Flew from Dortmund to Prague with Easyjet, where my friend Sasa met me at the airport, and delivered me at Pension Jana. If you're looking for a quiet pension with nice owners between the airport and the city, check it out.
I met Sasa four years ago at our first European house church gathering in the Netherlands. A year later he facilitated a similar gathering in Prague. Because the church meets when it eats, he rented a complete restaurant, where we had food and beer all day while prophesying and sharing about house church developments. Great concept.
This time Sasa shared his life story and how God led him into a second conversion, breaking away from organised religion and turning to a more basic concept of following Christ.
In the middle of the nineties he took on the assignment to translate the Bible into modern-day Czech, and already finished the New Testament, the Pentateuch, the historical books, Proverbs and Song of Songs ("yes, this is erotic literature, and I had to blush a lot while making the translation"). Last Xmas he organised a New Testament reading marathon on a public square in Prague, which was well received.
The Czech Republic is the most atheistic country in Europe. A high percentage of the population denies the existence of God and/or a spiritual world. Years of forced Catholic and communist oppression have made the Czech very sceptic of any form of organised religion. At the same time the country has a rich reformation inheritance (Jan Hus, Comenius and the Moravians), and Prague is a centre of withcraft in Europe, a spiritual gateway city. The Czech are open for friendship, real life, poetry and truth, provided it's not packed in religion.
I believe it's quite significant that a 'velvet (bloodless) revolution' broke the stronghold of communism, and the nation's main dissident (a playwright) became the president. It's God's kind of turn-around justice, but it also shows something of the inner persistance of the Czechs.
Later we visited a friend of Sasa, Marek, who together with his wife is starting a 24-7 prayer room in the western part of the city. It was good to share, and amazing to see that God has been taking different emerging leaders through a major paradigm shift, leading to a deeper dependency on Christ and his way of ministry.
great story, marc, thanks...i love to read these inspirational adventures happening with Jesus followers around the globe. keep em coming!
Posted by: rivertribemike | March 17, 2005 at 12:42
Sasa is a great man . . . unfortunately we couldn't speak that much on Slot art this year . . . glad to see here where he's at and moving towards.
Posted by: GL | July 28, 2006 at 11:20