Coffee with Lenka Opalena

Experience New York City, The United Nations, Union Theological
Seminary, Columbia University, immigration, and 9/11/2001 through
the lens of Lenka Opalena. She is from the former Czechoslovakia
and is at the tail end of her Master of Divinity program at UTS
in NYC. Acquainted rebellion in her own maturation, Lenka walks
with others surviving post-traumatic stress disorder and
addictions.


I was originally excited to talk with Lenka because of her
combined life in seminary and life in the United Nations. Little
did I know that this guest of the Coffeepot Fellowship is a
partner in a New York City coffee shop called Ost Cafe! "Lenka,
how do you like your coffee?" could have been the first and last
question I needed to ask in this entire episode. 


Lenka happiest ministry story was of a 15-year old addict who
evolved into an 18-year old guru. Lenka admitted that working
with addicts is very difficult, especially because relapse is
part of recovery. Yet while Lenka told this story I could not
help being reminded of a passage from the Gospel of Luke, chapter
6 verses 32 and 33, “If you love those who love you, what
credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love
them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what
credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same." I'm not
sure that doing good for the sake of credit makes much sense to
me. Realizing, however, that we are called to love not only those
who are easy to love (is there such thing?), but everyone,
is something that should settle deep into each
of us. The gospel according to Lenka. Amen.


As humble as Lenka is, I have no doubt that you can ask this wise
guest questions on a vast range of topics and her global,
seminarian, school-of-hard-knocks wisdom will make the asking
worthwhile. If you're in NYC, show up at Ost Cafe and tell her
you are there for her expert coffee advice and you know her from
The Coffeepot Fellowship Podcast with Jay McNeal. When you do you
will have made the world a much closer community.


In the meantime, may we all destigmatize suffering and pray for
one another. Just like 9/11, we're all truly in this
together. 


http://coffeepotfellowship.com/lenka/