Being Sent Makes You Stay

Chris and Amy Hales served for 10 years as church planting missionaries in Prague, Czech Republic. They discuss their journey to Prague, the challenges they faced in a predominantly atheist country, and the eventual establishment of their church, "Heart Prague."

The Hales also share their plans to start a new church in Liverpool, England, under the banner of "Heart Europe." They emphasize the importance of being "sent" as missionaries, highlighting the crucial role of their supporters' in their lives and ministry.

Transcript

Being Sent Makes You Stay
Guests:  Chris & Amy Hales
Season 3, Episode 22

Ric Shields (00:00):

Welcome to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast.

(00:10):

Thank you for joining us on this episode. I'm Ric Shields, your host and the director of the DoorWays® Ministry Network. I'm speaking with Chris and Amy Hales, who served as church planning missionaries in the city of Prague in the Czech Republic for 10 years. I'd like to hear some of that story and also hear about where you're headed next. So first, let me say thank you, Chris and Amy, for joining us today.

Amy Hales (00:31):

We're excited to be here and talk about Europe and church planting.

Chris Hales (00:34):

Yes, we are. Thank you for having us.

Ric Shields (00:36):

Some of us may be more geographically challenged than others, so please give us an idea where we can find the Czech Republic on a map of Europe.

Chris Hales (00:44):

It is right there in central Europe, right next to Germany, kind of a little more eastern Europe maybe.

Amy Hales (00:49):

Right there between Germany, Poland, Austria, we're right there in the middle within driving distance of so much great stuff.

Ric Shields (00:57):

When I was in school, and this was a long, long time ago, there was a country called Czechoslovakia. So where did it go?

Chris Hales (01:05):

Well, it was, it was there up until the late eighties, and then communism fell all across Europe, Eastern Europe. And towards the end of 1989 they communism fell in Czech as well. And then a couple years later, in 1992, I guess three years later, the governance issued between the two ethnic groups in the Czech Republic came to a head and they formed Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Amy Hales (01:26):

It's technically two different language as Czech and Slovak, depending on where you are. And as an American, I always thought that was interesting because they were the same country.

Chris Hales (01:35):

Don't you speak the same language?

Amy Hales (01:36):

Yeah. Until 30 years ago. But it is different. It's slightly different language. It's spoken in both countries, even though they were same country 30 years ago.

Ric Shields (01:44):

You guys are from Oklahoma and you served as pastors at a church in Carthage, Illinois for a while. So how did you end up going to the Czech Republic?

Chris Hales (01:52):

You know, we have had a missions calling on our heart for a long time, like probably all the way back to the year 2000.

Amy Hales (01:58):

To when we got married.

Chris Hales (01:58):

And just, we tried to go a couple times and just things happened personally. Losses in family; her mom passed away, my dad passed away, and it just never worked out as far as timing.

(02:09):

We were pastoring in Carthage. We had a missionary from Rome come to our church. We began to talk about the international church in Rome, about these atheists finding Christ. And during that service, God spoke to both of us that were too comfortable and we just kind of knew it was time to pursue it. And we'd been looking into it around that time as well. And just realized there's no missionaries working in church planning in the Czech Republic at the time.

Amy Hales (02:29):

Neither of us had ever been to Europe and I'd never been on a missions trip. I know that's crazy. You became a missionary and you've never been on a missions trip. But that's pretty much the story. So, we raised our money, we got approved, and I don't know that when we became missionaries, I think we knew the cost of it to a certain level. I remember waiting until the last day to send the packet back to Assemblies of God world missions and standing in our kitchen. It was old school back then. It wasn't online. It was just a big old, thick thing of everything in your life and your medical history and the whole nine yards.

(03:00):

And we had a hard time sending it off that day. And we waited until the last day. And I think it was one of those moments in your life where you thought, I know this will change everything. And I said to Chris at the time, I said, “This will even, this is going to change, you know, everything for our kids, it's going to change what their lives look like, their perspective is.” And you, little did, you know, 13 years later, here we are. And it certainly has good and bad in some ways, I would say, but mostly good.

Chris Hales (03:26):

And the Czech Republic kind of chose us as well. We felt like God just really led us there. We began to, we've always had a missions heart, so just talking about it, praying about it, missionaries, supporting missionaries, and then just when we started to kind of feel a little more towards it, we started looking into it and realized they did have a need there; 70 to 80% are agnostic or atheist in the Czech Republic. And it just felt like a really great place to go do something,

Amy Hales (03:47):

You know? But those are all numbers and stats, but you really don't know what that means until you get there. You have no idea what that means. I mean, you hear missionaries all the time and they say there's this many unsaved people here, there's this many here, there's atheists, there's agnostics. You have no idea what that means. And as a girl from Oklahoma raised in the Bible belt, I had no idea what that felt like until we move there. And it feels different than here.

Chris Hales (04:16):

That, it's like a cultural thing. It really is. They identify as non-religious, non-belief, and they kind of, they kind of say it with pride, a lot of them do. And you can really feel the absence of that, faith or belief system in Christ. And so, you can look around and there's, there's not any real science pointing to Jesus or church or, except for the old cathedrals and the old statue. But there's no life in those for those people.

Ric Shields (04:41):

A hundred years ago, more than 90% of the Czechs were considered Christian.

Chris Hales (04:47):

Right. That's what we've, that's what we've heard, we've read.

Amy Hales (04:49):

And it's amazing. And you would think some of it's still there. And it is small in places, and it is beginning again in places. But when we first moved there, the first summer we were there, we had a team come and we did an outreach. We didn't know what to do with them. We interviewed 400 people on the street, handed out waters and coke, and asked them if they knew Jesus or if they went to church. And out of 400 people interviewed over the course of four days, we met two people that believed in Jesus and went to church. And one of them, a Japanese guy, went to a Baptist church. That's who we met in Prague. And that really just sums up the city. And you can feel it. You can feel it in every part.

Ric Shields (05:29):

That's hard.

Amy Hales (05:30):

Yeah, for sure. We under, I think, underestimated that even though we were warned, I had no idea what that felt like.

Chris Hales (05:37):

Well, we came in optimistic because we grew up in church and we heard if you step out in faith, God's going to show up. And we thought we'd get there and God's just going to do an amazing work and we're going to plant a church and it's going to be awesome and incredible.

Amy Hales (05:46):

Like six months or a year, we'll have something going. And that didn't really happen. <Laugh>. Yeah. It, it didn't,

Chris Hales (05:51):

It was a little tougher than we thought it would be.

Amy Hales (05:52):

So, a lot tougher in so many ways.

Ric Shields (05:53):

It doesn't mean God didn't show up, but God wasn't doing the things that you were hoping he would do or planning he would do.

Amy Hales (06:01):

That’s I wanted to do, I wanted him to do it in my timing. And looking back, there's no way we would've been successful those first couple of years. You moved to a place you've never been to, and you spent a long time telling people how much you love it, and you love the people and you love the place. And then you get there and you realize you don't. God has to grow that in your heart. And it's really naive to believe that you do. And for us, it wasn't, you know, there was no instant love for the Czech Republic or Prague. 

Chris Hales (06:29):

It’s really, it was really hard. Really difficult.

Amy Hales (06:30):

It was hard. It's really hard because you're trying to love something that won't love you back. You know, there's no reciprocation. So, it's really hard to plant seeds in that.

Chris Hales (06:41):

You have two cultures. You have the, you know, the Oklahoma culture's real friendly and warm you know, and then you have the Czech culture. Nobody's smiling, nobody's looking at you, nobody wants to talk to you. So, it became really difficult and we realized quickly that we, faith is, you know, it's not just a, it's not the feeling, it's,you just have to trust even when you don't have the feeling. And that was, that was hard for us as well, because there's nowhere to go to get that feeling like you had to just trust. And for the first two, two and a half years it was quite difficult for us and our kids.

Ric Shields (07:07):

And, and here's the other thing missionaries have a problem with. They need to be able to write home these great success stories to their donors and say, “Oh man, you sent us here and we started the church the day after we got here. And doggonit, by the end of the year, we are meeting in a convention center. It's crazy. These people are so lost, just waiting for us to show up. Here we are. Send more money.”

Chris Hales (07:31):

The newsletters are really good. “We're doing absolutely nothing. It's been two years. Please continue to send support!” You know, it's, that's

Amy Hales (07:36):

How it felt. For sure, for sure. It's hard.

Ric Shields (07:38):

I was going to ask, “There are plenty of churches in Prague because it's been around a long time. Why start another one?” We've already answered that question. So, let's move on, shall we? You actually did start a church in Prague. So, tell me, was that like, BAM!, it took off and or did it take some time for get started?

Chris Hales (08:00):

It took a good four years for us to start the church. I mean, it’s just a long, long process.

Amy Hales (08:05):

We didn't know anyone then. We didn't come with a team to Prague, we didn't know anyone. Those are back in the good old days of Europe church planting where you didn't get a team, you didn't have that. It was just kind of come and figure out your surroundings and your city and meet people. And we knew no one, we were the only missionaries in the city when we showed up. I don't even know how it happened. It was just Jesus.

(08:26):

For four years, we went on every coffee blind date with people that anybody would meet anywhere. We ate at the same places, we went to the same cafes. If we would hear somebody speaking English at the farmer's market before long Chris would have us having a coffee with people. That's how we planted the church in Prague. And that's how we met people

Chris Hales (08:43):

Talking about feeling uncomfortable. We were so often uncomfortable. Like it's, every day is uncomfortable with different cultures, different people just trying to get something going, just trying to see something to happen, you know?

Amy Hales (08:53):

And finally, we were in 2016 and we had a small group of Czechs and Slovak and Americans, and we had about, I don't know, 15 people and I, we felt the Holy Spirit tell us, “If you'll just start it, it's time. Like it's time.” And we found the only place we could even thought about renting was an old communist hotel in Prague called the Hotel International which has a red star. They don't light it up anymore, but they used to. There's a matching sister hotel in Moscow, Russia. And we approached them about renting. We didn't even look anywhere else. And we found a room and we set a date two months from then to have service. And there we were, and we had our first service and there were about 25 people that came. And after that, God just took over. We were just obedient and people just started to come from all over the world.

Chris Hales (09:41):

It's pretty amazing to see God work because you don't, you don't really know. We didn't really know what to do, but we knew what to do. Like we, it's like we just knew the next step we're supposed to take each time we're supposed to take it and then God just let us do his Holy Spirit. And we just felt like he really was showing us what to do. And then people just started coming. Like people would come from breakfast, they'd come from the hotel staff, people would come from the city and it just, the church kept growing steadily.

Amy Hales (10:04):

And it wouldn't be, you know, before long, a hundred different nations had come. We outgrew our space and began looking for something permanent in the city. We just had it on Sundays and we spent about a year looking for something, anything that we could put this group of people in that we could meet consistently. And we had a vision for a nonprofit cafe in the city that we could use during the week to meet people and engage over coffee and activities.

(10:29):

And so, we took, I don't know, almost a year to find a space in the city and we found an amazing space. We became a women's missions project in our state. And they raised a ton of money for us. Some contractors from our home church came and did in four days, what took us five months for check contractors to do bathrooms. They finished the space in five days. Czech people said to us, “How did this happen so fast?” Because that's not typically Eastern Europe for anything to happen fast. It's a process. It's five steps backwards. After one forward, nothing happens quickly. We're like, well, Oklahoma came and that's what happened. Twenty contractors came and did it. And it's amazing what is in that city.

Chris Hales (11:10):

It's incredible. It's incredible what God's done in that city and the people he's brought and just what he continues to do. And it just gave us a heart for the nations. Like many people from all over the world has changed this

Ric Shields (11:19):

And continues, you say. You're not there, right? So, is it still going?

Chris Hales (11:25):

We transitioned the church to Czech pastors and friends, Petr and Renata. They're amazing. It's who I felt like God wanted to kind of take over the church and they said yes after a couple days of having to be a little reluctant about moving to the big city in, in the Czech Republic. And they just felt like God is leading them, leading them there as well. And it has three services now in the church. The third is a Ukrainian service. So, God is expanding that church's influence in the city of Prague in Europe. And we can see God's hand in it still. So, God's blessing it.

Amy Hales (11:54):

We were back this past summer and you know, it's, it's funny because Czech felt, as soon as the plane landed, it felt like it always did. It's hard and you can spiritually feel it. It's heavy. It sits on your chest. To me it's almost like an uncomfortable, hard to breathe kind of place to live. And it felt like that.

(12:10):

But when we went to church on Sunday, it was absolutely amazing. I looked around that room and I thought, you know, we really did leave ourselves there. Our family left itself there. You can look at that rug. It used to be in my living room, the one on the platform. There has to be golden retriever fur in it still, I'm certain. Chris lost his wedding ring in that building when we renovated it It's in there somewhere. Our family really did leave itself there and it changed us so much. That city and that place has forever changed us.

Chris Hales (12:37):

It's incredible though. We're there for a few days just trying to figure out what God had for us next. And it, you know, nothing felt right. It just felt awful. The whole city felt awful again after the first few hours of feeling excited to be back. But then we walked into that church that Sunday morning and it is like the light just switched on as far as the peace and the joy of Jesus. And, and it just felt so good to be home. And then we felt like God said, “You're done here.”

Amy Hales (12:58):

“You're done here. I'll open another door.” And we're excited about that, but we definitely had to, you know, process the loss of the other one and just move on from that. So, we're, we're pretty excited.

Ric Shields (13:09):

You're listening to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast. My name is Ric Shields and I'm joined on this episode with my friends Chris and Amy Hales, who started a church called Heart Prague. You left there a couple of years ago, and I understand you're preparing for a new assignment in Liverpool, England in just a few weeks. Why Liverpool?

Chris Hales (13:30):

Well, we went back to Prague looking to see if we were supposed to go back there or not and be, before we had gone to Prague to see Heart Prague again. We went to England for a few days and just traveled the country. It felt like God was leading us to England. I don't know why it just kind of kept coming up. We went to England, traveled the country, prayed about different places. Nothing felt right. The last day we were in England, we're meeting with the leadership of the Assemblies of God Britian. And they, I guess the last moment said, “Have you guys thought about Liverpool?” And we never even thought about Liverpool. Never crossed our mind. But after that was spoken, it's like we couldn't quit thinking about Liverpool.

(14:03):

And so, for us, the whole thing is, is it's getting bigger in our hearts and our minds, but we want to see God do even more. Like we believe he can do all kinds of things. And, and so our vision has got a lot bigger than just England or Prague. And that's what happened. That's how “Heart Europe” came about. Just to heart for the continent of Europe. And so, the next church will be in Liverpool and we're going to call it Heart Liverpool. It'll be underneath the banner of Heart Europe. And just hopefully they keep planting churches in Europe.

Amy Hales (14:29):

I think finally, you know, after, after we finished the church in Czech, I remember we came back to Oklahoma and I told Chris, “I'm done. Like, I'm good. This was a great experience. You can go pastor, you can work for a nonprofit, you can sell insurance. Like I'm out, missions is hard and it's time to go be senders.” I would make a great sender. I really would. And this is where we are. But I'm so thankful that God is patient and graceful and kind, and he was so patient with me and gave us the time to have a vision for something else. And I always used to say, I could never do this again. It just was so hard and it cost so much and it took a toll on our family in so many ways.

(15:04):

But now I've just come to accept that this is just what we do. We pioneer things. That's our role in the ministry. We start stuff. Everybody has a place and a thing that they do. And this is what Chris and I do, and we're excited about it. It may not be the last one. I hope it's not, but it's the next one.

Chris Hales (15:20):

And well, our daughter even said, she says, “Sometimes I wish we'd never gone, gone to gone to Prague and, and did all this,” she said, “but now that we've went, I can't undo what we've done. I can't unsee it.”

Amy Hales (15:30):

I can't unknow what I know about people from other places and cultures. I love that. I know it's cost things in their lives, you know, it's made transitioning back to America hard at times because you see things through a different eyes than you did if you had not gone. But I'm thankful for what it has given our kids. So they're 19 and 20 and going back with us and it's their choice when they're little and six and seven, you stick them on a plane and they don't have a choice. But they know what it looks like now and they have a choice to go back and help their parents again. And I'm just so thankful for that. That's been the biggest gift of this season.

Chris Hales (16:04):

Yeah, we're, we're really excited because Liverpool just, we just can't get away from it. And, and God is showing us that the church is going to be different this time. I mean, we've already got our kids to help us and we've got a team coming together. So, I really believe God has something bigger in store for the start of this church and where is where he is leading everything.

Ric Shields (16:20):

And you guys are too young to remember the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. I think.

Amy Hales (16:24):

We're not that young, but we're,

Chris Hales (16:25):

I have seen the clip.

Amy Hales (16:26):

But we are that, yeah, we are that young.

Chris Hales (16:30):

The Beatles. Are they, are they like music?

Ric Shields (16:33):

Music, cultural icons? I mean all of those things. And that's not to say that, you know, they're representatives of Christ. But yeah, the Beatles are, that's going to be cool. People are going to want to come to see you just so they can go see where the Beatles got it all started.

Chris Hales (16:50):

We would, we would love to have them. Please come.

Ric Shields (16:54):

So, it’s still going to be a tough place. Yes. But I like the idea that you've got a team and, and that's a great new, I don't know if it's a new concept or new direction, at least in missions, that we don't go alone, that we go with a team because we need each other and we're better together. So, I'm glad that you've got a team that's coming to help. So, you called the church Heart Prague in the Czech Republic. I understand you want to begin Heart Europe in Liverpool. So, why use that "Heart" name?

Chris Hales (17:26):

You know, it's just, it comes back to we, it's not the typical. It's kind of more of an artsy, creative way to express church. And Heart Prague in a city of Prague is very...Prague is a very creative culture. And our thought was, “There's 1.3 million people to love here.” So, there's 1.3 million people to heart Prague. So, we just, I don't know, it just kind of came together.

(17:45):

The heart. Love your neighbor, love Jesus, and love your neighbor. It's really simple. We want to express love of Jesus in, in our cities, and that's why we feel like the “Heart Europe” expresses that really well because every single person, you know, all those 1.3 million reasons in Prague 500,000 whatever it is in Europe, or I'm sorry, 400, 450 million people in Europe.

(18:04):

There are so many people to love. And we just want, we want people to be known individually and not just as numbers. And so that's kind of why it's with the “Heart Prague, Heart Europe, Heart Liverpool.” And so, it all ties together.

Ric Shields (18:17):

You're being sent as missionaries. What does it mean to be sent? Can't you just go and figure out a way to make this idea work?

Amy Hales (18:25):

You know, it's, it's funny because I don't think we quite appreciated this almost 14, 15 years ago when we were first all to missions. I didn't understand what it was. And I really, in this season of my life planned on being a sender because I know what that is now. I would be a really great sender of missionaries. But in our lives, being sent is what has caused us to stay in hard places and go back to hard places. And it is the money and, in the prayers, but specifically it's other things. It keeps you there when it's hard.

(18:56):

It's a rural pastor's wife and that came to us on our first furlough, and our son had struggled horribly with anxiety. And Chris and I never said anything. And she said, "Is your son okay? I've been praying for him for the last two years." That's part of being sent when you pray for missionaries.

(19:12):

I met a lady in Dallas a few months ago that had an old prayer card and she said, "This is in my cubicle. And I pray for you every single morning., your family. That's being sent. It's amazing to think that people have those cards and they see them in their bibles and their refrigerators and their cubicles and they pray for us. That's part of being sent.

(19:30):

There's a pastor in our district that supports us, that his church supports us. And he doesn't take his salary so he can support missionaries. That's being sent. If you want to go home, you think about that. You were sent and you stay.

(19:43):

A great group of ladies in our city raised a whole bunch of money for a church in a city they'll probably never go to for people they'll never see. That's what it looks like in our lives. It's a really big deal.

(19:53):

It keeps you there when you want to go home. Those prayers, that money, it's probably almost 200 different partners that we have at this stage in our ministry. And I'm so thankful for it because things in Czech don't happen just because we go. They don't. They happen because people partner with us for a place that they probably can't go to and God moves.

Chris Hales (20:15):

Yeah. There's been so many pivotal moments in our life that we knew prayer made the difference. If it wasn't for the prayer, the people walking the streets with us, riding the trams with us, praying for us, being there with us, it would've been really hard to stay us at times.

Ric Shields (20:27):

I wish people were able to see and if, if we posted video, they could, because Amy talk about heart. You've been crying much of the time when we talk. I mean, your eyes brim with tears and part of that is pain and part of that is joy. Part of it is the sense of purpose. I appreciate your heart and I think having a church called heart, maybe that's really good.

Amy Hales (20:55):

Well, and it's not just Chris and I that have done that. It's all these people that have supported us and gone with us. And I think at this stage in my midst journey, I'm just really aware of that because we're about to be sent again for the, I don't know "how many-eth time" and it's just a really big deal.

(21:11):

It's a really big deal that there's a lady in North Carolina. She's retired. She drives an ice cream truck to support missionaries. I've never met her, but she supported our family for 14 years. That's just a really big deal. It's pretty amazing that all of these people come together to support someplace. They're all led by faith and purpose and God, and there, you know, feel called to contribute in some way and to be a part of it. And they really do. And they really are. And I'm just so grateful for that.

Chris Hales (21:38):

It's not just missions numbers anymore. It's like our, these people are now our friends. We, we know them, we know their lives, we know their names.

Amy Hales (21:46):

We know their stories.

Chris Hales (21:46):

We know their stories and they're personal to us. And we, I can't imagine not having gone, I can't imagine not being able to do what we've done. And

Amy Hales (21:53):

I can't imagine not going back and missing the stories of the people that we're going to meet next. That's what I'm excited. Yeah.

Ric Shields (21:59):

So, for me, what I hear you saying is sent does not mean one and done. No, sent is something people do every day.

Amy Hales (22:07):

Exactly. Every day they send us, and it's a really big deal.

Ric Shields (22:14):

I'm glad you joined us today. Thanks so much for investing your time with us. If you found it to be helpful, please pass the link along to a friend.

(22:23):

You know, I'm always happy to hear from you too. Drop me a note at info@doorways dot cc and let me know if we're providing content that's beneficial to you.

(22:34):

My prayer for you is the same as the Apostle Paul offered for the church in Ephesus. We find it in the book of Ephesians chapter three verses 20 and 21. "Now To him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."