***The girls' purity book is almost finished! Here's a recent letter from Agnes (Jana) about finishing the project...her blog is www.godventure.blogspot.com ...please e-mail me or call in the middle of the night (love you seester!) with questions--Leah***
90% Czech teenagers agree with premarital sex.
Half of Czech teenagers used no contraception during their first sexual intercourse.
65% of Czech teenagers did nothing to protect themselves from contracting an STD during their first sexual intercourse.
42% Czech teens prefer not getting married to their partner.
Most Czech teens find out about sexual issues from their peers and/or the media.
Hello! My name is Jana Hekalová. I come from the Czech republic. I have been involved in youth ministry since 2000 as a girls´ pastor.
As interdenominational ministry I am leading a project of purity retreats for high school and older girls.
I held my first retreat in April 2002 and since then I have started organizing retreats and training female leaders all over the country.
The two-day retreats help girls to begin building informal mentorships with women from their church community, to learn medical and biblical truths about sexuality, to commit to keep sex out of their relationships until the wedding night, to gain a deeper understanding of the covenant purpose of sex and its blessings when the covenant is protected, to begin the process of healing from any sexual sins in the past and to accept themselves by understanding God´s acceptance.
For the retreats I have been using a book and a leader´s manual by American author Dannah Gresh called
And the Bride Wore White which has been a great tool for this ministry. As the ministry is developing, I began to see the need for materials that would be specifically designed for the Czech environment by Czech authors. As I started to pray about it, God opened doors and a book has been written by a team of about 10 women using their different life stories, experience, giftings and wisdom. The book covers topics such as:
· How to understand God´s original plan for sex
· How will I know he is the right one?
· Satan´s lies in the area of sex, purity, dating, marriage
· Self-image
· Healing from past sexual sins and emotional wounds
· Masturbation
· ...and others
Everything is ready, even the illustrations for the chapters, waiting to be published by a Czech Christian publishing house Navrat Domu. It can be quite difficult to publish a book as a new author and it is even more difficult to publish a Christian book here in the Czech Republic.
On behalf of the authors´ team I would like to ask you to consider taking part in this exciting venture of reaching out to Czech teenage girls. They are under enormous pressure from the society to conform to the ways of the world and its ruler. The book wouldn´t be a magic all-purpose cure but it would give them guidance, support and encouragement to be different and go against the flow. No such other Christian book especially for this target group has been written in our country.
We need help with the price for printing which is about 2,000 US dollars.
It is possible to send a check to the address below:
Navrat domu
P. O. Box 25
150 06 Praha 56
Czech Republic
Thank you very much for your interest and prayers.
In His service,
Jana Agnes Hekalova
