Vladimira,

You’ve been very much part of Carrubbers and the Leith Home Group for quite a while now but not everyone has had a chance to get to know you. Thank you for being willing to tell us a little bit about yourself in this W2W blog.

Tell us where are you from and what brought you to Edinburgh?

I come from the heart of Europe, from the small landlocked country of Slovakia. Our capital city is Bratislava. I moved to Edinburgh 2 years. My husband wanted to improve his English so that he could understand and make use of the many Christian resources in English that I have been able to benefit from over the last couple of years. We could have done this in any English-speaking country, but we chose Scotland and Edinburgh because we fell in love with this country and city while visiting nearly 10 years ago.

What was your work in Slovakia?

I ran and I still run a small translation business. I translate mainly marketing texts, but over the years I have worked also on a few Christian projects. In the church, I was involved in all kinds of loosely related things – writing scripts, preparing visuals and crafts for a toddler club & Sunday school, website administration and I also did some graphic design.

Tell us a little about your spiritual journey and how you become a Christian?

I grew up in a Catholic family so I have been introduced to some truths about God early on in my life. I knew I needed to behave and go to church.

When I was 10, I had an accident during our family holiday. I remember falling into the darkness and the time slowing down for a while. There, lying flat and gasping for breath on rocks of a castle ruin, I thought, this is it, I am going to die here. The prospect of dying scared me and made me think about the finiteness and meaning of life. I did not die that night J (I know, quite obvious!) and miraculously, had almost no injuries, just a few bruises, a small scratch on my head and shallow cross-shaped scratches on my arm. Those cross-like scratches really made me think about God. I could have died that night but God did not allow that to happen. After this experience I became more interested in spiritual things. Later on, a Catholic friend lent me a booklet about creation and God´s plan to redeem mankind. After reading it I knelt down and committed myself to God acknowledging his supremacy, majesty in creation and goodness in supplying a way to be saved for me. I know this was a decisive moment in my life, but my search for God and truth was far from over. 

You said the booklet was handed down to you by a Catholic friend. Did you remain a member of the Catholic Church?

Yes, I did. I knew something changed in me inwardly and I was drawn to church. I wanted to please God and obey his commandments. I became a devout Catholic as I had never been in any other church. I had no reason to compare what the different churches taught. I just wanted to submit to all that God had for me in the church I knew. So, I enjoyed being pious, prayed the rosary, secured indulgencies for the souls in purgatory. I thought I was pleasing God. However, all these pious deeds were fuelling my self-righteousness. I believed that Jesus died to cleanse me from my sin in this way: he bought the “washing machine” with his blood, but it was my job to come to him and let my robes be washed again and again. I believed that if I happened to die on a day when I was clean enough (of course only because of Jesus), I would go straight to heaven.

What happened next?

A tempting bait on a hook appeared on my horizon! Ten years ago, I went to an ecumenical meeting in Zagreb, Croatia to spend some time in quiet prayer and worship over the few days between Christmas and New Year. There I met Jan, a Slovak guy who was an evangelical Christian and instantly fell in love with him. It turned out that it was mutual! From the start, he had big concerns about how we are going to make our cross-denominational relationship work. We talked a lot about the Bible and the different views we had on how we should practice our faith. These conversations took place on the phone, being separated by some 200 mile distance (Skype was not that popular back then). We went through some tough times. But God was good to us and he was opening my eyes to the amazing truth that I can have total peace with God because he made my robes clean once and for all. I realised my faith is all God wants from me. As the Scripture shaped my faith more and more, I understood why Christians in evangelical churches had no need to pray to the saints or keep religious icons. My convictions about God changed and my conscience allowed me to marry Jan and join an evangelical church with him.

This was obviously a very intense time of spiritual searching and change in your life. How has it been since then?

Since then, God has used many ways to draw me closer to himself and to the truth of his Word. Many of these times were deeply personal – spiritual low-points in my life which left me in deep doubts about God and my faith. I asked God many questions… why this and that word that you promise in scripture does not work in my life? Did you mean it after all? Am I really a Christian? Why is it that God does not fulfil things other people tell me he should? I felt like an angry toddler having temper tantrums before God.

But, God has answered me in an incredible way. He gave me such a hunger to find out what his Word really says about things that I did not know before. In fact, as I look back I see that without these deep crises of faith, I would never have made myself study the Bible and the different streams within evangelicalism with that much zeal.

What have you learned through your struggles?

I have learned that God wants me to get rid of my childish ways in order to make me more mature in the faith. I know that I need to watch myself closely in order to follow Christ, not man. I know my “you tube-induced” spiritual excitement alone cannot stand the test of real-life struggles. I need to seek God himself in prayer, not just the information about him like I used to. I need to strive to please him first instead of striving to create an image of a good Christian. I have also learned the amazing patience of God and his loving hand leading me.

How is Carrubbers helping you grow at the moment?

Since having my daughter, the most influential thing in my life has been the women-to-women daytime group. The immense demands of motherhood in the early months really shook my world and left me spiritually very dry. I was not able to benefit from the great teaching on Sundays like I used to. Therefore, I was so thankful for the opportunity to meet other women, pray and study a passage together (they kept my sleep-deprived body awakeJ). I felt really refreshed after each session. Now with Julia being 1, I have the privilege to coordinate and co-lead the group. Preparing for leading is something I very much benefit from and enjoy. The other thing that is great and helps me to grow is the example of people around me – their love and commitment to Christ and his cause.

Vladimira, thank you for helping us get to know you a little bit better. We’d like to pray for you over these coming days. How can we best thank God and pray for you and your family.

Praise God for his amazing provision while relocating to Edinburgh, for the warm welcome we received here and for many answered prayers. For example, Jan's commute time to work each day has been greatly reduced – from 3 hours a day to 1.5 hours a day – by God “giving” Jan a new work colleague who lives just next door and gives him a lift each morning and afternoon. This is an amazing blessing.

I definitely need more wisdom in how much time and attention to dedicate to different responsibilities in my life. Also, pray for us to grow so that we can be a blessing to others. However, my biggest prayer point is for my family and the region that I come from to be saved.

Please feel free to introduce yourself to Vladimira at church or email her