© Ivan Steiger MMI

(Proverbs 10:2-5)

July, 2002

DEAR FRIENDS AND MINISTRY PARTNERS

Our transition from U. S. home ministry to Czech day-to-day operation was a bit hectic. We do apologize to many dear friends who wrote to us and we have not replied to them. We received lovely letters, notes and graduation announcements. We were asked to share our memories of yesterday's little girls-and today we see graduating beautiful ladies. We are fond of the idea of preparing a memory book from different family friends. It was a joy to be part of it. We have lost personal e-mail contact with many of you. Our inbox usually has about 250 messages to be sorted. Most of those are advertisements for mortgage financing, credit fixing, viagra, growth hormones, breast firming, sexual services of all kinds—you know what we are talking about. We should change our address, but with so many ministry contacts it would be difficult. In June we made our once-a-year pilgrimage to visit our ministry coworkers, friends and partners in Slovakia. This time we started in Bratislava, Slovakia. We visited our magazine trans- lator, Dagmar, the key person for the Printing Tract Mission in Slovakia. Her excellent translations into the Slovak language add a special touch to our magazine. Our close cooperation is mutually beneficial. We spent with her a lovely day in Vienna, Austria. It is as close as from the San Fernando Valley to downtown L.A.

In Bratislava we picked up three booklets of "Keys for Kids" that were translated into the Slovak language. We also received the English originals of the Daily Devotional (Uncle Charlie's) materials. Now we need to consolidate the Czech and Slovak translations for the children's programs.

From Bratislava we drove to Brno. It is in Moravia, the eastern part of the Czech Republic. We held a strategic meeting with Trans World Radio. Below are just a few words by TWR concerning development of our cooperation: Together with the Slovak office we are really excited about starting the 24-hour broadcast for both countries beginning in April 2003. We understand God is leading us to take this step. We would like to invite HCJB World Radio to work with us at this project. We have already agreed to use a common Internet server in Czech Republic. In May we did the first Czech 5-day training seminar for 50 external freelance co-workers who are getting ready to work with us at program production of the content of the Czech part of this project. The co-workers are excited and ready to use their gifts in this mission work. In Brno we met once again with friends from the Brno Printing Tract Mission (the same Mission as Dagmar's in Bratislava, but in the Czech language). For years we co-produced a number of tracts, and our magazine is quite often a direct source or inspiration for its tract texts. Over the weekend we stopped at Pavel cousin's place in the Moravian countryside. Together we celebrated Pavel's birthday. Five of six cousins on his father's side got together with their spouses for this family reunion. They met for the first time after 40 years or so. Sad to say, not one of them is saved. Frankly, there was no opportunity to talk about our Savior. Our experience has been that a calm and meaningful witness is almost exclusively possible in a one-on-one encounter, or as we say in Czech-between two pairs of eyes. The last stop was again in west-central Slovakia where we visited our magazine distributors, Mikulas and Anna. We discussed some changes in the legal wording of our registration, personnel changes on the board and other administrative tasks. We benefited from each other ideas. We are grateful to have dedicated volunteers who are actively involved in the HCJB World Radio mission effort in Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Czech Elections
Once again the country had the privilege to vote about the future leadership. This was the third free election since the fall of communism. What are the results? Election was ignored by 42.00% 1. Social Democrats (left) 30.20% 2. Citizen Democrats (right) 24.47% 3. Communists (extreme left) 18.51% 4. People's & Freedom (center) 14.27% Other Non-Parliamentary Parties 12.55%

In our May Prayer Letter we shared with you that 60 percent of Czechs were atheists and 10 percent of them did not even fill out the question concerning religious affiliation. This is no coincidence. The election was a cold shower to ma- ny. It looks like Social Democrats with the People's and Freedom Parties will form a very fragile coalition. Based on a previous census, only the Communists proved that they are well organized. They are the largest party in the country as far as membership is concerned. As the only party, they have gained seats in the parliament at the expense of the other three parliamentary parties. If all eligible voters had voted, the Communists would be diluted down to about 10.5 percent. The more godless a society is, the more socialist or communist tendencies it has. This is true anywhere in the world. Simply, many people want to build "a heaven" on earth where God has no access. Only a God-fearing society takes more individual responsibility. The most dangerous attitude is indifference.

What Burdens Us
Unfortunately, a lack of responsibility is even seen in the local church. Not long ago we attended one session of a prayer weekend in Prague. Fifty-three Christian organizations were represented. Who attended? Mostly U. S. missionaries, mission employees but hardly any local pastors. Concerns disclosed in prayers were: secular humanism, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, lack of convictions, lack of unity, laziness, passivity, tolerance to sin, indifference to evil, prayer is not a central part of the church, pseudoreligiosity, the desire to control, no vision to reach others... It grieves our hearts when we see such ignorance toward overseas guest speakers or low attendance when various local and foreign groups come to minister to the local church.

Our prayer is that the Lord would wake up this people. Hundreds of years ago this was the land of great reformers—the land from which the gospel was carried out to the utmost corners of the world. Just remember John Huss or the Moravian Brethren… Please pray for all missionaries and for us who serve here. We love this country—we were born here. We also love the spiritual challenge that we face.

Letter # 1311, June 12, 2002
Dear Friends,
We send you many cordial greetings from Slovakia. We wish you a lot of energy and God's blessings in your good work.
I am very happy that I can daily listen to your radio programs. Many of them are excellent.
Thanks for your letter and beautiful pictures of the Ecuadorian scenic coast. I will continually listen to you and will send you reception reports. I pray for you all. I am looking forward to your package. God bless you. Stay on the air for a long time. Many need the Gospel. We thirst. Your faithful listeners—family Mikulka, Bratislava

PRAYER NEEDS:
Children's programs—to find the right person to prepare texts for recording.
Cooperation with TWR and satellite broadcasting
New government and legal relationship to the church and missions
The people of Czech Republic
The local church and U. S. missionaries

PRAISES:
Klara's mother's condition is more or less stable. All medical care and the changes we have had to make have worked out very well. When we need to travel we have a wonderful place to leave her for several days or weeks. This is a new facility, started several years ago by a British lady and called something like a "Place For Decent Aging." She loves it. There are several homes like it, mostly in England, but some have been started in former communist countries.

Our involvement in the church-planting situation is moving ahead slowly. Last Sunday we had 22, including 9 children. Summer is usually the time when people disappear to their summer homes or take vacation. For us it is a busy time, since we expect a number of visitors.

A new HCJB World Radio service
Thank you for your faithful prayers and financial support! Donors to HCJB World Radio have the ability to give to a missionary's support directly from our website at http://www.hcjb.org. By clicking on "Donate Online" then "Supporting Missionary" you can give either a one-time gift or begin giving on a regular basis. For security purposes no missionary names are listed, so you need to know our name (Steiger) and account number (110329).

Get daily or weekly Christian news by e-mail
We would like to encourage you to try HCJB World Radio's free e-mail news service. Every weekday, the mission delivers news with a focus on global evangelism. These are stories you probably won't find in the mainstream media … stories of changed lives … stories of severe persecution. You can rejoice with the good news, and pray for the people in such trying circumstances. You will also get the latest news about how God is using HCJB World Radio around the globe.

You can unsubscribe at any time if you do not find the service useful, but we expect that you will be pleased you decided to try it.

A few words about Czech Republic and Czech language
The Czech Republic is a very pleasant place to be. It is cultural and naturally beautiful. Especially in Prague there are innumerous music halls and theaters. The architecture is breath taking. The countryside and smaller towns beautiful. All Europe, western or eastern, northern or southern is just at the doorstep—only a few hours drive. All goods are available and relatively inexpensive. However, for a to-be missionary there is a major flaw—the Czech language. We have just seen on TV that The French Institute of Oriental Languages (Czech is to the east i.e. orient of France) assigns the same coefficient of arduousness to Czech as to Japanese. According to research made here by language teachers, it takes five times more effort to learn basic Czech than English. How about having 7 cases, times 3 since nouns are masculine, feminine and neuter, times 2 since there is singular and plural. It makes only 42 the's. Endings will change in all nouns, pronouns and adjectives. Boy, and how about that that ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls conjugate verbs differently. People ask us who is writing our Prayer Letter—Klara or Pavel? If it were written in Czech you would know from verbs.

THANK YOU
At this time we want to express our endless gratitude to all of you who stand behind us and carry us in your prayers. We have many exciting challenges ahead Summer is here and we are counting our blessings. We are all busy and creative. We praise our Lord daily for the privilege to serve Him.

In His Sovereign Grace Pavel and Klára

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