From me to you from Tabor

 If you can't see the video, click here.

Estonia! (seriously, read this. It's for you.)

Come and serve in Estonia (seriously)!

(Only 10 days required!)

ENGLISH CAMP 2010

English Camps have been an effective ministry tool for us during the years.  This year we are doing 7 English Camps. But we are still missing some.  American people. In total Josiah Venture still needs 25 people for their ministry in Estonia. Here is the need defined in detail:

7 people for June 25 - July 3 in Saku, Estonia.

9 people for July 9-18 in Kohila, Estonia.
4 people for July 23 - August 1 in Kuressaare, Estonia.
2 people for July 23 - August 1 in Tartu, Estonia.

If you are ready to serve as a missionary for 10 days in this summer, let us know as soon as possible. We want/need to know it before the 25th of May at the latest.

Each person needs to fundraise $820 + plane tickets.
(We also need 3 people for a soccer camp. If you can play and want to come, let us know!)

Contact Lucka Zagorova at lzagorova@gmail.com and tell her you heard about it from Jonathan Rosen :)
- Also, Lucka is amazing!  So, LET'S GO!

Traveling to the Czech

Tomorrow we're off and running, getting all prepped up for the interns' arrival May 26, and the rest of the summer after that.

Equipping Czech Youth for Christ's Commission; 3 Days Left!

One of my favorite core values of Josiah Venture is indigenous empowerment - encouraging and training national leaders in the Czech church. One of the ways we express this value is by inviting Czech believers from local churches to serve on an intern team for the entire summer. Last summer, Martina Pixova was the Czech intern on my team.

Last summer I remember praying a very specific prayer at each camp.  I asked God to raise up Elijahs and Elishas and Peters and Pauls and Moseses and Deborahs and Marys and Priscillas for the Czech Republic, and I firmly believe that the two Czech interns on our team this year are answers to those prayers.

This summer, I have the privilege of serving alongside of Eva Svehlova and Jenda Halamka.  I am excited that you have the opportunity to incorporate the value of indigenous empowerment by investing in them and the advance of the gospel in Czech (In order to best support them both, the women on the team are in charge of helping Eva raise support, and the men on the team (Ryan Haggerty and I) are in charge of helping Jenda raise support.)

I met Jenda at the Bohumilice English camp last summer.  He was raised in a Christian family and is one of the strongest members of his youth group, and he is stepping out in this internship to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and I believe God has far more planned for him than any of us know (1 Cor. 2:9; Eph. 3:20-21).

Jenda has just been accepted to be a summer intern with Josiah Venture's English camp ministry.  This means that he'll be on my intern team and will help promote and lead three camps. It is a great fit, because he was at the first camp we did last summer and was my small group translator and did translation for our apologetics panels.  Jenda will translate as well as share his life and the gospel with students all over Czech. I am thrilled for him to grow in knowledge and love of God. I know his honest, caring, and sincere personality will be a huge blessing for our team.

If you are interested in being a part of Jenda 's ministry this summer, he has two main needs: prayer and finances.  If you would like to pray for Jenda, please email him at denan@email.cz with the subject "Prayer," and he will add you to his update and prayer request list (He understands English.).  If you are interested in financially supporting him, he needs to raise $2000 by May 26. This covers trainings, food and board, camps, and travel for the whole summer.  You can send a check to Josiah Venture, PO Box 4317, Wheaton IL 60189 with a note that it is for Jenda Halamka.  Please write his account number 17122 in the memo line of the check.  You may also give online by clicking here and entering in his name and account number.  Either will work :)

Thank you and God Bless,

Jonathan

P.S. Jenda's life is an increasing example of how God uses English camps to clearly proclaim His salvation, to connect unbelievers to Czech believers, and has a unique opportunity for Czech believers to grow in areas of leadership, ownership of their faith, and witnessing. It is my prayer that this e-mail serves as a tangible testimony of how God is working in the Czech Republic.
____________________________________

I leave this Sunday, the 16th, and there is a lot going on to say the least.  Please pray that I would get everything done and accomplished that I need to - e-mails, packing, errands, shopping, goodbyes, time with God, and anything else you can think of and want to pray for.  Thank you so much for being a part of this and supporting me and the team.  Our team as a whole still needs to raise about $8,000.  God has provided all the financial support I need.  Thank you for being God's vessels to help makes this all possible.

From Now to the Czech: 20 Days and Counting

Five months has nearly gone by, and I can only imagine how fast these next twenty days will go by.

A lot has been going on regarding my Czech internship, a lot of really exciting things to be exact.  So here's the update you've been waiting for:

The Team
It has all been decided.  We have our intern team put together.  Drum roll....Bonnie Boyd and I are co-leading an intern team again, and we are incredibly excited serve with each other for another summer.

the guy interns

God has given us two: Ryan Haggerty, hailing from Peoria, IL; and Jenda Halamka, hailing from Bohumilice, CZ.  Ryan has been to the Czech Republic with his church doing English camps before, and I was able to work with Jenda at our first camp last summer.  He translated for my small group and for our apologetics panels.

(Top to Bottom: Ryan Haggerty, Jenda Halamka)

Ryan is a living answer of one of my most repeated prayers from last summer and since being back in the states - that God would send more laborers into the harvest of the Czech.  Not only do I get to see God answering prayers in Ryan's ministry, but I get serve alongside someone who is an answer to prayer.  I am really stoked to live with and serve with Ryan this summer.

Jenda is also an answer to a much repeated prayer from last summer and here at home - that God would raise up Peters and Pauls and Johns and Elijahs and Elishas and Josiahs to lead the church in the Czech Republic.  I remember praying this prayer specifically day after day at the Bohumilice camp, and getting to have Jenda on our team is part of God's answer.

the girl interns

Besides getting to co-lead with Bonnie again, God has also given three incredible women of God to serve with this summer.  They are Frances Rau - Tampa, FL; Allison Weaver - hailing from Willowstreet, PA (but she's lived much of her life on the mission field nationally and internationally); and Eva Švehlová - hailing from Strakonice, CZ.

This summer will hold Bonnie's 15th, 16th, and 17th camps (may be wrong, but it is definitely in the teens), and Frances was just in the Czech Republic over spring break with the team from Moody Bible Institute (where she is soon graduating from).  Allison has served many years doing missions in South America, and this will be her first time in the Czech Republic (really excited for this!); and Eva is a student leader in the Strakonice youth group, and I was able to work with her last summer at our Strakonice Camp.

(Top to Bottom: Bonnie Boyd, Frances Rau, Eva Švehlová, Allison Weaver)

I could and do believe and say the same things about Frances, Allison, and Eva as I did for Ryan and Jenda.  Each of them is a living answer to prayer, and I am excited to serve with them and spur them on to their calling for the summer.

The Czech Locales
The churches and locations are all set.  We will be working with the church in Strakonice, Zlin, and Litvinov this summer, and I cannot wait to do these camps.  In communicating with the Czech leaders, I believe we have been "mutually encouraged by each other's faith" and passion.
 


View Team BonJon 2010 in a larger map

Scroll over the map to Eastern Europe and you will see the tag markers I put on the map for you.  This will give you a visual of where in the country we will be and for what reasons.  I'll be adding the American church team locations soon.

Support Raising
There is lots of good news and new challenges regarding support.  God has already provided 73% of the financial support required for the seven month internship.  I have $2,800 left to go.  God has also provided 100% of the funds Bonnie, Ryan, and Allison need.  Frances is still raising support, and we are confident God is going to provide for 100% of her needs as well.

Czech Support
Jenda and Eva each have to raise $2,300 for the summer.  They are responsible for raising $300 (6,000 crowns) from Czechs, and it is our privilege as a team to help them raise the other $2,000.  This means that we need to raise $4,000 for our Czech interns this summer.  I am praying for 80 people to each give $50 to fully fund Jenda and Eva.

How Can You Help?
1.   Please continue to pray for us.  Now, you have faces and names and places to pray for.  Also, please pray that God would provide everything we need to fulfill the calling He has for us over there, and that we would not take His provision and preparation for granted, but that we would remain intentionally and gratefully dependent on Him.

2.  You can give financially.  If you would like to give to me, Frances, Eva, and/or Jenda, please click here.  Enter in any of our names and our account number and you can give online with your credit or debit card.  Beneath the online form are other ways you can give if you would prefer. 

• To give to Eva  Švehlová, type in her name and Account # 17121. 
• To give to Jenda Halamka, type in his name.  Unfortunately, his account number is forthcoming, but I will update this as soon as I get it.
•  To give to Frances Rau, type in her name and Account # 17118. 
• To give to me, type in my name - Jonathan Rosen - and Account # 17104.  And if you would like to receive one of my vision and support letters, please let me know, and I will get one to you ASAP :)

Thank you for reading this.  Thank you to those who have been praying and will be praying.  Thank you to those who have given and will give.  You are the people God has chosen to bring to reality His good and great purposes.

Real Love in being home and departing again

"Love is doing whatever you have to do at whatever cost to yourself to help the beloved be enthralled - fully and forever - with what is most satisfying - God, not themselves" (John Piper; 01:01:25).

"There must be something inside of us that loves to be near bigness when we feel little" (John Piper).

"Your calling is His calling on you to Him for the body" (Matt Chandler; 39:45).

"You can toil away your whole life and be unbelieavably faithful to God and see little on this side of heaven.  But boy, we need to know it before we sell out and try to create cool Jesus" (Matt Chandler; 45:03).

Too often, I am learning, I regurgitate truth without crying out for it to impact and change my life.  This is a problem.  Not that I was insincere before, but it is really easy to lay truth over a life issue or problem or pain or failure, even if you really believe it, and realize you haven't processed or moved on or communicated meaningfully at all.  I have learned that too often the emotional, intimate, and relational aspect of being a Christian is elevated at the expense of the intellectual, and the intellectual is also too often elevated at the expense of the intimate, and reactions back and forth ensues.  I have learned that the spiritual truth, the Christian truth, is where the intellectual and the intimate meet, and this is a hard tension to love and hold on to.  Being home has stirred new emotions and relationships again that are in the process of being wedded to the intellectual truth of who God is and how He is working in me and others (Matt Chandler talks about this too.  It's just a great sermon.  Watch it or listen to it.  Throw it on your IPod or something.  It is well worth your time.).

When I changed my blog title to "Home Again" back in December, I did not yet know what being "Home Again" would hold for me.  I was leaving something "big" to come home.  I wanted home to be big, as in a big time of my life, not five months of small, and it has turned out to be big.  It has been made so clear that I needed this five months home in a different community to prepare for the ministry ahead of me.  Parts of my life have been stirred up here that would have never been stirred in Chicago, mainly because I am a part of a different community, not better or worse, but different, and so they push and pull and stretch me in different ways, and new places in my life are being pruned and there are new pains and failures and new joys and successes.

I have been blessed with incredible communities to be a part of, and getting to reunite with friends in Chicago was a great gift.  I received words there that I will cherish for a long time (Hopefully, I'll write them down so that long time will be a life time.).  I was impacted and allowed to impact, and it was exciting and exhausting and renewing, and I know that these last four weeks home will be similar, and that seven months in the Czech will be as well.

Do you feel broken or unclean?

For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine (Romans 1:11-12).

I am continually encouraged by the faith and teaching of Mark Driscoll, and I was greatly encouraged by these two videos, and I hope they encourage you as well.  Why was I encouraged?  He reminds of who Jesus is and what He's done for me.  Is there anything better to be reminded of?  Is there anything more encouraging?

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).