication with George and Cindy Swain, the Grace Brethren missionaries we will be serving during our 10 weeks there, and it looks like we will have a full and challenging schedule. We will visit at least 12 different locations to distribute flyers and meet Czech people, and we will work with three short-term teams from the Ashland, OH; Wooster, OH; and Martinsburg, PA Grace Brethren Churches who will do English-as-a-second-language studies with the Czechs. Each team will spend two weeks in Prague.



As we prepare to leave, we ask for your prayers:

For safety in travel, not only for us, but for the teams of Americans coming to Prague to participate in the ESL camps.
That we would relate well to the Swains, to the short-term teams and to the Czech people.
The language and cultural barriers would be minimal.
That our relationship with God would deepen through this opportunity.
That the Czech people we meet would see the love of Christ in our lives as we relate to them.


We will send email updates on a regular basis. We can’t define regular yet, but will know once we get there. May God bless you.


Larry and Sylvia

Here's something I am learning...how the Holy Spirit uses groups of believers to demonstrate His desire.l

Last night we had a young lady ask a question about a roomate situation and their security deposit. She told us some details and then asked our house church what she should do. I bit my lip so I wouldn't be the first one to talk. Then we bounced around the question awhile. People gave different perspectives. I got some clarification about what the issue was after saying something really stupid. We continued to talk and some folks got pretty passionate. It was cool to watch and participate in. Then one of the guys (this is his second time being with us) said, "I guess it is unanimous..." The bells and whistles finally went off in my head that OF COURSE IT WOULD BE UNANIMOUS>>>the Spirit was leading that time! I'm slowly catching on. I am so privileged to be alongside a community of folks who would allow God to use them in this way...and who would aske the questions to submit to the community. Very cool. I seek more guidance from the Spirit from our gatherings.

You can check out these passages to see how the early church were able to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit--in the gatherings of the church---Acts 13:1-4, Acts 15

Stratton, LT, Syl and I thunk about this Scripture for a bit this morning....it is worth thinking about...and living out...

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:7-14

I left this alone for a while...but not I am felling a need to jot down stuff I am learning in here a little more.

I was astounded by comparing the Beatitudes in Matt 5 with the same sermon in Luke 6. The tone of the passage is so different... Luke writes, "Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Jesus called out the disciples as poor...and he gave them the kingdom of God. He goes on to call them hungry, weeping and hated. But guarantees their satisfaction, laughter and rewards. Just by putting this speech in the 2nd person (you) rather than 3rd person (those who) ups the impact. All of a sudden it moves from being a nice poem to put on a wall to a comforting whispered word from a friend.

Then Luke tells us a part that doesn't show up in the Beattitudes. It is pretty scorching:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

Luke is certainly recording important words of Jesus. Important for us as well.
.