Pavol Strežo – Guest Speaker

0:01 We have a guest speaker today, Paval, uh, from, from Slovakia Paval. I'd like to invite you to come up. Pa Paval, as I understand it, is the newest member of the, the ILC for TJC two. That's right. Uh, who just, we just had the meetings this last week and Pablo actually shared this morning in the new members class. And, and so I got just a pre tastes of what this, the message was. So I'm really excited, uh, to hear what Pablo has to share with us, some testimonies and also, uh, from the Lord, our Father in heaven. Lord, I thank you for Pavo. I thank you for, uh, the work that he's doing in Slovakia and around the world.

0:48 Lord, I pray that you would continue to strengthen him, strengthen his family, Lord, to, to speak, uh, what the words that you have put into his mouth. Lord, I pray that you would open up our ears, that we could hear from you today through pa. We bless you and praise you in Yeshua, his name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you very much for warm welcome, rabbi Ari. And, um, I had the privilege to spend a whole week here. Um, we met, we had our meetings here in your congregation whole week as a ILC leadership of, um, TJC two, uh, rabbi Marty hosted us.

1:35 And, um, I'm so thankful for this invitation also to, to share with you, uh, what, um, the Lord is doing in Slovakia and also in Ukraine. Uh, so what, first of all, let me introduce myself. Uh, this is, um, a photo of my beautiful family. Um, and I have a privilege to be married with the most beautiful woman in the whole world. I don't know why God picked me, but I'm so thankful I receive it, Lord. And, um, uh, her name is Yanna, and we are together already 20 years, and we have three kids. Uh, the oldest one is Sophia, she's 15. Then we have a Samuel, he's 12. And, uh, uh, youngest one is Elva in our language,

2:24 and she's nine years old. And, uh, me and my wife, we are leading, uh, Catholic charismatic community, uh, called New Evangelization community. Uh, it's, um, about a hundred people plus a hundred kids. And, uh, we as a community are really blessed with the kids. We are decrease, decreasing the average. We have only three, um, other members in community. They have four or five, even eight, um, and so on. Yeah, and I've been involved, uh, with TJC two towards zero zone council, two vision of which, uh, rabbi Marty received, um, in 1995, um, here in Dallas while he was preparing for his speech. And, uh, I, my first conference was in 2004 in Vienna.

3:11 Um, and then, um, since that time, I started to be involved with this, this vision. Uh, so this was a little bit about me, and, um, I will show you also. So this is the map of Europe. So you, you have a chance to see where is Slovakia, because I will share a little bit about Slovakia. Slovakia is really in the heart of Europe, and, uh, I'm living in the north of Slovakia. Um, it used to be Czechoslovakia. My mother is from Czech, and my, my father is from Slovakia. It used to be a Czechoslovakia. And this is our beautiful city called Donny Cobin. It's a rather small city, um, but it reminds me Jerusalem

3:58 because it's surrounded with the hills from all sites, and it's 17,000, uh, inhabitants. And, um, before I will share the, his, uh, what the Lord is currently doing, I must share a little bit about the history of Slovakia. As I said, it used to be Czechoslovakia. The Czech was taken over, um, by Hitler. But, um, um, there was one man named, uh, Jose Tso. He was a Catholic priest, and he used this opportunity to separate from Czech Republic and create a Slovak state. And he visited, um, Hitler, and he said, you know, we are at your service. We'll be your servants and whatever you want, we will do.

4:43 And, uh, uh, Hitler asked him that, uh, he want to get rid of the Jews, uh, and kill all the Jews. So our president did a treaty with Hitler that we will pay 500 Chen mark for each Jew who will be taken from Slovakia. We issued, uh, in 1941, uh, anti-Jewish laws, which were even more stricter than Nuremberg, Nuremberg Laws in Germany. So, but you don't know how much is 500 Reichen marks. Um, because, um, during the second World War, um, um, Reichen mark or two and a half Reichen marks was approximately $1.

5:29 Uh, but in 1940 $1 meant what today is approximately $18. So if we count, um, uh, Chen marks to pay 500 Chen marks for each Jew meant approximately to our currency today, 3,720 US dollars. It's pretty much, if you count that there were 70,000 Jews and more than 70,000 Jews who were taken from Slovakia. And you can say how on earth this man can pay so much money. Um, it's like millions, um, for Jews to be taken away.

6:15 You know, there was a counting of, uh, people in Czechoslovakia in 1940, and, uh, they found out it was not only counting of people, but it was also counting of all wealth of Czechoslovakia. And they found out that 40% of all wealth in Czechoslovakia belonged to the Jewish people, but there were only three or 4% of Jewish people in Slovakia. So our president took an advantage and said, okay, if we will get rid of them, we can take everything, uh, from them. And he was unable and willing to pay for every Jew. And therefore, we have an account for how many Jews were taken from Slovakia, because we paid for each one, which Hitler ta took to, to the concentration and death camps in Poland.

7:02 And, uh, um, as I said, um, I am, uh, from a Catholic background, and I was a spiritual son of this man. Some of them, you maybe heard his name. His name is Father Peter Hawken. He was, uh, one of the founding members, uh, um, of TJ C two in the beginning. This is probably one of his last photos because he passed away in 2017 when they, uh, with, uh, rabbi Marty. They've been in, uh, um, Vatican where there was a 50 years anniversary of Catholic charismatic renewal, uh, Catholic charismatic renewal started in 1967, and, uh, till now there is about 130 million Catholic charismatics all around the world.

7:49 You must be patient with us. We, I know that if white, 1.3 billion Catholics all around Slovakia, we are about 10% now, but the Lord is good, and we will make it, don't worry. But, um, I was, um, spiritual son of, um, this man of God, and he introduced me for the first time to the Messianic Jews in 2002. And I was, uh, astonished because Christian unity was always on my heart, and suddenly, completely new dimension was open to me. And it was this ment, which we called Messianic Judaism in Slovakia. We have no Messianic Jewish congregation, neither in Czech Republic or Hungary, so in, in Austria. And so I had no time, no chance to,

8:36 to meet the Messianic Jew. But, uh, father Peter Hoan used to bring Messianic Jews, especially from Israel, um, to, to his gatherings, to in meetings. And therefore, I was able to meet, uh, many of them, many of them. And, uh, he, um, was really on fire for, uh, uh, bringing and preparing the bride for the bride to come. He was teaching very much about the second coming of the Lord and what is necessary to, uh, to do so he can come. And one of the things was, um, the Messianic Jews. And when I came back to Slovakia from his retreats, I was so enthusiastic, and I started to share, you know, about Messianic Jews. And I was in shock because there was a cold response.

9:24 And I realized that first we need to deal with replacement, allergy and antisemitism in the hearts of people. And then I can share with them about what Gali is doing among Jewish people. If they are negatively, you know, thinking about Jews, how can I share with them, um, uh, that, um, you know, they are chosen people and they are key for the second coming of the Lord and so on. And, um, then I, I, I, I, I found out, I don't know how, uh, I don't remember now, but I found out that my teacher from the grammar school, when I, you know, when the six years old boy come to the school, you know, your teacher is a hero. So in the first grade, this was my teacher,

10:10 and I was so, uh, in love with her. And, and, but later in 2009, I find out that actually her dad was a Jewish man, and he was taken to Auschwitz to concentration camp when she was two years old, but her mother was not a Jewish, uh, lady. So she and her mother, um, was spared and they could stay, they were hiding. And, and her, she never saw her father again. And it broke my heart because of relationship with her. And I asked her, did anybody ever told you I'm sorry for what we did to, to you? And she said, you know, never, um, actually I was ashamed

10:57 that I'm Jewish, and I was hiding it for all my years. And, um, I gathered a group of, um, uh, people who, who loved Israel, who are praying for Israel. There were like 30 of us. We rented a, a former synagogue, which is now a cinema, uh, in our city. And we had the repentance gathering where we repented to God for what we did to the Jewish people. We asked for forgiveness and expressed our guilt and shame, um, uh, for our forefathers to, to, to this lady. And it was a very beautiful meeting, a lot of tears. Um, and, uh, but I realized that if we want to reach the level of the city, we must take this

11:42 repentance to the higher level. You know, I'm not a priest. Um, I'm just ordinarily ordinary man, a lay preacher. Um, and if I will tell you, you know, I'm sorry for on behalf of Catholic church, it's another level if a priest, Catholic priest will stand here, or if a bishop will stand here, or if the pope will stand here. So the the level of responsibility you are caring is also a level of alterity, um, and a blessing which you can release authorities were given to bind or to release a blessing. So if you are a father or mother in your family, you can bind or release the blessing to your kids if you are a manager in your company,

12:29 or you can bind or release a blessing to your, to your employees. And it's the same also in the church and in a secular society where you have a mayor, for example, over the city. And I, uh, came to our mayor with a fear and trembling because, uh, the scripture was like, you know, written so deeply on my heart. And if you will forget, uh, if you will, uh, don't remember, remember anything from this message, please remember this, this scripture from two Chronicles seven 14. And it's a, it's a promise. It has two parts. It has if, and they then,

13:15 so if we do our part, God wants to do the second part. It says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from the evicted ways. So this is our part to humble, to pray, to confess our sins, then God is saying, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. Do you ever notice that God wants to heal the land? He just don't want to heal our hearts as individuals. He wants to pour out his blessing on, on, on whole territory. God is thinking in the level of cities, you know, for example, when Abraham was negotiating with God,

14:03 they were negotiating about whole cities, OMA and Gomorrah, or when Jesus was rebuking cities, he was rebuking whole cities, tutu, Bethesda, or he was sending Jonah to whole Neve. So God is thinking also in the terms of cities, and I have a Jewish friend, and he once told me, Pablo, I like the way how you Catholics are thinking about the church, because when you say church, you don't think only about a group of people who meet in a particular building. When you say church, you think about the territory. We, we call it parish in, in our, um, uh, vocabulary. So it, and he said, it's a very Jewish way of thinking, because God blessed Abraham and he gave him land. So you are responsible for a land and for blood shedding

14:51 and for evil, which is happening there. And you must stand before God because he wants to bring healing also to the land. And with this burden and experience, what we experienced as a small group in, in the synagogue with our teacher, I approached our mayor, and he is a non-believer. And with the fear and trembling, I came to him and said, Mr. Mayor, I have deeply on my heart that we should take responsibility of what our forefathers did, because 256 Jewish people was, was were, were taken from our city to the concentration camps. And if we truly repent for that, God will bless this city.

15:36 Unemployment will go down, crime will go down, new investors will come into the city. And I said, what I'm promising him is like a political, you know, speech. And I cannot fulfill anything of that. I have no capacity for that. I'm just small Pavel somewhere from the middle of nowhere. But I knew that it's not, I'm promising. God is saying, I will heal the land. It's my desire to bring healing to the land, to bring forgiveness. And, and I, I, I, I, you know, I knew that this blood for of innocent Jewish people is crying from Earth, but we have a blood which is crying even louder, and it's blood of our Lord and Messiah, Yeshua.

16:21 And to my surprise, the mayor said, yes, let's do it. So we, in 2012, it was a 70 years anniversary of deportations of the Jewish people from our city. And, uh, um, we again rented, uh, a synagogue. And, uh, in the first row there is a mayor, and then there's a Lutheran pastor, and we approach also our bishop. And he wrote the letter. He couldn't come, but he wrote a letter of repentance. And then on the second row with my teacher, and then there is, we found a man who was hiding during the war. Um, and so he stood up and he said, I, I'm so thankful that during this dark times, there were still people who were, who were, uh, risking and hiding my parents, uh, me and my wife, and, and,

17:11 and we could, we could, we could survive. And then we invited Hannah Miley. I don't know if you are familiar with her, but I, I thought one book in, in your books bookstore, I think. Um, and she was one of the children who was transported in Kingdom Transport, and her life was saved. Um, and the one man who came from Israel, and he's an ambassador, he is a title ambassador of Dominic Bin. And he came and he, he blessed us, um, with a ironic blessing at the end. And then we've been on the Jewish cemetery, and we will build it a monument of 256 stones, um, represent all the Jewish people who should, should, uh, lay there in that, uh, graveyard, but they are not there. And then we created a, um, um, museum,

17:57 and we listed also all the names, uh, because, you know, Hitler didn't, he wanted to erase their names, so they were numbers. And whenever we read the names, we are giving them back their dignity. And, and this man from Israel, he said, I'm, I'm going to this kind of commemoration activities for last 25 years, but this was different. I said, do you know why it was different? Because this is not a commemoration activity. It's a repentance service, and it's really a pain deep inside of us. And we, uh, we are crying to our God, please forgive us. Like, uh, like, um, Daniel did in his prayer or, or Nehemiah prayed.

18:43 They were faithful servants, but they were embracing the guilt and shame of their forefather and saying, we and our fathers, we have sinned. And to my surprise, maybe nine months later, I realized that one investor came to our city, another big factory was open in our city, third factory en large, their, their property in our community from one small group of young people. There were already three of them. And they, uh, they started to have a open worship meeting with a hundred and 150 people. Young people started to coming, uh, a regularly. I said, wow, the Lord is really responding to our prayer. So I made an appointment with our mayor and said, Mr.

19:29 Mayor, I want you to acknowledge that the Lord listened to your prayer. And he responding. And actually our mayor, who is not believer, two years later, publicly, he said, we had 56% debt in our city. And after the repentance, something changed in the spirit. There were some companies, um, who were threatening us that they will go away because they wanted to buy some properties, and we were not able to sell it to them because there were some people who were still owners of it, that they didn't want to sell it and so on. And he said, but after the repentance, everything was clarified. It went so smoothly, we could sell those properties.

20:16 They enlarged their business, new investors came, and actually our debt is not anymore 56%, but 20% of our city. And I said, wow, this is amazing. And there was another, um, year, and it was 2013 when our mayor, uh, I found on the website of our, um, city, city website, please help us to deal with the crime in the city center. Young people every Friday and Saturday are drinking and the pops, and then they are destroying everything and kicking to everything. And we need to spend a lots of money to restore and repair everything. And police, uh, are regularly going there. And, uh, I was, uh, praying

21:05 and thank God, how can we help? To the mayor, he's crying, help us. I don't know what to do, but you have the answers. And, uh, we had a man who was training us, um, uh, thinking differently, not in the church mindset by the kingdom mindset. And he was always challenging us saying, do not pray only prayers like, oh, bless our community father, or give us more people. But, but start to pray like, oh, where, where there are problems in our city, how can we be a blessing to, to, to our neighbors or, uh, stuff like that. So, so, so pray different prayers, not only self-centered, but focused on others. So I was praying to God and, and said, what can we do? And the Lord gave me a strange idea,

21:50 and he said, create a map of the main square and identify which houses belong to the Jewish people and which belong to the Christians before the Second World War. And I have a, uh, I have a, can you go to another slide? I, I don't know why it's not working. Uh, maybe you can help me with, with flights. And, and I have a friend, and she's a historian, and, uh, she helped me to identify the houses. And I came with that map. It was only handwritten. This is already what we created with all photos, but handwritten map. And I was in shock because all problematic pubs were in stolen Jewish houses. It was like from one corner of, of, of the,

22:36 the square I was going. And it was a Christian House, Christian House, Jewish house, pop, Jewish house, awful pop, Christian House, Christian House, Jewish house, pop. And I said, and when my to another side, it was again, Christian House. It was destroyed. Christian House, Christian House, Jewish house, street bar, Jewish house, pop. I said, no way with a hundred percent accuracy. All promo pubs were in the stolen Jewish houses. And they understood it. You know, generations are changing, but the curse is still remaining there. 70 years ago, somebody was stealing and destroying and killing, and, and, and nobody confessed that. And the curse is still there, and young people are coming to the city, um,

23:21 and they are drinking in those pubs, and they are coming under the influence of the, of the spirit. And then they're getting wild and destroying everything and so on. I said, whoa, this is a challenge. So again, I approached the mayor and said, Mr. Mayor, I have a plan. And he said, what's the plan? I said, we'll organize another repentance meeting and it'll help us to deal with the crime. He said, okay, let's do it. And I said, are you willing to, to go with us on the main square? And, and, and again, like last year, confess and repent and say yes. So, um, uh, but while we were preparing it, um, there was one man, uh, he, he's on the second, uh, in the, the, uh,

24:09 second from the, your side, his left side from the left side. Her name, his name is Ner der, and his, he's from Austria, and his father was killing Jews in Poland, and his grandfather was killing Jews in Ukraine. And he, he has amazing story you can feed on there, is available on the internet. He also wrote a book, and, um, and he's a, a free church pastor. And whenever, wherever he goes, he's repenting for what his father and did. And next to him on his right, uh, side, he's standing, a Catholic priest. Remember, you know, our, uh, president was a Catholic priest, and there was a military force called slo guards who helped to, uh, Hitler and,

24:55 and the Nazi guards, you know, to, to, to do all the, all the stealing and, and killing and fending people away. So this Catholic priest, whose grandfather was a, was a guards SVA guard from SVA guard, and he was directly from our city. And I asked him and said, this is a killing combination for Satan if the son of a Nazi, uh, officer and the grandson of slo guard will humble themselves and pray, forgive to us and our fathers, that we have sinned. And we ask also a deputy of the mayor who is a Christian and another pastor, and a group of other people from our community. And we went from house to house on the main square, and we were repenting for what was done there 70 years ago,

25:41 uh, two weeks later, uh, young people from our community came to me. They didn't know about this mission, and they said, we have a great desire to walk on the main square every Monday, Friday for half an hour and just pray. And I say, go for it. Do it. And half a year, they were just walking around it. We had also official, uh, gathering, um, uh, this, again, this man from Israel, and we, we asked some of the people who were over 80, who, who, who knew how the live was, you know, during the war times. And they were sharing stories about the Jewish people to destroy the mindset that, oh, the Jewish people are, were evil, and, you know, stuff like that. But they were also repenting. And, and, um, uh, what happened that, again,

26:29 approximately nine months later now, the mayor called me and he said, Mr, please come to my office. I, so it was one of what, what I did. So I came and uh, and he said, thank you. Did you help us to deal with the crime in the city center? I said, no way. What? No reports of the police decreased rapidly. We do not need to spend hundreds of euros every month to repair everything. And it's, uh, the, the square is more quiet. I said, no, are you kidding me? I said, no. So I approached the Lutheran pastor who houses on the main square and said, is it true? And he said, yes, definitely the square is more quiet. And then I walk around and I realized street bar closed, another pup closed on another side, another pup closed.

27:17 And I said, no way. And what is fantastic is that God was not only dealing with a sin, he was releasing a blessing. So Lutheran Church opened the alternative club called Garage in the Main Square, when young people were coming, not drinking, but you know, for discussions and having fun and play games and so on. Our young people grew from three, three small groups to seven small groups. We had now already 70 young people, and, uh, 300 people were coming to the open worship meetings. I said to the mayor, wow, it's not about God. He is dealing with the evil. He's releasing his, dealing with the evil in the hearts of young people, and he's, uh, he's bringing healing to their hearts so they can be a blessing to the city.

28:04 And I was so encouraged by that, and I started to share this with other friends all around Slovakia. There is a great charismatic movement, uh, Catholic charismatic movement in Slovakia. So we have many friends all around Slovakia, and started to share it with them. And they were so on fire and said, we want to do the same thing in our, our city. So now we did it already in 19 different cities, all around Slovakia. The blue ones are the, the cities. It always took several months of preparation where we involved always the leadership of the churches and the leadership of the city. We train them and, and try to explain them why Israel is important. There were several sessions always where I could have a possibility to teach about the importance of Israel and imp why repentance is needed and, and stuff like that,

28:52 and share the TJC two vision and we're preparing. And, and then there was a day where the leaders and of the churches and the mayors stood before the Jewish authorities and Holocaust survivors, and they were confessing their sins and repenting before God. And, uh, and before them. And, uh, we had, We had wonderful testimonies, how God was responding with healing of the land. There was one faith called Preza. When Priest called me several months later, he said, PA, you wouldn't believe that our city wanted some investors to come into the city. And they created a industrial park with all the, you know,

29:39 uh, uh, supplies, electric and everything. And for seven years, they were inviting somebody and nobody was responding. But after we, we did repentance straight afterwards, few weeks later, investor from Germany approached them and said, we want to build a new factory here with 600 new working places, and we will invest 24 million Euro into, into your city. And I said, wow, this is amazing. But it's not only about the blessing. The, the most precious thing is that in different cities, the hearts of Jewish people were healed there. You know, we've been, uh, in, in the city, Preza, you know, there was a, this priest he came to, to the leader of the Jewish community, and he said, we will confess our sins that at the end,

30:26 can you just forgive us in favor, our own blessing? He said, no, no, no, I, in this kind of commemoration activities, we are, we are not allowed to do this. I have my speech. And I said, okay, okay. So, so the priests and pastors, they were confessing the sins and then proclaiming and affirming the calling of Israel and so on. And at the end, you know, she was, she came to the pulpit and she took away the papers and in tears, she said, I never ever experienced something like that. And from bottom of my heart, I want to pray. Psalm 32 over you. The blessed is the one who confessed the sin. God forgave him. And, and, and she prayed ironic blessing over the city, and I was so moved. And she came down and she said, please do this also in my city, which is trenching.

31:14 We need to hear this. We need to heal. This is so deep. Somewhere in us, we, last city was Kmar. And, uh, we invited, uh, um, some, some, uh, holocaust, um, descendant, um, uh, descendants, survivors from from America. And, um, uh, from California, one man came and another from, uh, Scandinavia, another from Israel. And, um, and after the repentance, I approached him and said, so how was it? And he said, can I be honest with you? I said, yes, sure. He said, when he, when the letter came, the anus, I said, what a b******t it will be. Oh, I'm sorry for saying that.

32:01 I said, no, no, no, you can be honest. You can be honest. I said, I, I was so skeptical. I said, I am fed up with this, you know, commemoration activities, but you really touched my heart when I came here. I must tell you, it was such a healing, deep healing. And I said, you know what? This is not from head to head. We are not commemorating anything. It's from heart to heart. And we were able to establish deep, deep relationship with the Jewish people in different cities. And then something amazing happened, 2021, and suddenly this man, he's a friend of mine, he became a prime minister of Slovakia for two and a half years because there were some problems in the

32:48 government, and they had to change the Prime Minister. And he became a prime minister. And I approached him and said, Edo, this is the time why he was appointed to such a position like Esther. I spoke to him as a Esther and said, now, we are not the President Republic. We are Parliament Republic. So you are the highest authority, and you can repent on behalf of the president from 80 years ago. And he said, yes, we will do it. And, um, on the 9th of September, 2021, they issued as a, as a, as a government, uh, the, the official statement. And he stood up before the, the Jewish, uh, Jewish survivors

33:33 before, um, Jewish, uh, official Jewish representatives. And this is part of his speech when he says, as a prime minister of Slovak Republic, on behalf of the government of the SLA Republic, allow me to express my deep regret at the adoption of the Jewish court, which was this, you know, awful, uh, anti-Jewish law, which was more cruel than nor Bengal laws. And to apologize for all the hardships and losses that its implementation has brought to the lives of you and your ancestors. Please forgive. And, uh, the official statement is a little bit longer, but only bold thing I will read. The government of the SVA Republic as a supreme executive authority of the Slovak Republic today feels a moral obligation

34:19 to publicly express its sorrow for the crimes committed by the state power of the time. We condemn the actions of the state authorities of the time and express our deep sorrow over this tragedy that befall innocent victims. We examine our conscious for the crimes committed against our fellow citizen, culminating in the deportations to the dead camps. And, uh, few days later, Pope Francis came to Slovakia, and it was well orchestrated by God, because now the civil authorities repented. And then the Pope Francis came. And when he came to Slovakia, he said, first, I want to meet

35:04 with, uh, pastors and leaders of other Protestant churches, and secondly, I want to meet with the Jewish representatives. And then you can arrange other meetings with other Catholics, which is really unique for the Pope that he first wants to meet the others. And then his own sheep. But he also gave a speech before the Jewish representatives, and he said, and you must know when you will read it, that our president was a Catholic priest and he was justified in these crimes with the sentence, God is with us. And God said, love yourself. So we are just loving ourselves and taking back what was ours. Therefore, the Pope said here, before the history of the Jewish nation, marked

35:50 by the tragic and indescribable confrontation, we are ashamed to admit it, how many times the unspeakable name of the most high has been used for the indescribable act of inhumanity? How many oppressors declared God is with us, but they were not with God. And everybody knew that he's condemning the, the crimes of the, the, the former president who was a Catholic priest. And, um, I'm coming to, to close, I always try to follow the principle who was faithful in small gole and trust him with more. And we started with a small repentance to our teacher.

36:38 And I would never imagine where throughout those years, will God bring it unto the level of the prime minister. And then to my surprise, God was even gracious, and he opened doors to other countries. So last year, this lady at a microphone, she's from, from the city called Zabolo in Ukraine, and she heard my teaching and, and sharing about the testimony, what happened in Slovakia. And she said, Pavel, you must help me to organize repentance in my city. In my city, there is a mass grave with 1,200 Jewish people who were killed. Um, and, and, and I, I have a burden on my heart to bring repentance to the level of church and secular authorities and, and, and change it to the blessing.

37:24 So we, uh, traveled several times to Ukraine and, and help to organize with her with a Jewish rabbi from Ivan Franks, and the representative of all the churches and the mayor and maybe 250 people from the city were there. And they, we were standing at the place of the mass grave and, and they were repenting for the, the forefathers did. And, uh, since the war started, um, we helped a lot with the refugees. We are always, you know, in touch with many churches, especially western part of Ukraine. And whenever we, you know, have some money, we, we buy food and we go there. And because they're still feeding internally displaced

38:10 people, there are many people who escaped, uh, from Ukraine, totally well, few millions, but there are many people who are living in the West Ukraine, and they, they have no house because their houses were destroyed. And, and so, and, and the churches are, especially those who are helping them to provide meals for them and and so on, usually mothers with kids. So, so we are bringing them stuff and food. And while we're traveling all around other cities and bringing food, we, we learned that, um, more about the history of Ukraine. And boy Ukraine is sucked with the blood of innocent Jewish people so much. This is just few cities, you know, from the summer 41 to the December 41,

38:59 there were more than 150,000 Jewish people killed and shoot in different cities. And, uh, um, you know, Zas group and from, from from, uh, Nazi Germany, they were testing how the world powers will react to that. And Britain and France and America and others were not reacting to that. So the very first month afterwards in January 42, they met in Vane in Germany for a conference called Final Solution with the Jewish people. And, and, um, and they started to all the deportations from Slovakia and other countries to Poland to concentration camps. So now we picked one city called Ka Podolsky.

39:47 We managed to to to, um, to study a little bit of history. And Cummins Podolski is a partner, city of Donny bin of my city. And I said, it's really significant when somebody 30 years ago was establishing a partnership between other two cities, God already had in his mind that repentance services will start in our city and it'll spread until to communions Podolski. Because in communions podolski, you see the picture of grass, uh, of a, it's like a soccer square. It's one mass grave with 23,600 killed shooted Jewish people in just two days

40:33 on the 27th and 28th of August, 1941. And this massacre opened doors for other massacres all around the Ukraine. So it's just a starting point. And there were 14,000 from former Hungarian autonomy, which were also Slovakian Jews, Hungarian Jews then send them, um, to one ghetto in kilometer. Then they were walking 140 kilometers, and finally they were killed with some Polish Jews and Ukrainian Jews in communist Podolski. So learning all of that, this August, we are organizing a prayer journey called reconciliation, healing for Ukraine. And we go in the footstep of Jewish people from Slovakia,

41:18 we start in Slovakia. Then in Budapest, we are in a former ghetto, which is a beautiful synagogue, uh, called Roomba Synagogue. We sit with a representative of Jewish people from all, all, um, Hungary, and they said, please, you are welcome. We need this in Hungary. There is still such a antisemitism and still today, and we want to break the whale of silence. And then we will travel to ot because from Ur, there were also Jewish people sent to kilometer. There was a ghetto there. Then we were March 20 kilometers to Zabolo, another repentance at this mass grave. And then we'll finally reach coming Podolsky, when first day on the 27th, mayor and the church leaders together with us Germans,

42:06 Slovak Hungarians, there will be an international prayer journey. We'll repent for what our forefathers did. And the next day, Jewish, uh, Jewish authorities invited us to their commemoration act. So it'll be Gentile and the Jewish, uh, first day and the second day. So I just came from Ukraine three weeks ago. We met with the Spiritual Council of Communist Podolsky. All those men are pastors and leaders of different, uh, congregations and churches, uh, including Catholic churches, the bishop and, uh, and uh, including two Messianic Jewish, uh, congregations in communist podolsky. And they said, we want to do this. It's important that we'll humble ourselves, and we want to see how the Lord will help and,

42:53 and bring blessing to, to our city. So that's it. Here I am, and I'm ashamed how God can take a small alco from the middle of nowhere who is faithful in small things, and God can take it to the greater measure. And, um, and I, as I said, I'm a Catholic man and you And, um, you heard what my people, Slovak people and especially Catholic church did to you

43:40 and your ancestors in Slovakia. And, um, if I did it so many times, I am again humbling myself before you and saying it was awful sin, and I'm ashamed that our president was a Catholic priest, and that we painted the wrong picture about Yeshua to the eyes of, of Jewish people, that tremendous suffering and pain and that they had to go through. And I'm so sorry on behalf of us, and I know that we have not enough tears to cry. And, uh, I want just to confess before you that this is what I embraced as my calling to bring repentance everywhere

44:26 and to call church on their knees and, and repenting for what we did, and see how the church is acknowledging the, the older brother, Jewish brother, and, uh, and, and receiving a blessing from them and confirming the God-given mandate to be a priest nation and lie to the, to the nations. And, um, and, um, therefore, I'm part of this initiative called TJC two, which, uh, rabbi Marty started here nearly 30 years ago. And I'm privileged and really blessed that, um, I can carry a little bit of the burden which Rabbi Marty is carrying globally around the world. I can, I can bring it also on, only in, in the Europe, but, but, uh, you have no clue what kind of

45:15 blessing is coming from, from this place and what the Rabbi Marty started, uh, many years ago. And, and, um, it's such a blessing that, and an honor for me that I could share this here with you and see a little bit of reward of the faithfulness of Rabbi Marty and what, what he started many, many years ago. And, and I can be part of that. So I'm so thankful for that. And thank you very much. Thank you very much.

46:06 May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace

46:58 in the name of our Messiah. Yes, uh, Shabbat Shalom.