On Thursday Draho and I went to the town of Poprad to help with EXIT tour. For those of you who remember, we had an EXIT tour in our town last spring. This year it was in Bardejov and in Poprad two towns in the east. During the week in Bardejov last week around 185 students prayed to receive Christ in their lives. We are still waiting to hear the numbers for Poprad. While I was helping with the tour I met a boy from Syria named Nur. His father married a Slovak woman. They have been living in Syria since he was born. He recently moved to Slovakia with his mother and little brother, because of the increasing violence in Syria. His father is still trying to get a Visa to move here which is very hard for someone from Syria. I had the opportunity to pray with him for his father. Oh and did I mention that I was praying with him in a public school! We have such a unique opportunity to share Christ in the schools while they are still open to it. I also attended one of the sessions with him.
The session was done by the Graumanns, above. Thomas, 81 years old, was one of 699 jewish kids saved by Nicholas Winton in 1939 from Czechoslovakia. Many of the jewish parents during 1938 realized things were getting bad in Czechoslovakia after the Nazis took over. Nicholas Winton set up a program where parents could send their kids to England for protection until the nazis were gone. Many of them sent their kids away never to see them again. You can read more here: Winton Train Thomas’s mother put him on a train when he was 8, his little brother was sick so his mother decided to put him on the next train, which never came because Hitler closed the borders. Thomas never saw his family again. His mother and brother died in the gas chambers and as far as he knows his father committed suicide before the nazis could capture him. Thomas was raised in the home of a single Woman who was a teacher at a Christian school in Scotland. He came to Christ and eventually moved to the Philippines to help rebuild the country and share Christ after WWII. He wanted to come back to his home in Czechoslovakia but was not allowed to because the communist government would not allow Christians in. In 1993 he and his wife moved to Czech after communism fell. He has been serving and sharing his story with young people since then. Yes he is 81 and is still involved in youth ministry! You can watch a video of his talk below: