Church Retreat Of About 5 Like Minded Churches (1)

We recently received this encouraging report from Mojmír & Kristy in the Czech Republic.

“Dear brothers and sisters at HeartCry,

Summer is gone and fall has come. Thank you for praying for the English Camp we had in the summer. Our church was able to organize it with a team of brothers and sisters from the Countryside Bible Church in Texas. Many people heard the gospel, including a lot of parents of these kids that we’ve ministered to during the week. Several of the kids decided to join our yearly English Club classes. This way we can stay in touch with them longer and have more opportunities to be a witness to them. Also, there have been a few girls from the camp that recently came either to youth group or Sunday service. Please pray that God would draw them to Himself.

Church Retreat Of About 5 Like Minded Churches

Another highlight of the summer was our church retreat. We do these retreats with other like-minded churches from other parts of the Czech Republic. It brings me joy to observe that each year our fellowship is growing in depth and numbers! This year we had almost 200 people there. I was privileged to preach at one of the morning gatherings. I am confident that next year we will have an even bigger group. We know already of several other individuals and churches even from Slovakia who want to be part of this fellowship of biblically minded churches. Please pray that this fellowship will continue to grow so that we can encourage more and more churches to preach and live by the Gospel of Christ diligently and faithfully.

Beginning with September a new school year and with that several regular ministries start. We were asked by one of our elders to shift focus from leading the youth group to leading one smaller bible study group we have. These are three families from our church with lots of kids that live quite far away from our church. Thus, we try to care for them pastorally by visiting them weekly and studying the book of Ephesians with them.

“We try to care for them pastorally by visiting them weekly and studying the book of Ephesians with them.”

Another regular ministry that started in September is Czech Bible Institute. This year we have the biggest student body ever. Including our campus, in Bohemia (west part of the Czech Republic) we have over 70 students! That is amazing. I’ve been part of CBI since its inception about 10 years ago. God has been so faithful. Even though the Czech Republic has so few Christians (and even fewer Bible-believing ones) we never had a year when we would not have any students. Quite the opposite, the trend seems to be steadily upward, at least so far. This year we opened 4 classes. Fundamentals of Faith 1 (which is an overview of the Bible), two classes of Fundamentals of Faith 2 (which includes basics of hermeneutics, systematic theology, and apologetics/evangelism) and we have also a class of the second year “preaching program.” There are eleven men (from Czech and Slovakia) who are learning how to prepare a faithful expository sermon. Having this many classes and students means that this year I am very busy teaching at CBI. I teach the basics of hermeneutics, as well as another class, called advanced hermeneutics to the preachers. It has been very challenging to prepare notes from scratch. But it also brings me great joy that I can put to good use my ongoing theological studies.

At the beginning of October, I was invited to be one of the speakers at one local youth conference in the Silesia region. In this region, there have been historically strong roots of pietistic Lutheranism. These brothers and sisters are fighting a good fight for preaching Biblical truths and living according to them. We have much in common, so I took up this opportunity to present a message on the importance of growing into maturity through the deeper study of the Word of God (Heb 5:11-6:3). There were also two-panel discussions in which we discussed the importance of a personal relationship with Christ (in light of their pietistic heritage) as well as more practical matters relating to questions that young people today have. In general, it was a very encouraging and edifying time together with the youth group from our church.

Baptism Check 1

Many encouraging things continue to happen at our church as well. Last month we celebrated the baptisms of four new believers. Two of them were brothers whom the Lord saved from the JW community that I asked you to pray for in the last reports. The two other new believers were a young married couple that we are discipling now. Needless to say, this baptism was truly special for us because in all of them the Lord has allowed watching the miracle of His salvation from up close. Please continue to pray for further opportunities to evangelize and disciple. Last week after my sermon I spoke with one visitor, his name is Peter, and he seemed to be very interested in the message of Christianity. I hope to stay in touch with him. Please pray that the Lord will draw him to himself.

Prayer Points:

1. Pray for the situation in Europe.
As you surely know, there is an ongoing war in Europe. It is about 250 miles from the Czech to war-torn Ukraine. As a result, our church has sheltered and taken care of dozens of Ukraine refugees since the war started. Many of them moved on after several weeks to different countries. About 40 of them eventually stayed. Most of them already found jobs and housing. Praise God! Since Russia was the main exporter of gas into Europe (our country was 90% dependent on Russian gas!) it triggered unprecedented price increases (for instance gas prices went up 100%), the whole inflation in our country is around 21% now which is hard to believe provided that only a year ago it was not even 3%. There is definitely a sense of fear in society. We trust the Lord with the times He brings about. And we are thankful He frees us from this fear and draws us nearer to Himself.

2. Pray for our church.
Pray that we will be able to continually serve the refugees.

3. Pray for the refugees themselves.
They have often left all they had behind in Ukraine (including many of their family members).

4. Please pray for peace in the land.
We know that our God is a God of peace (Rom 15:33). Wars are the most painful evidence of the depth of human sinfulness. It is heart broking to see the suffering it causes. But we rest assured that our God is in the heavens, and He will do whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3).

With love, in Christ,
Mojmír & Kristy