"Publish or Perish"

Publish or perish someone has said ... The written word, the power of the
pen ...It has established empires and toppled them as well. God used the
written word to preserve his revelation to us. In the English language, in
addition to the King James Bible, we have been blessed with the writings of
great men of faith like Charles Spurgeon, E. M. Bounds, George Whitefield,
J. Hudson Taylor, William Carrey, George Mueller, ... Writings of the faithful
who have passed on, live on to bless generation after generation. Such is
the power of the written word ...in English. But in Czech?

We arrived in the Czech Republic on a
cold, February day in 1994. But the
spiritual conditions that greeted us stung
more than the frosty air outside. A nation
that had lost any spiritual heritage it had.
The written word played a part in that
spiritual death. Writings like those of Karl
Marx - every school child was well drilled
in his godless ideals. A member of that
tragic generation told me, "We are the
lost generation." "Our children though", he
said, "will think differently." That spells
hope for the future ... but what shall their
hungry intellectual minds feed on ... The
only literature we arrived with was a tract
and thank God, a Bible in Czech from the
Received Text.

Czechs love to read. They ride the
subways with books in their hands. They
sit on park benches with books in their
laps. They used to flock like sheep to any
table with books spread out for sale, now
they flock to the scores of large, modern
bookstores all around the city, full of
trashy novels and vain philosophy, but
nothing to feed the soul.

The burden for books, Baptist books has always been on my heart.
Mission: PRAHA includes the concentrated effort to get key pieces
of literature and training materials put into the Czech language.

The written word played a part in the spiritual demise of this nation. But
the written word can be a part of its spiritual revival.

We have now produced a number of good tracts, several booklets on
topics like the church, eternal security, prayer, baptism, as well as
correspondence school materials. This important work continues
because the written word, once made available, remains.

PUBLISH or PERISH!