Radek & Laura Kolarikovi – Kurim, Czech Republic

Dear friends and family,
I hope that this update finds you well. We are so thankful for your ongoing prayers and partnership in the gospel ministry here in Kurim, Czech.

Here is recap of some latest events that might help you to pray more specifically for our family and the work over here.

Family

• God was so gracious six months ago and blessed us with baby boy Pavel Jeffrey Kolarik. Even though Laura’s labor started and was progressing smooth, everything changed rapidly within couple seconds with some very serious, life-threatening complications. Laura had to have an emergency c-section and we were not sure how it will all turn out. God was faithful and we are so thankful that He protected Pavel and Laura and that they are both good and healthy.
• Kids are working hard on their home school. Laura is faithfully teaching them not only all the school subjects but also memorizing different bible verses and reading good Christian books to them. We are thankful that we can still do this in Czech.
• Both of Laura’s parents went recently thru cancer surgeries and treatment. Laura and the kids will spend the whole summer with them in Maine. I will be partially here in Kurim and partially in Maine during the summer, since it would not be wise to be away from the family or the church for too long.

• By God’s grace the Kurim church is doing well. There are some struggles along the way, but that’s part of the ministry. People are growing in their knowledge and love for Christ, serving one another in the church and evangelizing people outside the church.
• We still do an intensive teaching for women once a month. It usually lasts for four hours and there is around 15 ladies present each time. We are so thankful for Marilyn, dear sister in Christ from Prague, who comes over here and teaches and ministers to our ladies.

• Men also meet once month for intensive teaching. This school year we are going thru hermeneutics and reliability of the Scriptures. Some brothers are also learning how to preach and are given all different kinds of opportunities to teach and preach.

• We moved our weekly mid-week bible study from the church to our home. This allows for more personal time of fellowship and prayer. It also provides a teaching opportunity on leading a small group bible study at someone’s house.

• God bless our church with many kids. We are continuing in weekly kids Bible clubs but this school year we also started a youth group meetings. We are thankful for young adults who help and lead these events.

• Its greatly encouraging to see that the church is packed pretty much every Sunday, with people who desire solid biblical teaching. The only problem is that we are running out of space almost every Sunday.  We have been praying for some time now, that God would provide a solution that would give us more space for Sunday services and for other church ministries - starting a Christian kindergarten is one thing on our radar. Recently we have been told by the owners of the building that we partially rent, that they would like to sell it to us. We will be praying with our church for God’s wisdom in this situation. The building has a huge potential and would be a great blessing for future generations.

• About twice a year we meet with elders from our partnering churches. This time we meet in Kurim and were able to encourage one another and work on planning different gospel projects together. We had couple of interns to join us.
• We also meet once a month with some of these men for prayer, encouragement, and accountability.

• God also recently opened doors to two facilities for older people around us. We can preach the gospel there as well as encourage these dear people with some Christian songs.

• Oh, we also did major reconstruction of the church offices and walk in areas together with replacing really old front and back doors… This proved to be a right move, because only a week before the door delivery someone broke into our church, but by God’s grace did not steal any of our equipment.

• It’s hard to believe that it was already a year since the war in Ukraine started. We are still blessed by having almost all our 40 original (including kids) brothers and sisters from Ukraine with us in Kurim. Couple of them left and some new ones arrived. We are so happy that we can minister to them in their hard situation. We are still providing translation of church services for them. We have weekly Czech classes for them in our church. We also recently started going thru Foundations of faith bible study with the Ukraine group. We also started a membership class for them, since some would like to stay in our church and settle in Czech.