The Backstory!

This journey the Lord has put me on actually started in the year 2005 as I found myself traveling to some of the most beautiful places in the world; St. Thomas, Aruba, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Dominica, Acapulco, the Mexican Riviera and I was no longer having fun. There was a weird emptiness that echoed 22 years ago to the time before I knew Christ personally. I didn’t know what to do with it so I just stayed busy with family, business and ministry.

Last year, early June 2006, I had an opportunity to check off another of my life’s goals by visiting the Czech Republic via Germany. In Dresden Germany I stumbled upon a venerable statue of Martin Luther. The rest of the tour group was caught up in touring a beautiful church heavily damaged in WWII; while I just stood in front of this monument thinking “God, I can’t believe I’m standing in this very place.” We then continued on our journey with another stop being Prague, Czech Republic. There again the rest of the group were taking in the splendor the oldest square in the city when I came upon another statue that stopped me in my tracks. It was John Huss, the forerunner to Martin Luther who would follow 100 years later. Both of these men were willing to give their lives for their convictions to Christ and freedom for the people. I just stood there thinking this is so cool – I am a Bohemian and so was he – I actually DO come from a good people.

We only had a very short time to spend in this mystical place (like a few hours) and had to leave. As we were walking out of the square I turned to my husband and said, “I would really love to bring our kids back here some day,” meaning our two daughters and their future husbands some day far off in the future. I turned; glancing back offered a quick prayer, “Lord, could I come back here one day with my children.” We left and the prayer forgotten.Throughout the summer and winter of 2006 the Lord continued to sift every part of my heart. I didn’t understand the emotional and spiritual rollercoaster I was experiencing and just attributed it to a fast approaching empty nest, too much caffeine or the most dreaded thing of all – the legends of menopause. I had heard stories of women losing their minds in this season. None of these were the case, He was preparing me for a call He would extend in the near future.

I participated in a medical mission trip during the Christmas Holiday to Matlapa Mexico. At the time I had no idea how life changing this event would be. Yes, it was a very fulfilling experience, but the real change came as my heart was reshaped on the trip back into the states. I came to another point of deeper surrender and no longer wanted to encumber myself with shallow things, relationships and endeavors. I wanted to live life on a deeper level all the time – not just on a mission trip.During this sifting time I was hearing the Lord speak to me about a variety of things and now He was directing me again.

February 23 journal entry: “I was again reading of Peter’s shadow passing by and healing those who were brought to him. Father I’m feeling like you are directing me to a place of miraculous power- not for my glory but yours. Lord a fairly long time ago – maybe 11/2 to 2 years ago you told me you were going to give me the gift of healing; to pray for this and to start praying for the gift of miracles.” Other entries followed that started to weave together painting the same picture.

March 10, 2007 journal entry: “Father it’s late and I’m not tired. I feel more strongly than ever to ask you for another big miracle; Lord would I please be able to go back to the Czech Republic and minister there for an extended period of time. Could I return to Mexico, India and Czechoslovakia before my time here runs out?” This prompting from the Lord took me completely by surprise since I hadn’t even thought about Europe since last summer. I automatically assumed that I might find myself helping on a short term trip in the Czech possibly doing some painting or supporting a missionary in Prague much later in life. The burden still lingered to find out if there were any missionaries from the EFCA that I could start a relationship with now just to be able to pray and give encouragement. I did follow through but didn’t really make any significant connections.

On March 20, 2007 I found myself celebrating my 46th birthday still lamenting that I just couldn’t live the rest of my life going to work, watching TV and trying to invent ways to entertain myself till I die – yuk!

Journal entry: “Father, I’m 46 years old with probably 35 years left. Lord would you use each of those years to make a big difference for your kingdom.”

Wednesday, March 27th: After participating in a rather interesting staff meeting discussing the reality of having a conversational relationship with God, miracles and living out the book of Acts I found myself in my associates office whining. “I want to go to India – no, I really want to go to the Czech Republic.” Well, this was all being said in a spirit of unbelief since it seemed so absurd. He turned to me and flatly said, “Well then just go,” “Yea right”, I scoffed. “No I mean it, a group from another Church here in town as well as Lift Off Ministries in Minneapolis went last year and plan to go again.”

Interestingly enough our internet in the office was not working so I just opted to call to get the details. Still thinking this is so impossible but it’s worth getting the scoop; As Anna from Lift Off, and I visited she indicated that the trip would consist of counter culture Christian music festivals and street evangelism. Neither of which I might add appeal to me at all – AT ALL! As we were winding down our conversation she did add one other connection they would try to make time permitting. It was with a woman named "Dana" who was just in the beginning phase – meaning just praying about it – of doing a God led work for the prostitutes, pimps and orphans in the border town of Dubi. I hadn’t even heard of this place but I was so overcome with emotion and a movement in my spirit that I just knew this was what the Lord wanted me to participate in; I wasn’t sure just how that would look.

Anna forwarded Dana’s e-mail address to me through a letter she had received from her previously and I made first contact Friday evening, March 30th. The next morning I received an unusual phone call from a sweet young mom who attends one of my bible studies. She had no idea that any of this was coming down the road toward me as she indicated the Lord had told her specifically to give me a message, it was Isaiah 20:3. Matthew Henry’s commentary explains:

“Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet to show himself mortified to the World He was to now walk stripped. The world will often deem believers foolish, when singular in obedience to God. But the Lord will support his servants under the most trying effects of their obedience; and what they are called upon to suffer for His sake, commonly is light, compared with what numbers groan under from year to year from sin.”

My blood was now beginning to run cold since I had done a little research on the web regarding Dubi. It is in my opinion the belly of Hell. A front page New York Times article paints the picture of the town and its trade in sex. Girls from Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, it reported, are lured there with the promise of work, but become prisoners of the vice trace, heavily in debt and without their passports to get home. This is also a pipeline for the trafficking of women and children in the sex industry to Germany, Italy, France, Western Europe, Netherlands and Greece. The article goes on, “When you scratch the shiny façade which Dubi gives the sex industry you find a world of violence, hatred sexually transmitted diseases, misery and orphaned children which the prostitutes dump at the nearby Teplice orphanage. Child prostitution can also be found.” (1997).

Although the article is dated, reforms come very slow since everyone is on the take.March 31, Saturday Dana replied back to me with her desires to see the light of Christ brought to this un-reached area of the border towns. I knew that this was something the Lord wanted me involved with but I was still unsure if the Lord actually wanted me to physically go there. I was even questioning a bit if I could really hear God at all or if I was just concocting a dramatic adventure in my head. Around six weeks prior He had told me that I would be receiving an answer to a prayer I had been praying and a revelation to a question I had been asking. It would be a response to a previous letter I had written, and I would receive the answer on April 1, 2007.

On April 1, Sunday the Teen Challenge Choir performed at our church, this is an organization that provides rehabilitation through a Christ centered life change. For many this is the last stop on the road to self destruction and it is the only thing that works. In our very own community we have the same problems only they are just in a neater package. The choir concluded with the song, “This is how it feels to be free”. As I sat and listened to their testimonies and remembered my own testimony I realized that nothing is too difficult for God and, as reluctant as I was, I needed to get involved. At around 3:30 I checked my e-mail and there was the response that Lord had told me I would receive on April 1. I was so rattled that I couldn’t even open the letter. My head was swirling now since the response, as important as it was had become secondary. I now knew everything I had heard from the Lord was coming to pass.

April 2, Monday evening was spent late in my office praying with a couple of trusted friends over how I would know if I were to actually go to this awful place. It was concluded that my husband would need to give me his blessing; at this point he had no idea of what was going on, only that I was terribly preoccupied and distant. I had also prayed that if I were to go the money for the flight would be taken care of as well as other expenses; all three stipulations were provided for the next day.

I will be boarding a plane to Frankfurt Germany on May 29, 2007 to meet with Dana from Hernnhut Germany. Hernnhut is the original location of one of the greatest movements of God in the middle-ages. A group of Moravian Bohemian Christians were given refuge there and began a prayer movement that lasted over100 years. Another 24/7 prayer movement has been going on since the latter part of 1999 and is connected with this place.When I looked back on the date of the letter that Dana originally e-mailed Mark and Anna Haugen making them aware of what the Lord was doing in Hernnhut and Dubi it was March 20, 2007 – my birthday – the day I said “Lord use me to make a big difference for your kingdom”.I will be meeting with Dana and we will be traveling to Dubi on a prayer and research mission. Much like the spies going into the Promised Land before the Israelites crossed the Jordan.

Our journey is not one of a “social service” nature – it is one of the “power of prayer” - about evoking a prayer 24/7 movement here at LCC and beyond to touch broken people an ocean away as well as to bring an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to our own city; claiming the truth of Luke 18:7 “Will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night?” This journey is simply an act of stepping out in obedience and asking for justice for those who are perishing through unbelief and self destruction. We realize that we are only two or three candles in a very dark place but where the light of the Holy Spirit who resides in each of us enters the darkness has to flee.

Revelation 3:7-8 “What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name”. We believe that a door is being opened again and again in Hernnhut, Germany and in Dubi, Czech Republic.