Ja Ha Ho

Day 4. Saturday 16th July. Prague.
Quieter day today, went across the Charles bridge which has many symbolic monuments on it and prayed next to a statue of the crucifixion while a swing band played Oh When The Saints Go Marching In. Had some quality time on own to pray and reflect. Isaiah 61 and 62 really stood out to me about Prague.
We ate a meal in an Italian Reastaurant and then went to Nebe which was pretty dead because it was before 11pm. And thats just before the fun started...

Day 5. Sunday 17th July. Bratislava.
We planned to get the night train = 6 hours, to Bratislava in Slovakia leaving at midnight so we picked up our bags from the hostel and headed for the station... Jay, our team leader realised he left his bag in Nebe so went to get it but ended up missing the train. Here is an e=mail he sent.

Hey guys..I don't know what happened. I made it to the train station at 12:00 and ran around everywhere lookign for you guys.. but I never found you. I ran around the platform and everything. Anyways, I don't know what happened... but I'm taking a 7:30am train and so I'll get there at 12:25pm. Could someone make sure there is someone at the station to meet me? OK... anyways... HOPEFULLY I'll see you soon.--Jay

So 1 team member down we set off for Slovakia, and things were going well, we were given some pivo from the guard when Steve got confused about the currency and gave him too much money. We also were able to share Jesus with a German girl called Rayka, who was far more intelligent than any of us. I got to sleep at 2am and was woken by a knock on our cabin door. I was sharing with Simon.

Simon: Dave Pray!
Dave: eh... (coming out of a very deep sleep)
Simon opens door to a very typical passport inspector with moustache and scary mullet. Naturally he spoke no English and neither did his strangely attractive sidekick.
Dave: gnrrr... (meaning here is my passport = now let me get back to sleep)
Simon start fumbling through bags and I start to realise why we needed prayer.

After about 3 minutes of fumbling around and Dave making several more grunting noises and being of no help whatsoever Simon: Sorry, I dont seem to have it.
Grumpy scary mullet-moustache man: (something in a Czech and pointing to somewhere not on the train)

Dave: (to Grant, Jeff and Simon) Weve got a slight problem... (re tells story)
Grant: (realising he is now team leader and has some very important decisions to make) Right lets sort this out.
Grant decides to make Simon get off and Dave go with him back to the British embassy in Prague and they would journey on to Bratislava.

Train stops,
Grumpy scary mullet-moustache man returns

Simon takes his belongings to the doorway
Dave is slower packing stuff and knicking to teams supply of food and water, then under one of the bacgs finds a black wallet.

Dave: Er guys... (waves black wallet in air) one passport!
Grumpy scary mullet-moustache man loosens grip on Simons arm and whole team breathes out a sigh of relief.

Pretty uneventful after that. Arrived at 6am, and were picked up by Silvia from Breakthrough Church in Bratislava, Lenke from the International House of Prayer, and Peter from YWAM Slovakia. These 3 people are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. They took us to our hostel - a Lutherian Church owned top story apartment right next to the presidential palace. we have 3 rooms between the 6 of us. We went to sleep until 12pm and then went to Silvia and her husband Andys for food and at 12.30 Jay arrived much to the relief of all of us (Jay was the only one who knew the guys in Slovakia).

We went to church at 3pm in a local community centre and had an awesome worship time. learnt a few new words:
slava means glory,
svety means holy,
Ježiš means Jesus,
Ja Ha Ho means la la la.
Holy means Naked
Ronald who was the only guitarist managed to break 3 strings yet continued valiently.
Pastor Paulina spoke about wind and then we were all filmed for a documentary for Slovakian television while praying in tongues. They had to do several takes to get it right though.

In the evening we went out with some people from the church to have ice cream in the town centre. Simon told me of a picture he had about cows and wasn´t sure how it fit in. As it turned out all over the centre of Bratislava are model cows all painted in creative ways.

That evening I read the testimony of Zoe, the 20 month old daughter of Silvia and Andy. They were constantly told by doctors that there was no baby and it was a blood clot and she had to have an abortion but kept beliving in God and refused. Then when there was a baby there they said it was down syndrome and she should abort but again Silvia belived God was saying LIFE (Zoe means Life). They were even able to give birth to her in America.

Day 6. Monday 18th June. Bratislava.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAY
Spent the day praying round parts of Bratislava like the castle, parliment building, catholic church and town centre. Had dinner in town with Peter and his wife Susanna.
We prayed also for the leaders of the biggest christian youth camp (campfest) in Slovakia happenning in the middle of August. Noel Richards is a regular attender!
In the evening we joined some of the church playing football and then swimming in the lake.
Late on we went out for drinks for Jays birthday.