12 Dollars of Christmas: Jane and Martin Hasik
This post is part of the 12 Dollars of Christmas series I’m doing, sharing with you about different charities and people who are making a difference for God’s kingdom and asking you to join me in praying for them and in giving $1 dollar (or more) to each of them.
Jane and Martin (and their beautiful new baby girl, Sofia) are a couple that I truly admire. Jane is becoming one of my closest friends here in Prague and I love her creativity and gentle heart. I don’t know Martin quite as well, but whenever we have hung out with him I always feel very impressed with his insight and his heart for God and the students he ministers to.
Jane and Martin work with Young Life International. Martin leads up the team here and has a wonderful passion for drawing students to Christ in a lasting and authentic manner. I thought it would be fun to do another interview so I had Jane answer a few questions for me:
ME: Ok, to start would you tell us a little bit about yourselves, where are you from and how did you met?
JANE: Martin and I met during a Young Life Internship training time in Germany in 2003. I was doing a two-year internship in Lisbon, Portugal and Martin was working with Young Life here in Prague. All of the interns across Europe came together every 6 weeks or so for training, spiritual development and fellowship. As I learned more about Martin and heard more of his story, his faith and his desire for students to know Jesus...I was more and more attracted to and fell in love with this interesting Czech man!
We started to date long-distance, got engaged in 2004 and married in 2005
ME: For a fun question what is each of your favorite movie and why?
JANE: Some of my favorite movies include Love Actually, Royal Tenenbaums, Ocean's Eleven,...Raising Helen...
And for Martin, he really enjoys seeing movies which are based on a true story, like Band of Brothers or the Miracle.
ME: How did you each come to follow Christ?
JANE: When I was 14, these really cool college-aged Young Life leaders started showing up in my life. My brother had started being interested in Christ and became good friends with these leaders. They cam over for dinner, and we started being friends. I was so curious how/why they had so much joy and how following Christ influenced their lives. I went to a Young LIfe camp in upper-state New York, where the Gospel of Jesus Christ was presented in a way that I could relate to and understand and accept. Since then, I have continued to ask questions and be intrigued with the person of Jesus Christ.
Martin has a completely different kind of story...and I would feel like I am cheating you if I tell it!
ME: What is something that God seems to be teaching or showing you or drawing out in you lately?
JANE: God has been carefully taking me into a whole bunch of new things....a season of newness. New role as a mother, a new year, new projects, new areas of ministry....I am learning to embrace change around me and inside of me. After some REALLY big transitions in my life a few years ago, I have been putting a lot of energy in making things more secure/permanent/unchanging. Now God is helping me loosen my grip on many of these things. It is a freeing and a scary feeling. But God's style and design is so beautiful and it so fun to seen what happens when I let go.
I am learning that I, myself, am a work in progress that He is carrying out until completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phillipians 1)
ME: Describe Prague and your impressions of the Czech Republic in a few sentences.
JANE: Prague, aside from being a stunningly beautiful historical metropolitan city, has a very personal feel to me. I am connected to a family here. My husband, Martin, and his family have lived in Prague their whole lives, so the more time I spend here and the more I get to know Prague, the more I am getting to know these people whom I love very much.
This country is beautiful in the lines that aren't straight and the things that are out of place. There is a sense of playfulness and creativity..in the playground designs, mosaics on plain cement buildings, moving sculptures in the river, which change the mood of even the dreariest neighborhoods.
ME: Tell us a little bit about the work that you do with Young Life.
JANE: Very basically, we believe that students are worth getting to know and it is through authentic relationships that the message of Christ makes sense. We desire to build life-long relationships with them, love them and communicate Jesus in a way that is relevant to them...and be a part of their lives regardless of what they believe.
We do this by sharing meals together, going camping, having regular activities, teaching them skills (photography, languages, sports), going into their world (graduation dances, birthday parties).
So, I hope you enjoyed getting to know Jane and Martin. They are truly a wonderful couple.
And as part of my $12 dollars of Christmas series I encourage you to join me in praying for the Hasik family and I also encourage you to join me in sending $1 (or more) to them to help support them and further the work God is doing through them. To do that please go to the Young Life web site https://giving.younglife.org/starthere.aspx and click on one time gift, then designate the gift to go to “A Young Life Staff Member’s Ministry” and search for Jane Hasik.
Lord, thank you for the Hasik’s and the work that they do in Prague. Thank you for the ways that you’ve touched and changed students lives through them and continue to do so. Lord, I pray for them as they continue to enter a new season of life as a family with a new baby and a new season in ministry as well – I pray that you would use the changes in their life to bring them closer to you and closer to each other. I pray that you would bless them and continue to show your love, grace and forgiveness to many through them.
Rejoicing in the journey - Bethany Stedman