Bimonthly Newsletter

Dear Pastor and church members,

I ask you to continue praying for Michal. I have been working with him about his salvation for several months now. We finally completed the salvation Bible study series this past Sunday afternoon. Michal told me that he understands that he is lost, but thinks he is not able to get saved. A few months back Debra spoke with him about getting saved and he told her that he is too evil to be saved. Imagine a 14-year-old boy thinking that he is too wicked to be saved? He explained that he frequently disobeys his parents, does not do his school work on time and is lazy. Pray for him to believe the Scriptures. I clearly explained that he will never be good enough to be saved. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He is greatly confused. Pray for his parents as well, Janek and Anna. We have counseled them many times against being too harsh with their boys. If the young man does not feel acceptance as he is from his parents, how can he put his trust in God to accept him?

Missionary emphasis month

The month of March will be our first full month emphasizing the blessing and responsibility of every Christian to give to support mission work in other countries. We have seen people learning to trust the Lord in small ways, learning to walk by faith. We see people taking baby steps and are asking the Lord to increase their faith. We have instituted a program we are calling "save a crown, save a soul". The concept is to seek the Lord to lead them to bargains on items they normally purchase and then give the savings to the work of missions. Our desire is for people to seek the Lord throughout the day. Pray for the little things, as well as the large things. What people in our churches need is often to draw closer to the Lord through daily interaction. They need to "see" Jesus in a very real way. For without faith it is impossible to please God. Lord, help us all to live out our faith in real-life concrete situations.

Jeff's surgery

Many of you remember me regaling you with the story of my hand surgery. How I managed to find the surgeon who finished last in his class? For those who hadn't heard I will give a short recap. In 2015 I went to a surgeon to ask about repairing my "trigger" finger. It is a situation where one, or more, fingers do not bend smoothly into the palm. They sort of snap back and forth. Well, the surgeon told me it would be no problem to repair it and we scheduled the operation for two weeks in the future. In America, I would never have had this done, but here we have socialized medicine so it was not going to cost me anything out of pocket. I found out that this doctor, who nick-named the butcher of Brno, had never fixed a trigger finger before. Only months later, when I could not bend my finger into my palm or straighten it fully, did I realize what a mess he had made of my hand.

So, anyway, three weeks ago I went to a plastic surgeon to have the finger repaired. After nearly falling out of his chair with laughter, he assured me that he could certainly improve the use of my right hand. He laughed even harder when he recognized the name of the previous surgeon. Fortunately, once again there would be no out of pocket expenses because of the system here. My finger is now healing well. I can straighten it fully once again. I have been regularly seeing a technician for rehabilitation therapy and the wound is healing nicely. God bless you and thanks for praying