CEE Story From The Mission Field
Softening Hearts
June 19, 2008
by Karen Pearce
Steve Brown boarded the train expecting an uneventful ride to the capital city of Prague, but soon after departure a man in his cabin took out a bible and began reading. When Steve asked him what he was reading and why, he told Steve that he wanted to know about Jesus.
“I thought, ‘Holy Cow,’” Steve said. “We had a 20-minute conversation about who Jesus is.”
In another situation, Steve and his wife, April, met a girl in the park and invited her to house church. She refused. When they recently saw her again, she once more feigned disinterest in God. This time, Steve challenged her. “I think you are (interested),” he said. Sheepishly she admitted to purchasing her first Bible the week before.
This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in the Czech Republic, which some call the secular capital of Eastern Europe. However as droves of teams have prayer walked and missionaries have fasted and prayed for breakthrough, God has begun doing amazing things.
In Steve and April’s house church, three people recently made decisions for Christ. These are the first fruits of almost four years of ministry.
Jiri Bohacek, a native church planter in Prague, is trying to reach people with the Gospel through adult English classes. Karen Pearce leads the advanced conversation group and said that women in her class are initiating discussions on spiritual matters and asking a lot of questions.
“I was explaining about Jesus’ resurrection but had to stop half-way through because we ran out of time—and it was an hour-and-a-half class.” Karen said. “When we started talking about Jesus being the only way to God, the discussion really got lively.”
Jiri is excited about this new openness to spiritual matters among his people.
“A few years ago when we were trying to reach people through a bible discussion group, they were totally uninterested in spiritual things, and I was so discouraged,” Jiri said. “But now, God is doing big things in peoples’ hearts. It is so fantastic. I am sure our prayers are being answered.”
Jiri and missionary Preston Pearce have just begun a weekly bible study with a new believer in Prague. They are hoping he will be the catalyst for many coming to Christ.
“He’s so excited about the Lord,” Preston said. “It’s so exciting to be around a new believer and show Him God’s promises in Scripture.”
Harold Johnson, strategy coordinator for Bohemia (the westernmost region of Czech), gave out flyers around Christmas offering a New Testament CD and a pocket-size New Testament. Over 130 Czechs responded asking for Bibles and CD’s, and many even wrote letters of thanks. In Prague, the city’s strategy coordinator, Steve Warren, launched a new evangelistic Web site that received over 1,000 hits and multiple downloads in January alone.
Larry and Melissa Lewis, new missionaries to the Czech Republic, shared the meaning of Easter with their language teacher, Michaela, through Resurrection Eggs. She was overwhelmed.
“I’ve never heard this before,” she said. When Michaela took the eggs home to share them with her 10-year-old son, he immediately asked if he could take them to his teacher, who had told the class that there is no God.
“I have to tell my teacher,” the boy said, “she must not know about Jesus.”
Radka, a Czech believer, says that Czechs were infatuated with freedom after the fall of communism, but it has failed to satisfy them, so they are now looking for something to fill their emptiness.
“I think this is a new time for the Czech people,” she said. “I feel it. God is doing something.”
Please continue to pray for the Czech hearts to be open and discerning. With their new interest in spiritual things, some people are being misled by the many false religions others are proclaiming. For updated prayer requests go to http://hope4cee.org/czechrepublic/pray.html.