Last week we brought you the first part of our interview with Samuel Lacho, the Ministry Director for the Central and Eastern European Region. Today we continue that interview, focusing on TWR’s operations in the region, which consists of Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Albania, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Samuel told us last week about the challenges faced by former-communist countries, in particular the problem of widespread corruption. They are problems which Samuel, who was born in Czechoslovakia, is familiar with.
TWR’s work in central and Eastern Europe is extensive, and so we begin this part of the interview by discussing with Samuel what projects he is particularly excited about.
I’m really excited about teaching the Bible, particularly Thru the Bible. Again and again I encounter people who listen to the programme and really get to understand the Bible. I used to work in the church and I noticed that people, even though they want to read the Bible, many times they just don’t understand the Bible. It’s an ancient book and it consists of 66 different books and it is written to a totally different context, and so people know it’s important to read the Bible, and they even try, but many times they don’t understand. But I’m excited that there are programmes that really explain the Bible or bring a commentary to the Bible.
I am really excited about projects that target specific groups of people. One of the projects that I am working on is to creating a programme for the Roma nation: a programme that will be done by Romas, for Romas. But also programmes like women’s programmes or men’s programmes that focus on specific issues that women and men are facing.
You can read in the first part of our interview about a Roma woman Samuel met whose life was completely transformed through listening to TTB in Serbia. These issues of Biblical illiteracy are familiar to us in the UK, so we can pray for our own country and situation even as we raise up TWR Europe in prayer. We finished our time with Samuel by asking him what challenges TWR Europe is facing that we can be praying for.
He explained that in several European countries, the broadcasts are still on medium wave, and there is an increasing need for that to change: there is increasing demand for the programmes to be broadcast on other platforms. He asked that we pray that God would lead this complicated process, going ahead of them into negotiations and making the way clear.
We hope that you will join us in praying for the challenge of shifting broadcast platforms: that God will make the way clear for TWR Europe, and that through the changes many more people will come to listen and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
