Totzke Prayer Communique

Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 3:02 PM
Subject: Totzke Prayer Communique


Dear Praying Friends,

In the last few weeks we have gotten to know the many facets
of Prague: the metro, shopping, changing money, buying
postage stamps, ordering food in restaurants, finding our
way to the sightseeing venues. We’ve also taken trips by
bus and train to the communities surrounding Prague where we
distributed fliers about the Jesus film. Now we will see if
we’ve learned enough when the big test begins on Saturday.
That is when the 15 member team from Ashland Grace Brethren
Church arrives and we put into practice what we have
learned. Over 30 Czechs will be coming to the camps, ranging
in age from 15 to 70. On Tuesday we went over the schedule
of events George prepared to fine tune it and to wrap up
loose ends.

The team arrives at 11 AM on Saturday. On Monday the English
Camp begins. Each day the schedule will be
• 9 AM Team worship
• 10-12:30 English camp and literature distribution in the
surrounding communities-- We will accompany the literature
distribution team since we’ve been to several of the
communities and have done a partial distribution there.
• Lunch – sandwiches at the Swains
• Afternoon activity with the Czechs who can stay: sports,
sightseeing, crafts
• Dinner as a team at restaurants in Prague
Each Thursday there will be a sightseeing trip outside of
Prague for the Americans and those Czechs who have the time
to go. The goal is not only to see some interesting sight,
but also to develop relationships between the Americans and
the Czechs.

When this team departs on July 12th, the Wooster GBC team
arrives the same day for two weeks and we will follow the
same schedule. Since the Wooster team is smaller, there
won’t be any literature distribution; we will probably be
involved in teaching English.

You won’t hear from us via email the next few weeks
because there will be little internet time. So we do want to
tell you that we are doing well, and feeling productive in
what we are doing here. God has been answering pray.
• We feel very much a part of the missionary team that is
comprised of the Swains and Plates.
• We’ve had safety in our travels.
• The cultural barriers have been minimal. We feel
comfortable around the Czech people we encounter. Smiles and
warm handshakes go along way. We do wish that we could speak
to them one-on-one, but we can’t except through an
interpreter.
• One of Sylvia’s big pluses here is that the place we
are staying has beautiful gardens and we get to enjoy them
each morning as we eat breakfast out there. She doesn’t
miss our garden as much. There is even a grape vine here and
we are watching the grapes grow waiting for them to ripen.

As for Sylvia’s sister, she is at home now. Sylvia gets to
talk with her regularly on the cell phone. Lin has a great
attitude that will help her recover. Here’s what Lin wants
to say to all of you:
• She wants to thank everyone for praying for her. She
knows that it’s helped in her recovery.
• She is becoming more mobile. On Tuesday she started
taking walks in the neighborhood. She said that it took 30
minutes to walk six blocks, but she’s making progress.
• Please continue to pray! There is still fluid in her
lungs that is puzzling and concerning the doctors. They are
still divided on what to do with it – wait for the fluid
to dissipate or drain it. She still has pain that they say
she shouldn’t still have and maybe the fluid is
contributing to that.

In summary, the summer is going pretty much as we had
expected it to, but the main reason for our coming is just
about to begin. Please pray that Jesus will have a major
impact on the lives of the Czechs who attend the English
camps. Pray also that the lives of the Americans who come
will be changed as a result of this experience. Thanks so
much for your partnership with us.

Larry and Sylvia

I had an amazing meditation time today thinking about this:

But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. NLT John 4:23

I have read this a gazillion times, but the truth of that last sentence astounded me...the Father is looking for worshippers. WOW. He is the "seeker" of people who will bow their life down toward Him. He is the one on the Go, on the Lookout, the aggressor in nudging people toward worshipping Him.

What an amazing God we serve...one who created us and one who comes after us even when we have built walls between ourself and Him. May we worship--bow our life down towards Him--that way...the way He wants, the way he seeks!

Mike and Megan Smith Summer UPDATE

We just got this report in from Mike, Megan and baby Canaan---

This will probably be the last update before we head
to Papua New Guinea next week. It has been a whirlwind
of a month!! We started off the month with the leaders
prep for 3 days. We had 5 couples for the time of
training and preperation before meeting the teams in
Miami.
From leaders prep we headed to Miami for a week to
greet 25 participants headed to Bolivia and Brazil for
a month. We spent 3 days in orientation with them.
What a NEAT group of participants. They ranged in ages
of 15-72!!! Most were in their late teens and early
twenties though.
We saw them off and 2 days later greeted the 8
participants headed to Siberia. Just Mike and I were
there to do a brief one night orientation with them.
They were such a cool group as well. We just got word
from them that they made it to Moscow and are on a 52
hour train ride to Siberia for 8 weeks.
So now we are back in Sanford for 7 days to pack up
and move out of our apartment, pack for Papua New
Guinea, and fly out to meet our team of 9 and another
team of 10 headed to PNG as well. We will have
orientation at a Baptist campground in Hawaii and fly
onto Sydney Australia for a night, then up to Papua
New Guinea for 3 weeks.
We just got word that our team will be flying out to
a remote tribal location for a week to work on an
airstrip. We are thrilled that our team will have this
opportunity!
Thank you for all who have prayed with us about our
housing situation. We are moving out of our current
place so we dont have to pay rent while we are away.
Unfortunately nothing has opened for staff housing so
we are putting our things into storage and praying
that the Lord will work something out in time for our
return in August. Our financial level is not quite at
a point of renting an apartment in the real world so
it would be best if we could live here on the NTM
property for a low cost. HE knows our needs, our
desires, and we believe that HE will provide above and
beyond all we could ever ask or think according to HIS
perfect will.
We have newsletters to send to you all. They are
sitting here on the desk waiting to be put into
envelopes and mailed!!! We will be getting those out
this week before we leave.
That's about it from this end. We covet your prayers
as we head out this summer. We are just blown away
already at the amazing participants God has sent out
this summer. They are going to be such a blessing to
the missionaries and we pray they will be burdened for
the desperate need for missionaries in tribal
locations.

I am going to include a few excerpts from the few
emails we have received from team members in the past
week. Check out our website for more updates on the
teams!!!
www.destinationsummit.org

Brazil team:

"We are about 15 to 20 miles from a town and the first
5 miles are over rough roads We are all washing our
own clothes by hand !! BUT they forgot to get them
down before the rain came!!! Ah well....it is all and
ADVENTURE!!
We had an excellent team meeting last night. The
sharing from the team was great, too and we sang
several worship songs after having a time of prayer"

Bolivia team

"God has been faithful. I haven't and will not be able
to write much these next few days because
we are working all day long to lay concrete paths
around the school that will not be flooded in the
rainy season. The work is hard and long but God
gives us all the energy we need and not a bit more.
Everyone is exhausted. The poverty here is amazing,
but I feel remarkably at
home among the people. Thank you so much for your
prayers."

Siberia team:

"On the plane to Frankfurt we had an interesting
discussion about 1 John, huddled around each other
under the reading lights. When we arrived here, we
were told that we as a team would be going through 1
John together. Did someone say that coincidences are
God's providence we don't credit to Him?
Next week we will be flying over to a region we will
call GrnAltsk. One of the workers who pioneered the
work in Buryatia has now moved on to a new region, a
region that is known as being stalwarts of the
communist area, a populace that always gives the
communist vote, sort of like Russia's Communist Belt.
We will be doing one of their first major outreach
projects, helping conduct seminars for English
teachers. The team will be doing things like
demonstrating different learning styles via skits, and
Yongjoo may be helping teach some seminars too."

"i didn't realize how close this
country has come to my heart. it seems to grow closer
every day. i am no longer surprised or alientated by
the differences. instead, they make me feel like i
this is my home. well, at least another one of them."



This is just a taste of what some of our participants
are facing and experiencing thus far in their travels.
Please pray for their safety in travels and work there
on the field.


Please pray for us too if we come to mind. Pray that
Canaan will travel well on planes and that we would
not suffer too much from the extreme time changes us
and the team will face around the world.

Please email or write us. I don't know if we will be
able check email or not but we,d love to hear from you
Our address there on the field is

NEW TRIBES MISSION
P.O.Box 1079
Goroka E.H.P. 441
PAPUA NEW GUINEA

We are so thankful for you all and can't wait to tell
you all about the summer when we return!!

Blessings and love,
Mike, Megan and Canaan Smith

Totzke Prayer Communique
From: syltotzke@wideopenwest.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 12:46 PM

Dear Praying Friends,

Ahoj! That’s the informal Czech greeting for hello and
goodbye. Just think of the Beatles song, “You say hello
and I say goodbye.” It’s all ahoj to the Czechs.

Sylvia got here last Wednesday trouble free. It took a bus
ride and two metro changes to get to our pension where we
stay that is owned and operated by a Czech widow named
Yarka. She is very helpful and speaks English. The pension
has a beautiful garden with many varieties of shrubs and
flowers. That’s where we eat breakfast and just relax
after the day is over. All of the team members will stay in
this pension when they arrive beginning in a few weeks. It
will be very convenient for us to be involved with them
because of this arrangement.

We are settled into a routine that we will have until the
teams arrive. After breakfast at the pension we walk the
mile to George and Cindy Swain’s home for a morning
meeting. At that time we do some administrative stuff, pray,
learn some Czech words and phrases, and plan the ministry
activity of the day. Last Friday we went with George to
Beroun, a village that is a 30 minute train ride southwest
of Prague where we distributed 700 Jesus film flyers. George
states that within the first two weeks of a flyer
distribution, they get a 2.5% return which is higher than
the normal return for a similar distributions. George has
10,000 flyers to distribute, so we’ll be busy seeing the
countryside surrounding Prague distributing these flyers all
the while praying for the recipients’ response. The
Ashland team will be helping with this project when they
come, too. Yesterday, Monday, we went to a village a short
bus ride away and visited people who responded to the flyer
awhile ago, got the Jesus film and viewed it. One woman was
a young mother who was interested in Bible studies; another
older couple was very hospitable and invited us back for
another visit but didn’t have any interest in spiritual
things. They do know some of the Czech people in the work
here, so that it an opening.

We’ve been learning our way around Prague. On Saturday we
were on our own and found our way to the castle, old town
and many other attractions. It’s an easy city to navigate
since it’s quite compact and visitor friendly. You can
hear many languages spoken wherever you go. We still have
lots more downtown time in the future so that we can become
comfortable knowing where the important things are located
– bank, post office, restaurants, major sightseeing
venues. We do walk a lot and when we go to bed at night,
we’re tired.

Thanks for your partnership with us and thanks for praying
for Sylvia’s sister Lin. She went home from the hospital
on Thursday and is feeling stronger each day. After having
only an IV drip for almost 10 days, she’s being careful as
to what she decides to eat. She has four cats and has found
that bending over to feed them and then to change their
litter pans is something that she won’t be able to do for
a awhile. She wants to thank all of you for praying for her
while she was in the hospital. Please continue to pray for
her full recovery.

Larry and Sylvia

Totzkes In Prague

Date: 6/12/2003 2:03:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: syltotzke@wideopenwest.com


Mike,

Lin got home from the hospital last night and wants to thank
everyone for praying for her. Every day she feels a bit
better. Thanks for praying!

Syl

Sylvia from Airport in Germany

I got this email from Syl and wanted to post it here...

Date: 6/11/2003 3:29:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: TotzkesinPrague

Mike and Mindi,
I called your house yesterday to give you a phone number. I was happy and hopeful when I found out that Stratton was doing child care while you were at the hospital. I hope that there is a new little Jentes for us to thank God for. If not, we'll still keep praying that there will be an early release from the womb.

I'm in the Frankfurt airport waiting for my flight to Prague. I'm checking my email and it's interesting navigating the German version of AOL. The screens look similar, but it sure was hard getting to the email screen. Oh well, time I have.

I talked to my sister yesterday and she's improving. They took the intravenous thing out of her so now she can experiment with what to eat. It's been 10 days since she had anything but an IV drip to sustain her. She's hungry! That's a good thing. They still aren't talking about discharging her, but I hope that I'll be able to talk with her today when I get to Prague and hear more good news of her recovery.

I pray that all is well with you. God bless you both and all the little Jenteses whether they be three or four in number.

Love ya,
Syl

Totzke Prayer Communique

From: TotzkesinPrague@aol.com [mailto:TotzkesinPrague@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 12:05 PM

Dear Friends,

As of today, we're not sure what email address will work when we're in Prague. Larry has tried to use wideopenwest and also this aol address that we got when we got our laptop (you know, 6 free months of aol but you can't use the current account you have). Neither one of them has been successful yet but he's still working on it from his end. He does have email access through the Swain account and a Czech cell phone Randall Wood from Dublin Baptist Church lent us. We'll keep you posted on the email access.

I'm in Seattle and will leave tomorrow. My sister Lin is still in the hospital. Her intestines have started to wake up but not to the extent that she can come home. Our mom is here now and will take over for me. Today they hope to put her on liquids. She hadn't had even a drink of water until yesterday. It's been a good time for us to be together although I wish it weren't under these circumstances, although God is teaching us a great deal about the many facets that love is. For that I'm eternally thankful. Thank you for praying for me about how good a caregiver I will be to my sister. She's says I'm a good caregiver, but that won't make me rush off to nursing school.

To read more about Larry's trip to Prague, you can go to the quest blog at http://www.thequestcolumbus.com/blog.html. It was an adventure!

I wanted to send this out today to make sure that I have all of your addresses correct before I take off tomorrow. God bless you all.

Sylvia and Larry

Larry Totzke in Prague
I got the following letter from LT that he wrote on Sunday June 8th:

Hi Mike,

Since I don’t know how I’m gonna do email yet, I’m putting this in a word file to enclose with the message. It’s Sunday AM and I’ve got ½ hour before I walk over to the Swain’s for church. They’re having communion and IK get to lead in bread and cup.

I had an eventful time getting here on Thursday. The flight from Frankfurt to Prague was overbooked and I was late getting to the ticket counter so they put me on standby. I was the last person to get on the plane and only then because a couple of people gave up their seats for goodies.

I met George Swain at the Prague airport as planned and he told me that we go to the B&B by bus and metro. You know how heavy the big suitcase was! Well I got on the bus, but the doors closed before George could get on! I had no money, no ticket and no idea where I was going. Did I panic? Almost! But I got off the bus at the first stop and decided to wait for George. Two more buses with the same number came by and NO George. Did I panic? Almost! I decided to see if anyone spoke English and had a cell phone. As I was trying to confer with two kind Czech guys, there came George trudging up. He had gotten on another bus right behind mine and the drive passed my bus and dropped him off at the 2nd stop. When George saw that I wasn’t on the 1st bus he circled back around and met me. Whew! Welcome to Prague, LT.

Syl may have emailed you already and told you that Lin was still in the hospital as of Friday. I haven’t talked to her since then, so I don’t know the latest. Her mom is supposed to fly out today. Please pray for all 3 of them, but Lin the most. This was in the plans.

I’m learning my way around the area. The B&B is very nice. The Swains live about a 10-15 minute walk from here. The metro is about 5 minutes away. Friday George and I toured downtown, and he showed me places to take the teams to eat, the bank, post office, train station and other important landmarks. No sightseeing until Syl arrives.

Saturday we went to a memorial reunion of the Czech WW II air force and 398th US Air Wing to commemorate the anniversary of the crash of one of our B 17s in the village of Slany about ½ hour outside Prague. One of Cindy’s friends from the Ashland GBC is the niece of one of the B 17 crew who was killed and her parents were invited guests, so we got to tag along. There was an air show, roasted pig, lots of speeches and gifts for the Americans, and plenty of beer (but I abstained!). I think George and Cindy made a couple of contacts.

About 10 hours have gone by since I wrote the above. Church is over; I had no success sending email; and I talked to Syl.

Church was good. Cindy Swain plays guitar and they sing in Czech real well. It was cool to have communion with them and to recognize the unity we have as described in Ephesians 4:3-6.

Syl gave me an update to pass on about Linda. She is still in the hospital, but good things are starting to happen. Her colon is “waking up” and starting to function. That may mean starting a liquid diet today and maybe real food tomorrow. She and Syl are praying together, and it sounds like Syl’s prayer to be a good caregiver is being answered. My prayer is that Lin is better enough by Tuesday that Syl can leave for Prague without having to worry too much about her.

Pressing on in Prague,

LT

Totzkes in Prague

I just got this email from Syl in Seattle. I wanted to post it so we can be praying...

6/7/2003
From: TotzkesinPrague@aol.com (by the way, this is their new summer email address)

Mike,
I'll be praying for the assembly. My sister is still in the hospital. Her intestines haven't awakened from the surgery yet. Please pray that they do soon.
Syl

I sent this out in our weekly email last week. After musing through it again, I wanted to post it here for longevity.

05.28.2003 UPdate

thequest family,

Last night, I had the opportunity to visit a gathering of Christian Students at OSU from the School of Music. It is a group called FISH, and our good friend Christina Lyons has been a part of it, and is stepping into leadership for next year.

It was kinda cool because as they were sharing, I realized that this was a “house church” (whether or not they understand that I don’t know). Somewhere through the discussion, they were sharing about the huge job of reaching the 500 students in the school of music.

The bells went off in my head. This was a beautiful thing. A picture I had dreamed of. I was able to be an observer of our vision. The vision to see a local expression of the church for every 500 people in urban Columbus. I was overcome with amazement at what God is doing! Jesus is building His Church! It was happening. There was an expression of the church for this batch of 500 people!

This is just one pocket of the hundreds of pockets people in urban Columbus. But God has sown the seed of a local expression of the church into the fray of the school of music at OSU.

Now had this humble cast of a dozen-ish folks done all the disciplemaking that needs done in their pocket of 500 people? Not yet, but they are piecing together a strategy to do it. I believe that they will follow Jesus in what He wants them to do…and that our Christina will help lead them that way.

Another thing that has been rolling around in my brain for a couple of months got some clarity. I have thought about our logo. You know the ever-present orange and blue paper chain links [see the top of this email ;-)]. The logo has been prophetic is some senses for me. I guess it has drawn out 3 things for me—

1) it really speaks to the simplicity of who we are and what we do

2) it shows the relational connection stuff that we are all about

3) AND it shows the fragile nature of our community.


Number 3 jumped out at me last night as we were reading 1 Cor. 12 and a couple of verses really hooked me.

…in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. . .

…those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,. . .



The unbelievably deep truth of those lines smacked me. God has arranged each person in thequest family—JUST AS HE WANTS THEM TO BE. We all are very important to the whole. God stuck us where we are! We didn’t just happen upon this, or have good luck, or anything else. God has put us together.

Some of us feel really fragile. We wonder if God listens to us, or even cares. We feel really weak in the battles we are called to fight, as individuals and as a community. We puzzle and stew over what God is doing and how to figure it out. We feel like if a good strong breeze came in it would blow us out to sea.

To those of us who feel like that…God says…”we are indispensable.” We as parts of the body seem to be so weak. We don’t know which end is up sometimes, but God sees us as INDISPENSABLE to the work He is doing.

What a treat to serve a God that leans on us—a weak, humble, fragile, bunch of construction paper links—to do His work. I hope this encourages your soul like it did mine. And let’s press on!

Totzke Prayer Communique
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 11:12 AM

Dear Praying Friends,

Tomorrow is the long-awaited day that we are scheduled to
leave for Prague. Over the weekend our plan changed
slightly. Oh we’re still going to Prague and Larry will be
leaving on Wednesday just as planned, but Sylvia’s arrival
will be delayed by a week. On Friday we found out that
Sylvia’s sister, Lin, was in the hospital facing surgery.
Lin had a routine colonoscopy on Thursday and while removing
a polyp they perforated her colon. She had surgery on
Saturday to repair the colon but remains in the hospital.
Lin lives in Seattle with her four cats with us as her
closest family members. You see, there are only four of us
– Lin, us, and their mom Hilda who lives in Pittsburgh.
Hilda was waiting anxiously to see what was happening to her
sister in Germany who had a stroke earlier this year and
wasn’t doing well physically and eventually had to be
hospitalized.

Sylvia left for Seattle on Monday to be with her sister. We
were able to change our travel arrangements for her so that
she could fly to Prague from Seattle on June 10th. We are
thankful that God worked out all of the details for this
change.

So please pray that Larry’s trip is safe and that Sylvia
is a good caregiver for her sister and her cats.

God’s blessings on all of you.
Larry and Sylvia