For now, please enjoy the testimony below of Jura (pictured on the left), in his own words:
My name is Yura (George) Lazar, I`m 37 and I live in Varazdin, Croatia. I`m married and a father of two boys. I was born and raised as an Roman-Catholic and my family has a long tradition of going to a church. When I was small boy I was serving as an altarboy and my family was proud with me. I have 3 brothers and 2 sisters and this is also a „sign“ of a good catholic family. So my life was pretty „normal“ and i was no more different than majority of my friends. Sometimes we were drinking beers and wines and sometimes we would even smoking marijuana. All this stuff goes with my job – I am a profesional musican, and I play clarinet. I was living a typical, average life here in south-easten Europe. Then in a year 2000, my girlfriend became pregnant and of course we were married in april 2001. Again one thing that is very much common in a country with 89 % of a Roman-Catholics. During the preparations for our wedding we even bought a house in which we are living today. And then 1 week after our wedding ceremony my wife end up in hospital because her pregnancy was in danger. She had twins and that was her first pregnancy.
I was working on our new house and economy was bad at the time so I had to do a lot all by myself. After 3 months in hospital she gave birth to two beautiful and healthy boys. They were small but doctor told me that this is normal for the twins and everything else went just fine. I thought that I am lucky and I was so happy. And 3 days after my sons were born everything had changed. My older son became sick and he died on a fifth day from some infection. From that point my whole life was no more as it was before. From that day I KNEW something is very wrong not only with me but also with the whole world. The only problem was, I didn`t know what. My wife came back from the hospital with our yougest son Lovro and we begin to live as a family. I didn`t blame God for what had happend I was just unhappy and restless and I started to search for the answers. Why am I on this earth? What is the meaning of birth and death of my son? I had some kind of faith in God, but I was not sure in a meaning of all this that happend to me. During this first year I was trying to talk to the priests, friends, relatives, but nobody was "in the mood“ to talk with me about my problem and I didn`t find any answers.
Then one day one of my friends asks me if I would like to learn english for free in one small church in our city. I said yes, because I like to speak english and this, as they called it, LST was a great chance for me to meet people from the USA. After 2 weeks I was confused. My teacher was a young lady from Nashville, and she was so "good“ with the bible that I was very much suprised. I didn`t know how to use a bible and it would take me a lot of time to even find a specific verse. I found out there was some verses that I had never heard before. Then I was again confused with the church. I have never been inside of any "protestant church“ and this one that I have just discovered was harmless and small. After my first LST I came back to the church for another one and then a minister asks me if I would be intresting in ALPHA course. I didn`t know what will we do on this course but after 3 or 4 times I was begining to think about everything and soon I had a few questions that was answered. I became a friend with a minister of a church and I was coming to all the events that church had. Even during the summer I went to a coast for a church camp with my familly. We start to talk more about Jesus, and Bible and salvation and those things really was interesting to me. When we came back home from the coast I went to a bookshop and buy my own bible. Sometimes during my conversion I even quit smoking and this was a sign to me that I was on a right path. So, after 3 and a half years after I came for the first time to a Varazdin Church, and after 4 LST`s, after 3 Alpha courses and after many conversations with our minister, Mladen Dominic, I was baptized in January 2006. In Zagreb church because we didn`t had a baptistry in Varazdin and it was wintertime.
During the time of my conversion we found out that our son Lovro is autistic child. And after I became a christian my wife gave birth to our second child, Jakov. Today I am living a new life, and I can feel I am growing in Christ every day. I am trying to serve to the Church and I have recieved many blessings in last 3 and a half years as a christian. I hope that our heavenly Father will show me what He wants for me and I pray I would be able to serve Him with joy because I KNOW I didn`t deserve this new life through Jesus that he gave it to me. Please pray for my wife so she can also see the beauty of forgivness that we all have in Jesus.
Your brother in Christ from Croatia ...... Yura
My e-mail is
