CASTLEFIELDS CHURCH

Castlefields Church
Traffic Street
Derby
DE1 2NL

© 2008

"We preach Christ crucified"
1 Corinthians 1:23

An independent evangelical church in Derby city centre

Andrew and Nicola Stewart

Czech Republic - Teaching English

Andrew and Nicola are members of Castlefields Church and have recently moved to the Czech Republic to teach English. We are delighted to hear of Gods work in the Czech Republic, below is an extract from Andrew and Nicola's recent News Update 5th November 2007.

Hi everyone !

Hope this finds you well. We arrived here on the 18th October 2007. Here is some of our news. Please tell us your news too!

Warmth of Christian fellowship

The help we are receiving from the Usti Church is far more than we expected and our temporary/new home is spacious and very nice! So plenty of room for visitors! People in the Usti Church have provided us with everything from bedding to cutlery, and plenty of tea bags and milk! There is one service on a Sunday at 9:30am. It consists of prayer, Bible reading, singing and preaching. It finishes by about 10:45am. On the first Sunday we were here we introduced ourselves to the church. At the moment they are doing a series on Galatians. Either Petr or Jan translates the messages for us.

Weather/ Accommodation/ Location

The first few days here were cold, grey and wet, but recently we have enjoyed some lovely bright autumn days. We can see snow on the mountain tops as we look in the direction of Germany (which is just over those mountains). We live in a ground floor flat in a block of 22 flats. Although we are on the ground floor we are on the side of a hill so we have a balcony at the back, which is about 10feet above ground level. The social realism of communism dictated that everyone should live in similar accommodation so there are blocks of flats everywhere you look. Some things are familiar – the Lidl (pronounced Lee Doll) here has the same layout as the one on Normanton Road in Derby, but no weatabix!

Teaching

The English classes which are run by the church, and which we are now teaching, are as follows;
Wednesday 5pm - 6: 30pm Advanced students. Followed at 7pm - 8:30pm Intermediate students.
Thursday 7pm- 8 : 45pm Advanced students. The numbers of students in these classes has varied from 3 to 9 each week. These lessons are advertised as ‘Christian English Lessons’ and in the second part of each lesson we study Mark’s Gospel, Nicola and I split the group in two for this and each teach and discuss the text and questions with our groups. It is really exciting to talk with the students about Jesus, who He is, and what He has done for us. Some of the students in these classes have been on the summer Christian English camp.

We have made contact with 4 private language schools in Usti, which has now started to provide some teaching work for Andrew. Andrew is in the process of applying for a Business Certificate, which is needed for tax purposes. In addition to this we have both started to give private lessons to friends of people in the church. We are aiming to get twenty lessons per week, as that should cover our living costs here.
Nicola also has started to help the mother and children meeting and is keen to help them get started with a Sunday school because they don’t have one set up yet.

Summary

We are beginning to feel at home here. We have got bus passes so we can jump on and off the trolleybuses like the locals. Dogs are very popular here and we see people carrying some dogs in bags on the buses. We are beginning to learn some Czech words and are getting used to the way things are done here (in the food shops you have to weigh your fruit & veg first, before you go to the checkout.) We are amazed at how well everything has worked out, and we feel very privileged to be here.