Continuing my life journey and how I was led, this section describes our church congregations and spiritual retreats. It is another part of an upcoming book or website section entitled Divinely Led.
Part 3: Life and Work in the USA
Church Congregations and Spiritual Retreats
The church headquarters had four large church congregations, but somehow it was hard to fit in and build relationships. It was different from the church in Melbourne where there was much more closeness. Over the years, we changed congregations several times. Only one of those times, we were under a pastor who came from the field, Dennis van D., where we felt the church was alive and growing. This unfortunately was relatively short-lived as the minister ended up being put in charge of the Security Department – something that to me still seems like a misplacement of his gifts and a loss to the brethren. Under the new pastor, the church again lost its specialness and upbeat atmosphere, which was sad to see.
The church had annual conventions or spiritual retreats in various places in the US and other parts of the world. This gave us opportunities to travel. As much as possible, we selected non-urban or country locations to get out of the city environment where we lived all year. The conventions included spiritual teachings, shared meals, fellowship, sightseeing, and community activities. They provided edifying experiences of learning, meeting members from other areas, seeing new places, and recreation. Some of the contacts we made at these retreats became long-lasting correspondence friendships.
We had opportunities to see various parts of the US, having driven north to Spokane, WA, east to Lake of the Ozarks, MO, Wisconsin Dells, WI, and Vail CO. We also flew to Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, with a brief stopover in Charleston, SC, and on the way back, Washington, DC. Before each decision, we prayed for guidance and received it. Retrospectively, I am very grateful for these opportunities.
One year, we drove to Victoria, BC, Canada. That year, Alex’s mother came to visit us, met us in Victoria, and we drove back with her. Unfortunately, her health wasn’t the best and we had a few concerns whether we would need to take her to hospital, but thankfully, it all worked out well.
To keep in touch with our family and relatives, every few years we chose to go to Australia or Europe. Things became a little complicated when my father retired and my parents moved to Queensland, but it gave us opportunities to visit both the state of Victoria in the south and south-east Queensland half-way up the continent, also travelling through New South Wales in between. Unfortunately, the times spent with our families were brief and as a result, close relationships with our nieces and nephews were never built. This was the price paid for our desire to do God’s Work, but despite that, there were countless blessings.
A dramatic turning point in Europe occurred when in November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. Within the same month, all the Soviet satellite countries – Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany became free of Communism. When the Berlin Wall fell, Alex and I were with my parents in Cleveland, Queensland going to visit the city by train, so it was an especially momentous time for us. My parents felt that Czechoslovakia will never become free – yet, just a couple of short weeks later, following the Students’ Day of November 17 demonstrations, the Velvet Revolution took place.
These events meant that I would from here on be free and safe to travel to Czechoslovakia and that we could visit the church convention in Brno. This was something that Alex desired for many years, but with my family having stayed out of the country illegally, it would have been dangerous for me to go back. So, now the door being open, this is what we started planning to do in 1990.
It was quite a special time to be back after so many years. We experienced the Czech culture, music and people and felt quite at home. We also met some of my relatives, some for the first time ever. My cousin’s younger daughter Dasa was just a toddler and was carried by her mother or 15-year-old sister Petra. With the help of my father’s relatives in Vienna, Austria, a few years before, we had reconstructed my family’s history from my father’s side, and now we were able to meet some of those people in person.
From this first post-Velvet Revolution visit to Czechoslovakia, the idea came to Alex of the possibility of us living in the country and be able to help the people who would now be free to worship and also needed and desired to learn English, but lacked qualified teachers. I wasn’t excited at first – it didn’t ring true at all. But after another couple more visits, as well as much prayer and guidance seeking, about three years later the idea materialized!
The next section backtracks almost 15 years to show how seeds began to be sown then and how there was a subtle guidance to pave the way to this incredible move.
For other information on divine leading, see Spirit Helpers and Guides
Here is a short reflection on being divinely led.