Summer Camps – The final totals are in from the summer camp ministries. 9 camps in different cities.

From 500 students, 59 put their faith in Christ! This is the highest number of believers ever seen in summer camp ministry!
American music band tour – The focus of this outreach was 2 cities in Slovakia. Over 2700 students were presented with the gospel and offered a copy of the Bible. At least 150 of these

expressed an interest in knowing more about Christ through follow-up.

These are astounding numbers! More than we have ever seen before. And we believe that it represents a change in the

spiritual atmosphere in Slovakia.

Please help us pray for further fruitfulness in these particular ministries.

Some have asked, “why do you need to raise so much money? Have you suddenly lost so much support”? This is a good question. And the answer is pretty simple. We have NOT lost an abnormal amount of support. The reason is this. Apart from the normal needs of a growing family and the weak US dollar, the core reason is that we have simply been living for some time at a low support level. Our desire has been to live within the monthly support that God has provided over the years. And we have managed to survive with this approach for some years.

But now at our 10 year anniversary in Slovakia, it’s time to prepare for the next “stretch” of ministry. Part of that good preparation is to reach the proper and healthy financial position required by Josiah Venture (our governing organization). JV sets our budget figures as well as our monthly salary. So, our goal is to reach this required financial position.

Over the last two months we have presented our ministry and needs to a large number of people in numerous states and contexts. Many have responded with open hands and hearts and many are still prayerfully considering the decision.

Our focus in these final two months will be in ElDorado, Arkansas and surrounding cities. And although the balance of our need is a challenging amount, we believe that God is able to provide what is needed. He always has been faithful!

If you have an interest in becoming a financial partner with us, please contact us at zshepperson@josiahventure.com or call us at 501-613-2185

Over the last several months we have been presenting this question to God, asking for his guidance. Through a series of strategic responses, we believe that it is God’s plan for us to remain here in ministry for another term. We can’t see exactly how long this will mean, but probably up to 5 more years.

We were already planning our regular visit (every second summer) to the States this summer. But in light of these new future plans, we see several other factors that must be considered.

First, we have a longing to have some extended time with our families after this long time away from home. So we look forward to spending extra time at home focusing on family.

Secondly, we believe we need to reestablish our financial base as we look to the future. This will necessarily mean raising a certain percentage of additional financial support in expectation of these next years ahead.

We are anticipating that this could take some additional months in the States, so we are planning to remain in America from June until December 2011. This will give us adequate time to do the necessary travel and retooling for this next phase ahead.

We have already bought our plane tickets and will arrive in Little Rock on Tuesday, June 7th.  We really look forward to being home again and to be with all of you.

We would appreciate your prayers as we make preparations for this plan in the next two months. This includes packing up our present house and putting it in storage, finishing the kids school early, renewing our visas early (they expire while we’re away), selling or storing our car, and our housing in Slovakia for when we return (we have the possibility of  building a house).

It will be a hectic couple of months, but we know God is with us and that he gives strength to those who rest in Him.

One unique part of the conference for this year, which I (Zac) was responsible for, was a special missions evening titled “taking God’s word to places it has not been before”. God seems to lead us to focus on 15 former Soviet Union countries with whom Slovakia has a common history, a similar experience under communism and a similar language influence (Slavic orientation). These countries represent some of the most unreached people groups in Central Asia. Here are some statistics. (taken from www.joshuaproject.net).

Uzbekistan – 26.4 million unreached

Kazakhstan – 9.6 million unreached

Azerbaijan – 8.4 million unreached

Turkmenistan – 4.9  million unreached

Kyrgyzstan – 4.6 million unreached

Tajikistan – 6.7 million unreached

Ukraine – 528,000 unreached

Russia – 12.5 million unreached

Over half the conference attendees made a visible declaration of willingness to used by God to reached these unreached! That’s at least 350 potential missionaries! From a collective evangelical, Slovak, church that can identify only a few international missionaries, this was a staggering response. Our planning team was thrilled to say the least. And the repercussions have only begun to be felt.

On other fronts, both Kim’s and my seminar were full and well received. I spoke to guys regarding sexual purity and Kim spoke to the girls on a similar topic but with more focus on ” identity in Christ” . God has given each of us a message that enables us to speak passionately on these topic.

So, we are very encouraged by another strong youth leader conference. God keeps expanding our influence each year.

Pray with us that God will multiply the fruitfulness of each youth leader who heard these strong challenges and received these powerful ministry tools.

If you would like to be inspired by God’s movement all across Central Europe through Josiah Venture, we invite you to click the subscribe button below and begin receiving the monthly Lift e-mail newsletter from our director Dave Patty. Just write your name and e-mail address. Enjoy!

To view a past issue from February 2011 - click here.

Later on facebook, I tracked down Darya Romanova from Astana, Kazakhstan. I soon learned  she was currently in our city attending university with hopes of finishing a degree here. What we didn’t realize, was that God had done a miracle in Darya’s life just a few months before.

Born and raised in Astana, her mother was a nominal Orthodox church goer and her

Darya as a child with her family

father was an atheist. Although baptized as a child in the Orthodox church, she never remembers hearing the message of Jesus. After 17 years, while sitting in her home in Kazakhstan, chatting online with a christian teenage boy in America, the boy suddenly asked her if she “knew Jesus”. This started a two month discussion about the gospel that resulted in Darya giving her life to Jesus.

At the time of her arrival in our city for university, she had never attended an evangelical church, because she wasn’t sure one existed in her city in Kazakhstan. Soon she was invited to a local Lutheran church led by wonderful believing pastor and she fell in love with the church family there.

When our conference planning team heard all these wonderful details of

God’s work in  Darya’s life, we knew we had to ask her to share her story with our youth leader’s conference. So, just two weeks ago, she stood before 700 youth leaders and shared her testimony.

Her testimony was meaningful in more ways than you can get our human sized minds around.

First, it was inspiring to see so clearly our Father’s heart of compassion at work. He reaches into the most unreached places of the world and tenderly convinces the searching soul to join his family. Second, she was a new christian from one of the countries God had led us to focus on in our mission night – giving a testimony on our stage in Slovakia! What an

obvious God connection. Third, it was a powerful challenge about the ability to reach the lost through the internet – especially in difficult places like Kazakhstan, where the primary religion is Islam. And lastly, it was a powerful challenge to hear a national from a needy country say, “come to my country and help reach my people for Christ”.  We could  not have imagined  stronger combinations.

As the story continues to play out, one person from the conference responded directly to Darya with a desire from God to go to Kazakhstan. It’s a continuing miracle! Slovaks reaching out and giving their lives to reach Kazaks.

Can you help us pray that God will keep pushing out missionaries from

Darya with pastor and his wife

here into the needy world around Central Europe? And pray that through Darya, many will be reached with the good news about Jesus (including her family) as a result of what God is doing in her life.

Darya speaking at the conference

Pray for God to be glorified during this time, that the leaders and their teams will have open hearts, minds, and souls to hear His truth and go home with a deeper and passionate understanding of God’s word.

Pray also for our team for strength, wisdom, and protection. And, pray for Zac and I as we both will be leading seminars on Friday. Zac is also heading the team that will bring a missions focus to the whole conference. Saturday evening will be the main event for missions. Please pray specifically that God will inspire and mobilize Slovaks for world missions, especially in central Asia.

It all begins today here in our city of Zilina. Here is a link if your interested in more (it’s in Slovak) http://www.tckompas.sk/kpm/

Can you please take 5 minutes and pray for us right now?

Today, I go by train to a city called Presov for a long overdue visit to a co-worker’s house, Maruska. She has invited me several times to visit her and speak to her small groups of young women on the topic of purity and value. Finally we have found a time and I so look forward to being with these young women. Maruska too is excited and has been busy getting the word out about my visit. So far we have 65 young women who have committed to coming! I’m a bit nervous about that, but that makes me just rely more on God’s Spirit to give me the right words for these ladies.

I’ll have about 3 hours on the train to do last minute preparation and gather my thoughts (in silence). I did our grocery shopping yesterday, so there is plenty of food in our house. I made lists for Zac and the kids, the laundry’s done (no one has to worry about clean clothes) the house is relatively clean…so my mind is at peace and ready to be away for a few days.

It’s a good feeling when you feel God speaking through you, giving you words that will give life to others. I’m so thankful for the opportunity!

The Exit Tour team works for months in advance to train local church youth groups for outreach and follow-up. Plus, they make arrangements for concerts and social prevention seminars in local high schools. Dizmas gives of their talent and energy to come to Central Europe for 2 month and perform concert after concert in these cities and high schools. In each school Dizmas presents a short concert and the Exit team presents various seminars about drug, alcohol and AIDS prevention.

There is also a special seminar by Tomas Graumann, who was one of the final children survivors to board the Winton rescue trains from Prague just before World War II (www.auschwitz.dk/Winton.htm). Graumann, now 79 and a believer in Christ, openly shares his faith and gives out Bibles at the end of his seminar. His story and presentation are spellbinding!

Then, at the end of a week of visiting high schools, there is a final concert in the city featuring Dizmas and another local Christian band. At the concert, the gospel of Christ is clearly shared and everyone is invited to respond.

The two weeks of Exit tour are over now and follow-up has begun. Many small groups have been started, hundreds of new friendships have been set in motion and the seed of the gospel has been planted in hearts.

One observer commented, “I’ve never seen so many unbelievers in our church – EVER! Help us pray for significant fruit and more opportunities in other cities.

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