CZECH MATES WITH OM

by Marten Holmes

Open Air Campaigner' training link with Operation Mobilisation deepened last month when I left home in Cornwall, England and flew out to the Czech Republic.

With the new-found freedom in Central and Eastern Europe OM have been placing teams into these countries as missionaries to work alongside national Christians. OM runs a Missionary Training School (MTS) in Ceske Budejovice for their Central European Teams to ensure that they are equipped for the job in hand.

The school provides an extensive training over some ten weeks covering such areas as discipleship, spiritual warfare, other faiths and ideologies, cultural understanding and adaptation as well as teaching on team dynamics, individual gifting and the importance of a quality personal relationship with God. There are also more practical sessions on health care, writing newsletters etc.

Towards the end of the training the students learn how to use a sketchboard, drama and other visual aids before going out in teams to local churches to put into practice what they have been taught.

I spent eleven days training eighteen students from nine different countries of origin. The training included how to run an open-air programme for both adults and children, how to select a good site, handling hecklers, challenging hearers to follow Christ and counselling for salvation. There were also sessions on running children's clubs, school lessons and assemblies.

As well as training for the sketchboard I demonstrated and explained how to use escapology and illusions, both in the open air and in a church or school.

Resident MTS staff Mic and Dona McDaniel trained the students in mime, clowning and puppetry so that by the end of the practical training period each person was armed with new skills and ideas ready for the weekend's ministry and, of course, to use in their target country.

Whilst in the Czech Republic I also managed to preach in one of the local churches, join one of the ministry teams in an outreach to a boarding school and work with another team outreach in a local university. This gave me an opportunity to see the students using their new skills in a real situation and to join in the ministry. Perhaps most importantly it gave everyone the joy of seeing that the training was effective as people responded to the Lord Jesus.

Marten is now back in Britain continuing his work on the streets and in the schools of Cornwall. The MTS'ers finished their training on the 27th April and set off to join teams in Croatia, Poland, Albania, Romania, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic.

Two of the eighteen were from International Teams and will be going to work with refugees in Germany and Austria/Croatia.

Marten will be back in the Czech Republic again in November to train the next MTS intake, which is expected to be approximately double the size. OAC teams will also be taking part in the Love Europe conferences this summer, after which several of our evangelists will be taking part in Love Europe outreaches across Europe.