Dear friends,
WARNING: This will be long… but there is nothing I can do about it J If you just want to read one amazing testimony, scroll down to the picture of a lady with a doll.
Corona virus time has made a number of changes in many of our lives. From our limited, Czech/Pelhrimov perspective, we only gained. Yes, we could not go to Israel as a family (a first time trip we planned for a long time… and we lost the air ticket money on the top of that J), but when it comes to the important things, it has all been a blessing.
When it all started happening, we decided to meet via Skype, and people from all over the country started joining our daily online Bible studies, including a number of non-believers.
We had to cancel our annual camps, but the Lord opened up the opportunity for a Summer Bible Conference that just ended two days ago, and it was unbelievable. If I just started writing everything… I would not be done by tomorrow, and I don’t want to bore you all to death J. Let me try to find a few details that will illustrate what we just experienced.
First, the Lord blessed your prayers and generous financial support, and our two year effort, and we were able to use our beautiful new building during the conference. We finished it less than a week before this event, and the new space is wonderful.
About 90 people attended. That is by far the largest number for our Bible conference. We had believers from 15 different churches and 8 different denominations. On the top of that, there were 7 non-believers who attended the whole conference and heard the Gospel daily. Why did they even come? Well, the only answer that comes to mind is: Holy Spirit.
Despite all this, there is yet another level to the whole conference that surpasses this for us. This was our first Bible conference where about 30 people from our church attended and served. They helped us in the kitchen, cleaning, singing and playing during worship times, they talked to and encouraged the visitors, and 8 of them shared their testimonies. I wish you could hear every single one of those testimonies. We should type them out and publish as a testimony to the greatness of our Lord. From a teacher to an IT specialist, musician to a banker, every single word was so powerful that the believers from other churches just sat there with their mouths open.
It is so hard to pick one, but let me tell you what Marjanka shared. Her 30 year old son came to Christ about two years ago, and she started coming to our church regularly about 8 months ago. Grew up Catholic, attended mass weekly, and now, after hours and hours with Milan and myself, she came to realize that her “catholic backpack” as she calls it, is full of unbiblical things, and contains the wrong view of salvation. When she went forward to share this testimony, she was very nervous, because 4 of the non-believers present at the conference were people who know her because they attended the same Catholic church. So she brought a large doll with a backpack and told the story of “little Marjanka”, instead of talking about herself. Friends, the words, the story as a whole, and the presentation were incredible. We all laughed, we cried, we all had to praise the Lord for what He is doing. And what this did for her Catholic friends, it created more and more questions… two of them asked me afterwards if our Sunday worship services are open to public J. (by the way, Marjanka will be baptized soon).
I have to stop myself here. There is so much more that could be said, but the two most important things are these. 1 – We Thank you and Praise you our wonderful Lord for doing your amazing work and for using even us. We are privileged to be a part of this incredible ride. 2 – Thank you all, brothers and sisters for your prayers, your encouragement, your financial help. We are all in this together, and this ministry is also your ministry.
Blessings,
Vlada and Eliska Donat
Pelhrimov, Czech republic
PS: more pictures and information will be posted in the closed facebook group. If you are not there, let us know, we will add you.