“In Europe’s most atheistic city, the light of Christ still shines,” says MAI President Heather Pubols, upon her return from MediaFest in Prague on May 5-8. “Across the continent, His people continue to faithfully share His truth through the written word online and in print.”
MediaFest is MAI-Europe’s training conference for Christian writers, editors and publishers based in Europe. Seventy-two attendees met high in the hills overlooking the ancient city of Prague, Czechia, to explore the theme Jesus is the Answer: What is the Question? Many attendees were students and interns coming from across Europe, including Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
“It was a joy to see so many young people there. We had a time of great blessing together—of learning, fellowship, and experiences to open our eyes to many different ways of sharing the gospel of Jesus,” says MAI-Europe Board Chair Janet Wilson.
During a panel discussion, representatives from Türkiye, Czechia, and Germany discussed the challenges of being Christians in places where they are minorities. Turkish author and publisher Gökhan Talas reflected on colleagues who were martyred, saying, “The truth is worth the ink, but sometimes the ink is very expensive.” His fellow panelists shared that his experiences resonated with them.
Workshops were run by 11 professional trainers from 10 countries across Europe.
In his conference workshop The Minority Pen, Gökhan emphasized the importance of one’s identity in Christ, and advised Christian communicators, “Don’t always start with doctrine. Start with the pain that the doctrine can answer.”
Other workshops included Crowdwriting Platforms: Collaborative Publishing Without Wasting Paper with journalist Daniel Hofkamp and Time Management, Personal Discipline and Soul Care of a Christian Content Creator with Vlady Raichinov of the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance.
A dedicated prayer space was run by MAI-Europe trustees Bob Clarke and Rodney Shepherd. “We will definitely do this again at future events,” says Janet. “Many attendees come from difficult situations, so the offer of prayer was greatly valued.”
A worship session one morning featured songs from the Taize ecumenical community. “One song from the Taize ecumenical community reminded me that to God what appears as darkness is still filled with His light,” says Heather. A line of the song reads, in English, “Our darkness is never darkness in Your sight: the deepest night is clear as the daylight.”
MAI-Europa started in 1990 to support the growing work of Media Associates International, holding training events to equip Christians who work in a range of media creating and publishing life-changing content that brings about spiritual, cultural and social renewal in communities across Europe.