Jiří Přibyl

"I went in there, threw my bag on the bed, and everything came out - and the New Testament came out. The sergeant-major was there, a soldier by profession, and he immediately jumped on it: 'What have you got?' I said, 'A book, the New Testament.' 'Are you crazy?' I said, 'Why?' Two days later, the chief of the military printing house, where I was to join, as I had a graphic school and was from the printing house in Brod, came and took me off. And he said that he would probably have to say goodbye to me because they printed top secret military stuff there and that I wouldn't be able to go there because I was a believer. I said I was interested, but whether I was a believer I couldn't say exactly. 'Then promise me on your knees here that you're not a believer!' - 'I don't know whether I'm a believer or not. I'm definitely interested in it, I like it, I like it...' - 'Okay, I'll try it with you.' Then I met a soldier from Slovakia - a Seventh-day Adventist. He told me that on Sundays, when he has his walks, he goes to a lady. 'We talk, she makes us lunch. So I started going to the apartment of Rozárka Tichá, a lady of seventy at that time, where we had a nice conversation not only about faith, but also about the world and so on... After three quarters of a year, when the chief was using me as much as he could: he kept sending me to the printing house in Brod to bring something, after three quarters of a year he came: 'So I'm finished with you! The black clouds have fallen over you. The counter-intelligence was watching you, you were associating with those people here in Sušice - and you can't go to the printing house anymore!'"