‘I had all these rules inside of me’

For 20-year-old Vasek, leaving his native Czech Republic for London has been an act of leaving behind an old life in more than one way.

Three months after he made the British capital his home, the blue eyes below the unruly mop of blond hair shine with an enthusiasm born of a heart made new.

“I had all these rules inside of me,” he says of upbringing in a Catholic grammar school. “If you didn’t stick to the rules, you got kicked out.” Being a Christian, he thought for most of his life, was the same – until God showed him otherwise in a dream.

One night at the end of November 2007, Vasek dreamt he was sitting in a dark flat watching television with Simon and Javed – two friends and later mentors he had met at Every Nation London.

In his dream, Vasek dozed off and woke up to find his friends were gone. But he was not alone. Behind him was a gaping abyss, pulling him down. Only one thing kept him from falling in: a hand that held tightly onto his own. “I believe that was Jesus.”

Still dreaming, he fell asleep again, this time to wake up in the company of a priest and his school friends. Vasek asked them if they were real Christians. “Yes, yes,” they replied. “But I knew they weren’t,” he says.

The dream came four weeks after Vasek’s first visit to Every Nation London. His sister, Eli, who had preceded him to Britain, invited him to the church with her on only his second day in the country. “I really enjoyed that.”

The young Czech returned the next few Sundays, but it took the dream to “really push me forward” into a personal relationship with God, he says.

Still shaken from his vision, Vasek rang Eli. His sister prayed, asking God for an answer in scripture as to what the dream meant. When she opened the Bible, it was at Isaiah 48:15. “I, even I, have spoken; Yes, I have called him,” the verse read. “God was calling me, really, really clearly,” Vasek says.

The next Sunday in church he responded. “I received God as my only Lord.”

Simon, who had met Vasek previously, took the younger man under his wing. Together they started working through the Purple Book, a Bible study to build strong Christian foundations. Vasek also joined the part-time Bible School at the church, one night every week.

“When I became a Christian, I had a lot of questions,” Vasek says. “They (Simon and his wife Shirley) answered every question. They helped me to understand what the Bible is about.

“The relationship with Him is not about rules, but like a relationship with a person. It’s not about expectations or something.

“I want to help save other people, because now I know what it means to be saved. I just want to help my friends in the Czech Republic. They all think they are Christians…”

At church, Vasek has joined the Sunday hosting team, serving refreshments after the service and welcoming newcomers not unlike himself with his broad smile. Church, he says, is “the place where I’m always looking to go – it’s my spiritual family. They are the people who bring me to God.”

Despite Vasek’s new-found faith, life in London has not been easy. Home is a house in Leyton – an east London neighbourhood known for its low rent but often run-down properties – shared with eight others.

He juggles two jobs – one delivering junk mail (”very boring”), the other packaging DVDs in a factory. Long work hours have meant that the day of the interview, held in the shadow of Big Ben and the London Eye, was the first time he witnessed the landmarks. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Vasek shrugs.

But God provides, he adds. On one of his junk mail rounds he found a fully-working DVD player to take home. “He’s taking care of me all the time.”

At the factory, Vasek once found himself having to package a giant pile of DVDs in covers featuring black crosses and demonic creatures. Not wanting to serve evil, he prayed: “What can I do?” A moment later the entire pile collapsed by itself. “It was as if God said, ‘I will take care of it’,” Vasek recalls.

Back in the Czech Republic, Vasek was trained to do high-rise building work, using climbing ropes to scale tall structures around which it were too expensive to erect scaffolding. His dream was to become a climbing instructor – but in Britain, the training is prohibitively expensive.

“Now I’m just waiting on Him to give me work,” Vasek says. “I believe I was not created to work in a factory.”