Speaking Louder Than Before

   

   Jeremy Camp really rocks, and I don't just mean his music...I also mean his lifestyle. The message behind his song, Speaking Louder Than Before, is going to be the main point of this blog post. This song is such an encouragement, but it is also a challenge...am I speaking louder than I was before? Am I sharing my faith for the world to know who Jesus is?

   A few months ago I had the privilege to see Jeremy Camp and his band in concert, and I got to meet each of them personally. The concert was an amazing time of worship. As a musician I absolutely loved the balance, because Jeremy Camp and his band are such talented musicians, so as a musician I thoroughly enjoyed his music; but the other side of Jeremy's music that is so amazing is the worship. I looked around me and felt a rush as I watched thousands of people that were all there to worship the same God. Even now as I write about it I am getting chills, just remembering that night. I remember standing in front of the stage, praying over the people and watching the people come down to us for altar calls. Behind me, Jeremy sang the words, "Savior, worthy of honor and glory, worthy of all of our praise, You overcame. Jesus, awesome in power forever. Awesome and great is your name, You overcame. And we will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony, everyone overcome!" And what a great testimony that we have as believers!

   Now I've been given an opportunity to speak louder than before. Our band, which consists of me, my brother, and my best friend Evan, have been asked to come to the city of Harkiv to help with evangelisms and concerts. We will be there for almost a week, and Lord willing we will have many open doors to speak to the people in Harkiv.

   What are the prayer requests for the trip? Well the first one is simple...the weather. The forecast says that it will be raining the whole time that we are there, so that would be a bummer if that hindered any of the outreaches that we have planned. Another prayer request would be for me, as I will be busy keeping up with studies while participating in the different outreaches and concerts. 

   Of course the biggest prayer request is for the people. Pray that many people would come, and that they would hear the words that we are saying. Pray that they would come with open hearts and that they'd be willing to receive the Gospel. Please pray for us as we travel and as we deliver the Word of God to the people. Pray for us that God would give us the Words to speak to the people and that everything that we will do while we are there will be in God's strength, and not our own, because we can't make it on our own.

  

   Also, if you guys would be able to pray for me in another way that would be great. As I'm sure that most of you all know by now, I am a Bible College student and right now I am taking correspondence classes. However, it is my desire to actually go to the college as soon as I can, and study on campus. This blog is to share with everyone what is going on in my life and to ask if you'd be able to help me in my vision with college. You guys can help me in great ways, really! If you have any desire to support me financially in whatever way you can, then you can click here to go to my support page. If you don't feel like you can support me financially that is okay, your prayers are appreciated very much! Also please, if you have the time, spread the word about my blog; just sharing a link on your Facebook or Twitter can help me in great ways, even though it may seem insignificant.

   I just want to thank all of you, my readers, for taking the time to read my blogs. Without you guys there would be no point in writing these blogs, and I truly enjoy sharing with you guys about the things that the Lord is doing in my life. Next week I should have exciting news about the work that God is doing in Harkiv, Ukraine!

God bless you all,

~Alex R. Pratt   

A Little Bit More About Me and When I Was Called to Worship

   I wanted to talk a little bit more about my story today. My story is pretty long, so for the sake of time I will condense it. But I thought it might be nice for you guys to know a little bit more about my background and some of the things that have made me who I am today.

   

   I grew up in a Christian family and the only life I've really known is with the Lord. I got saved when I was 4 years old and I've been following God ever since. I spent most of my life in the missions field living in Ukraine. A lot of people have asked me if I felt like I was missing out on the life that all of the kids in America had. My answer to that question is rather the opposite; I feel like very few of the kids that grew up in America can say that they have had the unique experiences that I've been able to have because of my life in the missions field. An example of that would be Auschwitz; I have been to Auschwitz two times, whereas most kids have only seen pictures in their history books. I have been given a rare opportunity to experience history and visit a place like Auschwitz.

   

   As I've mentioned before, my main calling is to teach the Word of God. I am studying at Calvary Chapel Bible College and I absolutely love it! It is a great experience and I feel like even after just 2 weeks of studies that I'm already growing in my knowledge of the Word.

   But I am also called to worship and I enjoy worship very much. Worship is really what brought me closer to the Lord in a more personal way. When I was 14 years old I was at a Christian conference  that we have every year for all of the Calvary Chapels in Ukraine. One night, as we are all singing the songs that I grew up with, I experienced worship for the first time. I think that we all remember at least one time when we began to truly worship and the Lord just brought us to our knees. That night I had that moment; I fell to my knees and I worshiped God and it was personal for me. It wasn't because my father was a pastor, it wasn't because my family were missionaries, it wasn't because I'd been in Sunday school my whole childhood; it was a personal time of worship with me and my Savior. I call this time the time when my religion became my relationship.

   

So after that night I decided that I wanted to be involved in worship. However, I didn't play any instruments and I couldn't sing to save my life, so I decided that I would try to learn an instrument. The first instrument that I tried to learn was the harmonica. I do hope to one day master the harmonica; unfortunately, at that time in my life the harmonica didn't really work out for me. Then for a brief time I thought about maybe trying guitar, but after trying to play a few chords and feeling the pain from the strings, I decided that maybe guitar wasn't my thing either.

   So at this point, I was pretty discouraged and I felt like maybe I wasn't going to be able to play on a worship team. We were back in America and one night my friends, the Lyons, invited me to stay the night with them. They are great friends of mine and I love them very much and so of course I agreed. 

   But before we went to their place we went to a home fellowship, where we just worshiped and read the Word. It was a very informal meeting, and as we worshiped people would start handing out shakers and things like that for people to play. But at one point someone handed me a djembe and I just about panicked. I had never played a drum before and I had no idea how to play it. The fact that I hardly knew anyone at the meeting also made me embarrassed and by the end of the night I said that I'd never play a drum again. But we got into the car and Mrs. Lyons told me that I had a real potential and she strongly encouraged me not to give up on drums quite yet. Mrs. Lyons...I am forever in your debt! Because playing drums is so much of my life, and when I play drums I feel like that is when I am completely free to be me.

   

   So I started to learn drums. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fast; there were times in the middle were I was ready to quit, I felt like I wasn't learning anything. But something inside me kept pushing on and now I am so glad that I did. I love being able to play drums and it is so much fun; but being able to play them for Jesus, and being able to lead other people to the throne-room through worship is even better!

   So here we are, a band now. We just had an awesome photo session that is most likely going to be album artwork for the new album that we are working on. We are hoping to have our second album done by the end of winter, before I leave for Bible College. But fitting time in for recording can be difficult between all of the concerts and practices that we have; and not to mention that I am studying and that also takes a decent amount of time to finish each day. 

   But we are really enjoying this time and we ask that you pray for us. Please pray as we go to different cities to do concert and worship nights; please pray that the people would listen and that they would open their hearts. That is really what worship is all about; opening our hearts to Jesus. 

   We recently went to a different city and did a concert for a Christian camp. Then we led the kids in worship and offered them the chance to accept Jesus into their hearts. I'll never forget this because after we said the prayer and the night was over, a little girl came up to us. She's a little Ukrainian girl and she said, "Thank you for opening my heart to Icyc(Jesus)." We were so blessed to hear her say that and we hope to hear many more as we travel around Ukraine, leading worship.

   Before I finish, I wanted to touch on one more thing and that is the position of a drummer. Maybe some people are curious about what it is like being a drummer. We were recently interviewed on TV and one of the questions that they asked me was, "Do drummers get less attention then the guitar does?" Honestly, a lot of the time, the answer to that is yes; but I don't see that as a bad thing. There certainly are many people that notice drums, especially other drummers. But the guitar/vocals are generally considered the leaders of a band and they are usually looked at as more pleasant instruments.

   I was talking with Leif, Jeremy Camp's drummer, and I asked him some questions about this topic. I asked him how he responds to people if they don't notice the drums, or how he responds to people who only notice the drums if there was a mistake. And I love the way he answered this! He told me, "Well, of course I want people to like me and for people to notice me. But if someone complains about the drums or something, I try to say this careful so as not to offend them, but I usually say, 'I'm sorry that you didn't like it, but I wasn't really playing it for you in the first place.'" I just love that! We can get so caught up in the crowds and the people that we lose sight of the fact that we play for the glory of God. The fact that Leif, Jeremy Camp's drummer, had such a humble answer, really encourages me! So, for anyone that is interested in drums...don't give up! If God has given you the gift to play drums don't let fear stop you. Just be patient as you develop your talents so that you can play for God!

God bless you all,

~Alex R. Pratt

Busy as a Bee!

   Well, what can I say...this week has been crazy busy! Where do I begin? Well, I guess I could start by announcing that I am officially a Bible College student! I got accepted and my classes started this week. I've really enjoyed my classes so far! I've only been studying for one week, but I am already so amazed with the things that I've learned and can't wait to see what I will have learned after three years of studying there.

   On top of my classes I am still teaching our youth group, which I really enjoy. It is my desire to one day be a pastor and this is such a great way to start. I am so blessed to see all of the kids that are coming, and we even have unbelievers coming now! About seven kids have joined us from VBS and they have come two weeks in a row, and that is just amazing to see. Please pray for these kids as they hear the Word of God and as we develop the relationships that we have with these kids. They have heard the Gospel and we even showed a skit for them that you can view here if you are interested. So, pray that they will keep coming and that they would have open hearts to what God is doing.

   Another amazing blessing for me is that my best friend, Evan Ledford, came home after three months of being away. While Evan was gone he had an opportunity to go to Israel for a month and he went. I was very happy to see that he had such a unique opportunity, but I was also excited to have him back in Ukraine again! 

   As I mentioned in a previous blog, we have recently had many open doors for our children's ministry. We finished our VBS and I'd say that we went out with a bang! But even after VBS was finished we weren't finished serving the kids. We put together a children's festival where we had games, music, and Bible stories. I was asked to play a special role in the festival and I was honored to serve as, "Bozo the Clown!" This was not my first time being a clown and it is unlikely that it will be my last time. It brings me great joy to see the smiles on the faces of the little children and to know that we had a part in that.

   Today was a very nice day for me, because I have some Christian friends that I met at our church's English Club, and they invited me to go bicycle riding with them and to join them for a picnic in the woods. Truth be told, I haven't been on a bicycle since I was in America the last time, and that was for my sister's wedding, two years ago. But I absolutely love riding bikes and I was very happy to join them.

   I was also very happy and very blessed by my friends. They are so thoughtful and loving, and it really made my day to do all of the things that we did today. They say that a place is only as good as the people that live there, which makes Lviv a pretty amazing place, because my friends really rock!

   So, it's been a long week; I'm feeling very exhausted. But I think back on all that has happened and I have absolutely no regrets, everything was totally worth it! I will miss doing these things when I move to the Bible College, but I know that God will open up many different doors and opportunities to spread the Word of God, and to have fun and to be encouraged.

   

God bless you all, 

~Alex R. Pratt