My history
I was born in January 1972. This was a very successful year - world famous Czech ice-hockey player Jaromír Jágr and world famous Czech footballer Pavel Nedvěd also share the same brand:-)
I grew up in the city of Ostrava, in the middle of Czechoslovakia. In that time it was the "steel heart of the country", city of mines and steelworks.
I learned to recognize letters from my cousin just before I started going to school, and since that time I began to hoard up books; some of them I have even read.
My mum was a microbiologist and dad a chemist, so I was predestined to a scientific career. Through my school years I couldn't decide between astronomy, geography, biology, history or linguistics. I quite enjoyed all of those and wouldn't think about church pulpit.
Although there was a school just two hundred metres from our home, since the third class I had to commute (as I was admitted to the school with extended language learning) - first by a bus number 41, later I changed to numbers 37 or tram 14. This might be the source of my love for traveling:-).
When I was ten I became a proud member of a youth tourist club, and hiking, tramping, camping remains one of my favorite hobbies ever since. I got my first experience as a children camp leader when I was fifteen, at nineteen I was the main leader for the first time, and there were just two summers since that time when I wouldn't organize at least one children/youth camp.
Very special impact in my life had the youth centre in Travná and the people around it.
I accepted youthwork as a crucial part of my ministry call.
In the age of nine I rejected official music education and didn't become a violin virtuoso only to come back on stage at twelve as an autodidact with guitar, singing, later double bass, banjo or mandolin. I can't really play but I love playing with sounds:-). When I found it is difficult to play songs made by proper musicians, I started writing my own:-) Since that time I have always had some group, band or choir; from all time love Kontryhel (Lady's Mantle) to the big project of Keep Smiling Gospel choir.
I have tried many different music experiments, however, i always found my place is in the God's praise, not anywhere else. Music became a part of my ministry call too.
I was baptized as a baby, and was brought to church regularly by my mum since my childhood. In the begining of my fifteenth winter my pubertal disgust with myself reached the top and I started to look for some sense in life - salvation from my sins. I tried to read the Bible and thanks to God's guidance I found His forgiveness there; forgiveness was a huge surprise for me and has been the strongest point in Christian faith for me since. I have always been amazed by the fact Jesus loves me, forgives my sins, and accepts me as I am.
At around 1988 I decided to become a church minister, started theological studies in 1990, and finished in 1996. In 1997 I entered the vicariat and in October 1998 I was ordained for the ministry of the Word and Sacraments. I unexpectedly became a minister in a small borderland industrial-area congregation of Orlová where I remained for twenty-one years.
In 1995 my wife and I had the opportunity to spend three months as guests of the Purley United Reformed Church in London which enriched us with wonderful experiences. In 1997 we had lived for five months at the exposure programme in Kenya which literally changed our lives, our ways of thinking, our attitude towards people, towards preaching Gospel and church service. I have been living out of those encounters since.
In 2006 my wife visited Scotland for the first time. It kindled a long lasting love for the country and its people and led towards very fruitful friendship with Scottish and Scots.
