Story number 1 for 19 Aug 2002

(Czech Republic) — We begin today in the Czech Republic where the worst flooding in over 100 years is leaving people homeless, waiting for the flood water to recede. Greater Europe Mission‘s Michelle Baxter teaches at a Christian school in Prague. “Several of our local churches are under water. And, it’s fairly difficult to get around the city at this point. The little Christian school that we started last year obviously it’s down by the river and it is under water. We were supposed to begin school in a couple weeks. But, it looks like we’ve got pretty severe water damage.” Some 200-thousand people have been evacuated from the area. Baxter says this tragedy does have a bright side. “God provides opportunities like this to give us some windows of opportunity where people all of a sudden are willing to listen to us. And, as we pick up shovels I think they will look at us and say ‘why are you doing this?’ Europeans, many times, are fairly closed about that issue, but it’s times like these they become open.”