Rícany, September 1996

Dear friends and partners, our brothers and sisters in Christ,

as I am writing this letter, the month of August is in full swing. Our summer was so short that we didn't even sweat. We can't remember such a cold year as we have now. Even the flies moved south. Allow me again to share some of the ministry highlights.

Poland - in June, at the last European HCJB conference, we learned that HCJB will provide some broadcasting equipment to Christians in Poland, very close to the Czech border. Remember. Poland is a Catholic country with a small Protestant community. We had a great brain storming session with Christian music producers involved in licensing process. If they receive the broadcasting license. we will provide them with our programs, since most of people in the area are bilingual. For a brief moment we were sitting in a restaurant next to real "millionaires". Our dinner together was paid with a 1 000 000 bill in Polish currency.

Tosanovice - the third week in July, traditionally, we went to a Tent youth summer camp. The main tent has a capacity to seat 750 people and some evenings the audience exceeded 1000. This part of the country provided the refuge for Protestant believers several hundred years ago. Those people are blessed with steadfast faith for generations. We feel privileged to be part of their program for the third year. We already have another topic for next year in our hearts.

This year the Czech secretary of education visited the place briefly and left speechless. With many concerns for young people today, he was impressed with the content and Christian approach.

Kikongo - to all of you who remember the search for Christian Kikongo native speaker, we want to share with you that in Tosanovice we met eight Kikongo brothers in Christ - seven of them live in Germany. They have an excellent singing group. The eighth one works in Czech Republic as a medical doctor. His brother lives in Angola and he is a Christian, as well as a radio person. The singing group recorded some Kikongo songs and Czech, Polish, and Slovak young people could not get enough of their joyful sounds and cheerful hearts.

Munich - Australia connection

During our brief stop in Munich on the way to Austria (not Australia), we visited a couple of brand new believers. They found us through Australia. Their friend. who lives there, became a Christian about two years ago. When they met last year in Munich, after fifteen years. they didn't even get a chance to ask: 'How are you? "His answer was: It is not important right now" and pulled out his Bible. Instead of empty talks he witnessed to them and they were saved. From him they got our magazine and our address. They read the Bible daily.

Mittersill - from Munich we continued to Austria to take a class in apologetics. The students came from several different countries (including Bosnia); the speaker was from Fuller seminary of Pasadena, California. The largest groups came from Romania and our country. The lectures were quite academic at the beginning so it was rather difficult for interpreters. We helped to translate required reading for home work. To understand fully some of the deep thoughts of Plato, Newton and Einstein was a challenge. We stayed at a real castle where jet set celebrities like Gregory Peck and other movie stars (long time ago) stayed when they took their vacation in Austria. Later on, as the castle became a little run down, it was purchased by a group of Christians from several different countries. Believers are not known as big spenders and the villagers were a little apprehensive of what kind of a sect was moving in. Anyone other than Catholics is branded a sectarian. The original dream for a Christian education center became a reality. Especially since the iron curtain fell. many East Europeans are coming. They can receive their theological education and learn English while they work as caretakers of the castle. We can see a number of serious students and future church workers being trained there. Most of them don't have to pay for their lodging during the special classes. only for their transportation, thanks to American. Canadian, and European Christians who make it all possible. It was so thoughtful of the organizers to provide all the stipend students with vouchers for kiosk refreshments in the evening and book vouchers for the Friday afternoon shopping. We again bought a number of books and we wonder when we can read them all.

To conclude our Austrian outing, the countryside is a fairy land; villages and towns are manicured and perfect. The Alps are magnificent and the window box flower displays are out of this world. We regret only three things - the weather was not the best - Austria is quite expensive (but that's no news in Western Europe) - and during the school vacations all of Europe is migrating to the south. Most of the roads, especially on the weekends, look like a choo-choo train car ride.

Visitors - more famous people came to our country, starting with Hillary Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gregory Peck who underwent an emergency appendectomy here, Dr. Yonggi Cho and other important people and heads of states. Coming stars on the horizon is Tina Turner, Michael Jackson ... three world famous tenors, like Luciano Pavarotti, are scheduled, etc. Closer to our hearts are many scheduled and surprise visitors as well as our dear friends.

The Osborn's - good sports from HUB. We made an orientation round with them (including safety rules for tourists) and for the rest of the time they were on their own. They counted how many steps lead up to the castle as they discovered all highlights of Prague. I think they were proud of how well they did.

The Lukens - the children and granddaughter of our dear friends and supporters from Arizona. We had a marvelous time together. They were discovering their roots.

Peter and two Jan's - first two from England, the second Jan from Germany paid us a brief visit. We have another person active in the Creation science topic.

Chuck and Mickey Slick - another HCJB couple came to see us. They knew right away what to see. Ed Giesbrecht (he visited us two years ago) told them a story about a place they just had hard time believing. Ed is known as a great joker, but this time it was not a joke. In The Prague Post the article describing this place had the title: "The divine comedy of Kutná Hora". To remain brief, I will only show and tell. It is an ossuary where you can see the skeletal remains of 40, 000 people. The bones are a result of a popular burial place (the earth from Golgotha was sprinkled here in 1278) as well as casualties of the Hussite wars and plague victims. You can see the four pyramid-shaped "bells" made out of femurs and fibulas, hanging garlands of human skulls-and-cross bones, a designed ornate ossified monstrance and a rickety chandelier incorporating every last bone in the human body. By now we are so accustomed to the site that we can notice some anatomic differences in the skulls and bones. It could be a good place to do some witnessing, while visitors face the finality of our lives?

Praises:

New office - in June, one of our dear friends. a reader and listener from Prague, offered us his artist studio to rent as an office at the 'Lego land" end of the town. Several people we work closely with live right there. They were praying for an office and a place to hold Bible studies. It can serve also as a place for numerous visitors or out of town speakers.

New ministry - September 7th we start the Prague Museum Saturday Biblical gathering for people from Prague and the near proximity. Our invitation list has about 1,500 names. Please pray for this new exciting ministry.

E-mail - since our phone lines do give us a hard time, it is not the easiest method of communication. Please pray for our computer link to Slovakia. At this time we have some difficulties sending any computer diskettes across the border by mail. In spite of it our magazine is on E-mail here as well as in Slovakia.

Good news - several months ago one of our readers and a student at the theological seminary asked if we could help him with some materials about Free Masonry. About four years ago Klara did more extensive research in Tucson Library. Later on we published an article in our magazine. This was one of the sources for his work. The Masons are quite well established in higher echelons of Europe. The happy student called to thank us and reported that his work earned an "A".

Ministry of education - Klara's audience in June went quite well. With the new regulations we can influence many parents. Very few people are aware. that they can elect a parental board and have some input as to what is morally acceptable for the students. Unfortunately, many parents see nothing wrong with compulsory sex education without checking very objectionable materials.

Klara is looking forward to having another appointment at the ministry, this time to present a little folder with the pictures and some mementos from the minister's visit to the Tosanovice. I would like to convey the message that there is another way than the present model of safe sex education

Future events:

World family conference -.will be held in Prague next March. The sponsors, The Rockford Institute of Illinois and Citizens Institute in Prague. are expecting about one thousand participants from around the world. I am looking forward to having a small part in this. Prague was selected as a European center as well as the heart of civilization continuity in western civilization.

Pavel will attend in October an HCJB council of International offices. Klara plans to stay behind since our ministry has so many deadlines. At this point it is hard to "pre-record, preprint and prepare" it all. Now we wonder how we can manage our regular home ministry assignments in the future. Klara just realized that she will have to learn how to operate the E-mail. On the other hand she has great confidence that Pavel will visit most of our supporting churches in Arizona, Colorado and California which we haven't seen in five years. With his jet engine ministry zeal he will have one month to accomplish the task. THANKS FOR ALL THE PRAYERS, LETTERS, GREETINGS, REMEMBERING OUR BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARY (often we forget ourselves) and for being the back bone of this exciting ministry. We marvel what faithful and patient partners we have all over. We know that many Czech people from all over the world will say to you one day: THANK YOU, my salvation was a result of your faithfulness.

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