Lukas of Belarus [blog]

Remember your leaders, who preached the word of God to you (Hebrews 13:7)

Not many people know that the New testament in a modern Belarusian language was translated by Lukas Dziekuć-Malej (1888-1955) in 1920-ies.

Book cover (published in October 2011)

In December 1921 a young missionary Luke came to the city of Brest that just was added to Poland, after the First World War Born in Grodno province of Poland, as a Belarusian, he was educated teacher who met the Evangelical Baptists during the military service just before the war – as he was drafted in Russian army. While serving in the army, he sincerely believed in the Lord, and was baptized in the city of Bialystok.

Luka studied theology for two years and later worked as an evangelist in St. Petersburg and also some places in today’s Poland. He became known as a Belarusian patriot, teacher and organizer of youth. However, the Polish authorities, given the war with the Bolsheviks in 1920 ruled that Luke leaves Grodno, so he moved further from the border. Luke decided to continue the spiritual work and moved to the city of Brest.

“The slanting rays of the morning sun greeted me in December (1921), when I got off the train and looked with great interest the unfamiliar city of Brest. It was destroyed, burned, dirty, cold and hungry. Ragged crowd with sunken eyes, emaciated faces … What a better place to move in from the place of dying in sin and evil? Praying, I went on address where a sister was, who recently came back from Russia. In her small house I began to preach the Gospel” (a quote from the “Sewer of Truth “, 1928, March).

By the end of 1922 sister’s house no longer could accommodate all who wanted to attend the meetings. The Lord helped them find a new place in a dark and gloomy basement of a hotel. Here they founded a cultural association with the interesting name of “Belarusian lodge.” And it gave them an opportunity to establish first contacts with the inhabitants of the city. Soviet persecution just started…

By the 1925, a church had about 200 members. Along with the evangelization work, Luke translated the Gospels. The British and Foreign Bible society in 1931 published 25,000 copies of the New Testament and Psalms in Belarusian, and the new era begun.

In 2005 there were more than 900 local protestant churches registered in the Belarus Republic, and one of the largest today is the local Brest church of Evangelical Christians – Baptists in Brest, the same one Luke started 90 years ago.

TWR broadcasts in Russian and Belarus languages. More information at www.twrbelarus.org

According to the Old Calendar [blog]

Many people don’t know that some Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate church festivals and saint days according to the Julian calendar, which originated as a reformed calendar in the times of Julius Caesar in 45 BC. But, in 1582 it was discovered that the calculations used for the Julian calendar actually wrongly add 10 minutes and 48 seconds per year, which makes 3 days in 4 centuries. So, that error was corrected by a papal decree (Pope Gregory), and thus came into being the Gregorian calendar.

Gregorian calendar is what it is used today in most of the world. It is also inaccurate – but more on that some other time.

However, the Old Calendar is still used by the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, in Georgia, on Mountain Athos, the Jerusalem Patriarchate, and among the Berbers in North Africa. The difference is 13 dates/days.

So, in Serbia, the Christmas Eve was on the 6^th of January this year, and Christmas was celebrated on the 7^th of January 2012. It was a festive and nice time of families joining together and enjoying some good food and company. Most of the people also connect that 3 day holiday with the 2 day New Year celebration, and do not work for a number of days…

The Protestant Evangelical Roma church from Leskovac, south Serbia, celebrated Christmas this year by bringing festive and carnival atmosphere to their neighborhoods on 7^th of January. They traditionally walk the streets and sing praises and choruses to our God and Lord Jesus reminding the Romas on the gospel message.

On this photo you can see pastor Sheriff (playing accordion) leading his church members through one of the Roma settlements in Leskovac. A small team of young producers in this church also prepare two weekly Roma programs that TWR is broadcasting on local FMs – the Romane Krlo (Voice of the Roma) and Shalom Romalen (Peace be to the Romas)! The message is great and the worship music is excellent!

Miss Adeline Paulina Irby, of Bosnia [blog]

A few months ago, in September 2011, Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) protestant churches organized a cultural and an evangelistic event called “Meeting Miss Irby,” commemorating the centenary of a death of Miss Adeline Paulina Irby, 100 years ago.  Miss Irby was a protestant missionary who came to the Balkans 150 years ago.

site on missirby.com

She first travelled extensively the region along with Georgina Muir Mackenzie. In 1859 they originated from Vienna, travelled through Bratislava, stayed for some time on the Tatra Mountains, and then went to Cracow, just to be accused by the Austrian authorities that they are suspected Russian spies and Pan-Slavism movement supporters.

They later travelled the Balkans and published a much apprised book called “The Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-in-Europe” and upon return to the UK, they gave lectures and published papers on these Slav groups: Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, etc.

As it was an honorable matter in these days, two sisters in Christ decided to move to Sarajevo and open there a school for girls. Their choice for Bosnia was because there was so little missionary activity in that part of the Balkans. They raised money from family and friends and opened a school in Sarajevo.

Josh Irby, who lives in Sarajevo and who wrote a book on Miss Irby calculated that the amount of support Miss Irby and her friends collected for the work in Bosnia was around 3 million US dollars in today’s money.

Churches in the Bosnian capital used the occasion in September 2011 to and shared a love of Christ with the people on the streets.

This book is a must read: Josh Irby’s Meeting Miss Irby. Video (in Serbian and partially English) at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Rx4MNKdSY

TWR is also spreading the good news of Jesus Christ in this region. Program schedule can be found on: http://www.twr.org/schedule/?language=bosnian

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A photo for a thousand words: Serbia on its way to the EU [blog]

Jovo Komac received a highest ‘award for a caricature’ PJER for the following:

Serbia on its way to the EU

Balkan Genocides: A Difficult Book to Read [blog]

These days I am reading a difficult book – Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Paul Mojzes, just published this year. Reading various accounts and collected opinions, one might come to a conclusion that the wars in the Balkans are not yet over. Just to remind you, there were two Balkan wars in 1912 and 1913, then two world wars that were very violent in the Balkans, and then the civil wars during the dissolving of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990-ies.

Book cover

The historians: Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Serbians, Croats, Bosniaks, Italians, Hungarians… have quite different interpretations ‘depending on their ideological commitments.’ What Mojzes is attempting in this book is to share the accounts of various horror narratives: from mass killings, retaliatory genocides against wartime enemies, recognized and unrecognized genocides of the great wars times, ethnic cleansings and then ethnic cleansings in reverse, destruction of religious sites and holy places, and that also in reverse, and so on.

And the future is not so bright either. Considering the prospects for this century, Mojzes concludes that the only way to alternate a pessimistic scenario (from economic discrepancies, uneven demographic growth, stalled processes of reconciliation, to growing ‘phobias’ of various sorts and kinds), is to ‘prosecute steadfastly alleged perpetrators… to continue to organize conferences and museums in which investigations are carried out… and to encourage individual research…’ But most important of all is the need to promote genuine humanitarian dialogue and cooperation… dedicated efforts toward reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation are ‘indispensable.’

I’ve been thinking – what if… what if Christians would take their Bibles seriously, put aside their religious piousness and fervor and then consider the words of Jesus Christ to ‘love their enemies?’ Was it Luther that said that we should not think so highly of our own holiness, but seek the Word of God to cleanse us? I have an impression that we in the Balkans are missing on both accounts – good deeds and good thoughts and conciliatory messages and acts. What do you think?

Great book, but difficult to read. If interested, you can get more information on Dr. Mojzes at this link.

Work is Worship (animation) [blog]

a slide from 2 minute presentation

I am delighted about this video animation on Work as Worship that you can find here. It is an excellent video tool to teach us a truth that we are all equal before God and that our lives are on mission all the time.

Check it, will be no regrets (and by the way it is not about worshiping work .

Christian Radio in Czech Republic [blog]

TWR CZ sign

A few years ago TWR-CZ from Brno (their site is in Czech, English, German, Russian and French) TWR’s National Partner in Czech Republic created a small PR tool: a beer mug coaster. Coasters are always needed in restaurants and bars. Furthermore, they are small enough to be taken home in a pocket or handbag. And most important of all, every customer looks at their coaster several times – at least when they set down their drinks.

These paper coasters had the eye-catching slogan “Radio, which doesn’t think for you” printed on them. As Aleš Bartošek, director of TWR-CZ, explained: “We don’t want to offer kitchen recipes for living. Instead, we want to present the biblical truth and biblical perspective and let the listener think about it.”

My colleague Frank Stephenson wrote about these coasters: “Some of the most effective places for these coasters to be distributed have been to restaurants where a Christian manager or waiter is employed as well as to businesses at exhibitions who serve drinks.”

This is a smart idea for a country that excels in beer brewing and that for centuries.

VIenna-Brno-Prague bus

This week, I discovered another nice profile raising act TWR-CZ worked on. Last summer they had a large advertisement posted on two busses that link the cities of Vienna in Austria, and Brno and Prague in Czech Republic. The word play is not easy to translate but I love the message: “The Bible is our (music) hit.”

Another text, next to a red light box that turns on when studio is in session says: “We run on red,” also playing with the fact that the ad will be seen mostly by drivers in cars behind this bus. Yet another smart idea.

Radio that does not think for you is having the Bible as their (music) hit! Check this link.

The First Freedom of All is for All [blog]

Two weeks ago, in Germany, there was the General Assembly of the European Evangelical Alliance for 2012 taking place: Gorgeous location, excellent speakers and presenters, beautiful people. I was there as a representative of TWR Europe, associate member of the EEA. There were some very good topics covered, but one got my full attention – Christians in Europe: public life.

It was Os Guinness who spoke on the issue of religious rights being the most important (first freedom he said) freedom of all. Why?

Three quick reasons: logically, religious liberty is prior to other political rights – freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. You only want to get together (freedom of assembly) with people to whom you want to say something. Freedom of assembly assumes freedom of speech. Equally, freedom of speech assumes freedom of conscience. You want to speak of things that matter to you based on the dictates of conscience. Religious liberty, freedom of conscience, is the first liberty. It is not liberty for the religious. It is the primary human right.

Secondly, religious liberty is the key to civil society. We understand today societies are healthy if average citizens can join – volunteer, give, participate – a civil society, and civil society flourishes when religious liberty flourishes and people are free to do that.

Thirdly, freedom of conscience is fundamental to social harmony. The challenge today is to maintain diversity. The challenge today is to have diversity and to create harmony but also to create liberty. And the key to that is religious liberty or freedom of conscience.

Os also wrote on this in his books: The Case for Civility, or The Last Christian on Earth. Interesting indeed. What do you think about religious liberty for all?

Reformation Day in Slovakia [blog]

A few days ago our family was having some vacation days in the White Carpathian Mountains, in the Czech-Slovak border region, one hour drive north of Bratislava. During one of the days we went to Stara Tura, a lovely and historical town and saw a decent crowd at its main square, TV crew, some officials speaking in front of a covered bust.

Then, in the crowd, we saw some familiar faces from one of Bratislava churches and realized this was not only just a public event, but a commemoration of one great Slovak, prof. Jozef Rohaček, and his work.

Prof. Rohaček (1877-1962) was born in Stara Tura, but lived and worked in Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and nowadays Serbia, in Vojvodina. As a Lutheran missionary, later pastor and teacher, he spent five years in Kisač and surroundings, teaching Slovaks to write and read in their mother tongue, from 1906-1911. Also, while in Kisač, he published the first ever Slovak translation of the Gospel of Mark in 1910. The whole Bible was published in 1934, and was translated from the original languages. His church, however, did not endorse his work… but when the Bible was printed eventually, the first 5,000 copies were sold in less than four months. Such was a hunger for the Word of the Lord in Slovak language.

Our family felt honored that we, even accidently, participated in such a spiritual and public event. Far too often in Europe, Christians are being pushed aside, even if they contribute to the society as a whole.

Here is what Stefan Šebo wrote in his 2010 book Jozef Rohaček, zivot a dielo:

“He was working on socio-theological concepts as a solution to the social situation of the Slovak nation… he had worked on a translation all of his life while working as a teacher, pastor, assistant, friend and brother. With all his family he founded the orphanages, elderly homes, hospitals, schools, chapels and churches… He challenged the theology of that time because he saw that theology was soaked with evolution ideas so it had a questionable direction… Jozef Rohaček himself was a representative of the social dimension of the biblical testimony…”

I wish you a nice Reformation Day.