Who are you?
We are the East-Team. I am a part of it.
We start in the East of Europe, everywhere, no one else wants to go.
My name is Jega and I moved to Berlin two years ago exactly for the purpose of being trained and to plant churches in East Europe. I work for a tech company full time.
Our wider team for Bratislava has been varied: students from many countries in Europe, professionals, teachers, pensioners, and also families.
We trained many people in talking about their passion and life with Jesus on the streets of Bratislava. Our wider and closer team is currently eight people. Some have started to visit other cities as a result of coming with us, like Tobi, who is now going to Potsdam.
What do you want to see?
Because of my personal journey in discipleship, I learned to take Gods speaking very seriously. God initiated a lot by himself but I also needed that extra knock from a mentor. When I searched out Gods will for certain cities, I first felt overwhelmed and fearful. But with the help of my mentor, I was able to go.
I think everyone can have a close relationship with God where they are encouraged to be bold and trust God. But without people who fan that flame, dream along, and even help out if need be, that desire can subside and wither totally. I hope that I can inspire people from Bratislava and various other cities in Slovakia, to end up in such a discipleship relationship with Jesus and me and the team. I would love to train churchplanters in Slovakia and see how God and the input of other Christians will guide them towards planting housechurches in their own area of influence.
How did you get this Idea?
In my time of prayer, I used to ask God, „Where do you want to send me and what do you want me to do?“
Even though I did not think so, I expected God to speak towards the things I was currently doing. But one day, I saw a picture of a blue church from the top and there was the impression of the name „blue church“. I went to Google, described that inner picture of mine and ended up looking through images of blue churches. The blue church in Bratislava was the closest to what I saw. But did I hear right? Could it be that God would be so specific to tell me a place to go to?
The only way to find out was to go, said my mentor. And some month and friendly kicks later, I was there. All by myself and I found that endeavor entirely too crazy for me in a good way. I met all these interested people there….to my astonishment! And then people wanted to join me and we went in teams of twenty people and more.
From Bratislava, I went into other countries in the East and soon found out: they all have blue churches in them. It seems to be a theme. And I am kind of thinking if that is the challenge to grow with.
What challenges do you expect?
The time we have in the city is too short always. Being physically far away from our friends, we need to stay in contact by skyping them and messaging. We have learned to take them along on other trips to other cities and countries. But not everyone is able to join us and so the three months in between our trips can feel very long.
It seems hard to make the current contacts believe that we are there for the long run and that they can rely on us to go further and further with them. If more people would do trips there, keep contact with new friends and visit our friends while we are away, that would be the best help, because...
What are you going to do?
...we really want to return to a group of new believers, who read the bible together and have fellowship and reach out to their friends. That is why we will try to go to Bratislava three to four times a year and then stay in contact with the people we got to know, trying to involve them in any other project we are doing. I currently even do exercise over zoom with some friends there.
We like to map out our trip beforehand through prayer, not just where God would like us to go and whom to meet, but also for the team that joins us. We find that God’s goals with the people who came along so far totally helped our journeys and the people we met in Bratislava. If anyone feels that Bratislava or Slovakia is on their heart already for a while, we like to hear from them.