Petr

Petr was my friend, and Petr is dead. These are two inexorably true facts. I received the news when we landed in Chicago, and my phone populated with twelve hours of backlogged messages. The brief notification from Jitka, his beloved wife, was surprising but not unexpected. I thought there was a little more time. 

On the afternoon of June 21st, we’re driving the kids around the old haunts and hallows of Ceske Budejovice, our Czech “hometown” where we spent ten years of our life and ministry. We drive them by our old houses to see them anew with “grown up” eyes.  We walk in the forests where they spent childhood Summers making forts, picking blueberries, and escaping heat under the shaded refuge of moss-embellished beech, birch, and spruce trees. 

We stroll through the neighborhood and catch up with former neighbors who comment on how the kids have grown, and how mostly everything else has remained the same. The tour takes us to our first home. It’s this home that bore witness to those fledgling adaptive years, the ones spent in wonder and blunder, struggling through learning to speak, to belong, to live. Countless hours we toiled in that odd little room, the hair studio converted into home office, learning under the tutelage of Czech language teachers in some neophyte emotional milieu of eagerness and despair. It was sink or swim in Southern Bohemia in those transition years. The younger generations were just having English language integrated into their school curriculums and the older generations spoke Russian or German as a second language. On the rare occasion one might encounter an English-speaker, an immediate affinity developed. I remember meeting one such young man in a government office. I was so pleased to have met someone who spoke competent English that I took down his contact information for a potential future meet up. Nowadays every young man speaks English.

It was nothing less than a divine providence that Petr Kopnicky, an air traffic controller and former U.N. Peacekeeper was our next door neighbor. Air traffic controllers must speak English as part of their job, as English is the official language of aviation across the globe. We engaged in several friendly conversations over the short fence between our yards before it turned into frequent coffee and kolache-fueled fellowship in Petr’s living room. 

Petr would be not only a friend, but a doorway to understanding Czech culture and mindset. On the topic of God, Petr would say things like, “I believe in real things, like this wall. If God shows himself to me then sure, I will believe in him.” 

He helped me understand how differently the Czech mind worked in regard to politics, 

“I will always vote for the person who has been a politician the longest,” he once informed me. 

“Why?” I respond naively, “Don’t you want someone who will bring some changes?” 

“Yes, of course, and that is why the person who is a politician the longest is the best choice. New politicians are only interested in getting rich, so they will be corrupt and take bribes and make deals for themselves for many years. Old politicians are already rich and have gotten everything they want, so they are more likely to do something in the interest of the people then.” 

It was these kinds of perspectives that helped me understand that even though we looked the same and either one of us may pass for native in each other’s home countries, the Czech mind was not the same as my mind, and I must learn it. 

Like a faithful watchdog, Petr would inform me of everything we did that was strange,

“Steve, your porch light was on all night.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Why do you leave it on? Are you scared of the night?”

“No. I guess we just do that in America. It’s our custom.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I guess because…it’s friendly.”

“Why is it friendly to waste money? You must pay for that electricity. We don’t do that here.”

On the topic of electricity:

“Steve, did you look at your electricity bill? They came yesterday.”

“Yes, I paid it.”

“You paid it? But didn’t you check it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t compare the bill to your electricity meter? They lie on the bill and you must catch them.”

“They lie on the bill?”

“Yes, all the time!” He shouts exasperated at my ignorance.

He teaches me how to read my electricity meter and compare it to the calculations on my bill. It checks out this time, but Petr is not wrong. In the future I will catch the electricity company making false claims about my meter and fraudulently overcharging me. Of course, there is no recourse for when this occurs, only that you know it is happening, and perhaps by making a scene at the energy department headquarters they won’t do it to you again. You will still have to pay the fraudulent charges.

Petr will be my companion, my confidence, and my advocate at the government offices, at the utility companies, when signing new contracts, when getting auto repairs, of which there will be many…so many. When we need some household help so that Cari can attend language lessons without babies on her hips, Petr and Jitka will phone a friend and connect us with Anna, a kindly surrogate grandmother who will adore our children as if they were her own. She will launch into lengthy reflections on life and family that we had no way of comprehending at the time, and how I wish I could hear them again so that I might have gleaned some of those encouraging words. 

Petr would always refer to his wife Jitka as “My Jitka,” an endearing phrase that always juts out of his conversation because he is otherwise a ruthlessly pragmatic and stubborn man with nary a romantic bone in his body. Jitka, a local kindergarten director, will advocate for our family across our various moves and even when we’ve long since ceased being neighbors. The government demands our children be enrolled in school, while denying them admittance to any of our neighborhood schools. Jitka makes some phone calls. Our children are enrolled.

On one occasion Jitka saves Gavin’s life. He isn’t walking yet, and has just begun to crawl a bit. He’s a late bloomer in this regard, but he’s just such a contented baby it doesn’t appear he feels the need to go anywhere. He will sit and play with a toy in his lap and observe his older siblings for hours with a wide smile and twinkling eyes. We hear shrieks of terror from the backyard, “Steve! Cari! Help!” I run outside to see Jitka at the fence gesturing frantically to the middle of our yard. Gavin has crawled out the back door and somehow climbed up the laddered steps onto the platform of the kids’ play structure six feet above the ground . It has no railings and he’s teetering on the edge about to plunge headfirst to the ground. He’s plucked from danger and we’re spared a trip to the hospital or worse. 

I’ve texted Petr with no reply. I try Jitka, but haven’t heard anything from her either. We pull the van up in front of our old house. Everything is the same. I see the car in Petr’s driveway, so I ring the bell, an intercom buzzer built into the stone wall at the gate. No response. Perhaps it isn’t working. I push it again several times. A minute ticks by and I acquiesce to the disappointment of not seeing Petr and Jitka despite traveling across the world. I wonder if they will text me back later and I begin calculating exactly what day and time we might manage a visit, but the options aren’t great. As I’m walking back toward the van with our kids meandering around looking at the old neighborhood, I hear Petr’s door crack open, 

“Hello,” calls a quiet questioning voice. 

I call out, “Hi Petr! It’s me Steve!”

“Steve?” Petr repeats, more a question than acknowledgement.

He pushes that button that causes the little motor to draw the gate open. I step toward the door and see not Petr as I knew him, but a gaunt and bony figure with Petr’s familiar face. He is not yet sixty, but he appears as a man into his eighties, like some time travel experiment gone awry has fast-forwarded his years. I arrive at the door to find him leaning against the wall and winded. He motions me to come in.

“Help me. I can’t get back,” He says in a rasping and labored voice.

I wrap his emaciated arm around my shoulder and help him back to the living room where I find his recliner set in front of a wall-mounted TV next to the kitchen table. I help him into it and pull a kitchen chair beside him. Jitka at this moment comes dashing in through the back door wrapped in a towel after an afternoon swim. Her eyes widen with surprise at two strange phenomena.

1. I am sitting in her living room, to which she extends her warm and welcoming smile.

2. Petr has gotten up to answer the door, to which she expresses some combination of shock and concern.

I indicate that everything is OK and we exchange greetings. She retreats to fix herself for company, while Petr breathlessly explains to me that he is in the advanced stages of ALS. The doctors tell him he won’t last until October. Jitka spots the van out front and motions Cari and the kids to come inside. Cari and Elisha oblige. We catch up on all of the pleasantries and some unpleasantries. Petr doesn’t have long left to live. He has trouble breathing. He has no desire for food or drink. All he can do is sit or lay in bed and watch television. He can no longer use his mobile phone or even the remote control for the TV as his hands lie in curled vestiges on his lap, all but useless. 

I realize that in over fifteen years of praying for Petr, I’ve never sensed a crack in his atheist facade. But he is different now. He is worn down, humbled in the way that only such a cruel disease can do to a proud and strong man. I broach the subject of spiritual things. He informs me that he has been meditating upon the teachings of a German mystic from the last century named Bruno Gröning. Gröning  promised that those who meditated on him, even after his death, would receive his “healing rays” and their bodies brought into balance and health. Petr seems unnaturally optimistic that his condition may be reversed if he meditates on Gröning long enough and in the right way. I’m pierced with disappointment at his deception. I express skepticism and suggest he might pray to God instead, but Petr doesn’t appear favorable to the idea. 

As our time together draws to its conclusion I ask Petr if I can pray for him. He agrees, and it’s the first time he ever has. I place my hand on a bony shoulder and we huddle around the reclining chair. I ask God to draw near to him, to comfort him, and strengthen him for the trial before him. He thanks me. We exchange goodbyes.

As the rest of the Summer passes, I think of Petr daily. I pray for him. I plead with God for his soul. I have always had spiritual concern for Petr. I dreamed many times of the tremendous victory it might be if he were won to Christ. I fantasized about the great things such a strong and determined man could accomplish for the kingdom, not unlike his name’s sake. The visceral reality that he will die soon is now pressing on my heart with renewed urgency. I fear he may not even last the Summer, while my commitments and attentions are necessarily focused elsewhere. I know I must get to Petr and try one last time to share the gospel with him before it is too late.

It’s Monday, July 29th. We’re flying home early Wednesday morning. I’ve got a rental car and I’ve made arrangements with Jitka to visit Petr, knowing that it is only possible if she is home and has time to facilitate our meeting. The highway from Prague to Ceske Budejovice is a peaceful two-hour drive through idyllic bohemian forest and countryside, but my attentions to the beauty are disharmonized, as I play the coming conversation a hundred times in my mind. The verses I will share with Petr, his anticipated objections, the very real possibility that he won’t agree to let me share with him at all. I don’t expect that he will receive or believe the gospel, but I must try. If my friend will face damnation, it will not be because I was shy about telling him the truth. I suppose having low expectations allows us to more fully trust Christ at certain times. I’m able to put it in God’s hands, resolved to do my part, and trust the Holy Spirit to do His. I feel like I’ve fought a losing battle with Petr for fifteen years, and ahead of me lies the final stand. Practiced parries or thrusts are unlikely to compare with the reality of battle looming before me.

Jitka welcomes me in. Petr is sitting in his reclining chair in his place, watching the Olympics. A Czech is competing in the kayak competition, but his time is sufficiently unsatisfactory as to untether their attention. Petr can hardly speak now. What was a raspy and efforted cadence, has faded almost entirely to a slurred whisper. Petr indicates that he can’t speak much in English anymore, and every word makes him lose his breath. He tells me he can no longer stand, he can no longer use the restroom, and everything is much worse. He is difficult to understand, and Jitka must clarify his words for me. Thus, our final conversation will be entirely in Czech, one additional hurdle to navigate. But I am glad, because it means Jitka, who speaks no English, can engage with what we are saying. He is dependent on Jitka to sit at his side and put a straw to his mouth to drink. All of his nutrition comes through drink now, an aluminum straw in a plastic cup with some Czech variety of an Ensure shake. Occasionally, he was eating porridge, the only solid that didn’t make him gag or get stuck in his throat, but apparently that is now a past tense activity. 

Whatever reservations or fears I had about coming have disappeared. I’m so glad that I have come. These moments strike me as sacred, like the final steps of a pilgrim's long journey. There are no more hesitations about saying the things that should be said. I thank Petr for his friendship, for what he has meant to our family, the depth of my affections for him. Jitka interjects some memories I had all but forgotten. We smile. We give knowing looks. This ritual of last goodbyes seems to come naturally, but there doesn’t seem to be a natural entry point into the presentation of the gospel I envisioned a hundred times on my commute. It will have to be more overt than I had planned. 

“Petr, I respect you very much, and I wouldn’t want you to feel that I’m trying to press my beliefs upon you, but I would like to share some verses from the Bible with you. Would that be OK with you?”

Petr gives a slight nod of approval or resignation. I share with him from Genesis 2, explaining our state of spiritual death and how all of us are sinners from Romans 3:23. I read to him about Nicodemus and the need to be born again. I explain to him that when he dies he will stand before God according to his own works, or according to Jesus’ works, that to call to Jesus for salvation makes a person hidden in Christ(Col 3:3) and safe from God’s judgement. I read John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.” I tell him that he can call out to God at any time and God will hear him, and those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved(Rom 10:13). I see Jitka give some nods, and as I finish Petr acknowledges me with his eyes and tells me he is tired. I want to believe he felt something, some conviction, some stirring of his spirit toward God, but I do not know. He tells me that the mystic Gröning said some similar things, and that we must repent from sins, and he has done this. I think it is good, even if it came from a false teacher, but how thorough or developed his understanding is I cannot ascertain. I want to try to say more, but I can see that he is done. His patience for this topic of conversation has passed and his words have become fewer and fewer to match his fatigue. We make a few more comments about the Olympic kayakers. Jitka makes sure I have a plate of kolaches to take back to the kids. I finish the cold dregs of the instant coffee, as is expected in Czech households, another cultural lesson learned from my evening coffee visits with Petr. It’s time to go. I ask Petr if I can pray for him one last time and he agrees. After the prayer I take a selfie with him. He’s embarrassed, knowing his frail frame and condition are hardly flattering. I state my case that I have no pictures with him, and this is my last chance for one. I want to remember him. Jitka makes a joke that despite his body being worthless, his face is still quite handsome. I agree. He yields to my petition. 

I collect the kolaches and allow Jitka to escort me to the door. I turn and give Petr a smile and my last farewell greeting, “Ahoj Pet’o!” 

Petr dies Tuesday night, just a day after my visit. I am informed by a Facebook message sent to me by Jitka. She thanks me for being with him at the end. I thank her for sharing those final hours with me. I knew it would be soon, but I didn’t know it would be that soon. 

Petr was my friend, and Petr is dead. I fear he may be dead in the worst kind of way, the twice dead variety. Yet, I allow a glimmer of hope. I entertain the notion that he could have repented, he could have called out. He could, like the thief on the cross, have allowed his pride to melt in those final moments and made his peace with God. I daydream of a reunion at the gates of the Kingdom. I know it’s unlikely, but I hope. 

I am so deeply thankful for this last opportunity to have seen and visited Petr. I am thankful for those of you who prayed and gave to make our Summer of ministry in Czech Republic possible. I don’t know that there’s a dollar amount one can assign to a gospel presentation that was likely unfruitful. But for me, and perhaps Petr, it was priceless.