Malenovice Expansion

It's been almost ten years since Malenovice, our training center in Czech, was completed into its beautiful, renovated self back in August 2001.

Over the years, it has been a place of spiritual growth, enrichment, vitality and blessing as we've literally seen tens of thousands of people come through its doors.

Last year alone there were over 15,000 overnight stays!

These are young people who've been there for English camps, Christian leaders for training, JV staff for conferences, churches for week-end retreats, outreaches to the community, businessmen and non-profit groups for lectures and meetings, women's and men's week-ends, ski retreats for school groups...and the list goes on.

I have heard many Christians say through the years that Malenovice is a spiritual home to them. And it's been the place of many putting their faith in Christ. That makes my heart so happy!

This has truly been God's doing. He put His hand on this special location years ago and made it possible to purchase when all the odds were against us. Now that's a story I should tell someday!

But today there is something new going on at Malenovice. We are expanding the capacity by creating a small "village" down below the hotel. There are already two log cabins almost completed, with another one in the works right now. Eventually there will be a " log barn" for the meeting room, and a small lodge for dining and more housing.

When it's all complete, there will be another 80 beds, in addition to the 110 up at the hotel. We need this capacity "yesterday" as our spring conference for JV staff alone runs at 180+ people.

The additional space will also allow us to eventually run simultaneous events up at the hotel and down in the "village". We're excited about the potential to further God's Kingdom through this expansion.

The dollar is so weak in Czech right now that it makes more financial sense for us to buy all the furnishings in the States (even faucets and light fixtures!) and ship them over in a container, than to buy it all here.

And somebody has to make those purchases. So I'm taking a trip this Monday, heading to the States to do shopping for the new cabins.

Someone laughed at me when I said I needed supernatural shopping skills to do that in four days. But I'm telling you...to find everything, at the right prices, in those amount of days, I need some spiritual empowerment!!

 
I wish Paul had thought about adding "shopping" into his list of spiritual gifts...because I'm going to need that gift in the next few days!