April 6th, 2011 by Zac

“DRŽ SA! Zubami-nechtami”  “Hang on to God’s Word – tooth and nail”  This was this year’s conference theme, communicating the extreme necessity of being skilled in handling God’s word. This was, yet again, our largest conference to date with over 700 youth workers attending. The four day conference was packed with great teaching from the scripture as well as with practical tools for handling the Word of God. And as always, there were inspiring worship sessions, practical seminars and challenging activities.

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.