Unforgettable.

Last night, after camp wound up, the balmy sunny evening found our Canadian team debriefing about the week over glasses of Kofala at an outdoor restaurant nestled against a Slovakian woodland. The earthy fragrances of the forest mingled with the savory smell of roast pheasant, grilled duck and venison schnitzel, while Slovakian dancing music filled the air around us. But no one at the table was paying attention to the music--we were all leaning in, intently listening to the Pastor of the church at which we'd been ministering telling us this remarkable story:

(Please click Read More to continue)



In WWII, this town was one of the most bombed cities in Europe with only five buildings surviving the devastation. One of them was the current church building, which at the time had been a school for Jewish children. Two weeks before the end of the war, when the Nazis were killing everyone in sight, thirty Jewish children survived the massacre by hiding in the school basement--the very church basement in which I had stood only this morning--

After the war, one of those children came back to buy the school building with the intention of reopening it. The rise of Communism here in 'Czechoslovakia' prevented that from happening, but the school fell back to the Jewish community after the regime collapsed. They had only enough resources to restore one of their two buildings in town, however, so they chose to sell the school and instead restore the synagogue. This was done on one condition: the school must be used to serve others. For twelve years the building sat empty, as the businessman who bought it waited for the right renter--one who truly had a heart to serve others. So when the Holy Spirit led the pastor of a small, building-less church plant to call the owner of the building and ask him about it...You can imagine how the story ends!



Before we left Slovakia this morning, we asked to see the basement where the children had hidden. What words are there to describe what it's like to duck into the dark passage behind the church, guarded by a locked iron gate, and descend to the labyrinth of rooms below where so many lives were protected?



Standing there in the musty concrete corridors, wandering among the cobwebs back-lit by barred windows, gazing at the sections of brick exposed in the peeling walls, one finds very little to say or even to think. Here, the well from which the hiding drew water. And there, the closet-like cove which almost certainly served as a restroom.





And over it all, what our team leader described as an "air of reverence," a place filled with a history of service to God's people.

It just occurred to me now, however, that God has enabled me to be part of that happy ending. Here we had been all week, serving others in the building which God has used to save His children for almost a century of history! How incredible is the fact that He has created us each to play a role in His master story, to step onto the stage of history and join with Him in the writing of a new chapter.