Progress Report – 2025 – October

Sola Gratia is one of the mottos of the Reformation that began on October 31, 1517. With this key principle, Martin Luther emphasized that our salvation is entirely the result of God’s grace — we cannot earn it through our own efforts or good works. Grace alone also defines God’s actions toward this world, as demonstrated in the story of His Son, Jesus Christ. Everything we have — our talents and resources — is a gift from God. Moreover, God gave us His Son to redeem our wrongdoings and failures. All of this out of sheer grace! How could we not praise such a great God?

This October, we had an exceptional and tangible reason to do so. Three of our high school students — Kamila Záborská, Lucia Valocká, and Viktória Veterníková — were confirmed during the Sunday worship service on October 12, 2025. Having no Christian support in their families, they came to faith through the ministry of CCE. This extraordinary moment was further highlighted by the baptism and confirmation of Jarmila Čopáková, the mother of a former CCE student. Her faith journey began this summer when she attended the English Conversation Course led by the New Heights Church mission team. This church from Vancouver, WA, has been faithfully sending mission teams to us for many years to teach English and share their faith. After learning the basics of Christian teaching with Pastor Natália Kacianová, Jarmila was baptized and confirmed in her faith.

On October 4, around 100 teachers and parents gathered and spent the entire Saturday cleaning, sweeping, planting trees and flowers, painting fences, and doing other necessary work to make our campus a more beautiful place. We are grateful that after the Covid pandemic, we resumed this yearly tradition.

In cooperation with the Lutheran Church in Martin, CCE installed a special exhibition about the Holocaust in Slovakia during World War II. This exhibition and project were initiated by students from the Lutheran school in the city of Prešov and tell the stories of Jewish students from that school who were deported to Nazi concentration camps. This “Empty Chair” project is not only about Holocaust education. It also highlights how quickly hatred and greed can turn into institutionalized destruction of certain groups of people. Seeing the state of the world today, this lesson is more urgent than ever.

In October, the CCE staff spent three days in the High Tatras Mountains for a team-building retreat. Thanks to the support of the Global Mission Committee at First Lutheran Church in Fargo, ND, we had the opportunity to deepen our understanding of our vision and mission, pray together, relax, and test our strength and limitations on several hikes. We had a wonderful time and returned refreshed for our ministry. We realized again how blessed we are to have great colleagues, partners, and — most importantly — a great God.

We live by grace alone! This foundational Reformation belief calls us to show grace to our children, to our neighbors near and far, to the nature around us, and to everything we touch and think about. What a privilege it is to by the children of a gracious God!

in His service,