by Lindsey Wible

Mihal Kreko’s deep brown eyes communicated life experience that his lips had not yet revealed. There was an
air of wisdom about the Croatian pastor and Bethel Seminary student, to which the silver flecks on his head of dark brown only hinted. As he spoke, his words confirmed the wisdom and knowledge that his appearance suggested. When asked about his life goal, he paraphrased something he once heard from Erwin McManus, distinguished Bethel professor and futurist: “I want to live by faith, be known by love, and be a voice of hope wherever I go.”
“McManus said it so well,” Mihal explained. “That is exactly how my heart beats.”

To live by faith

Mihal’s faith journey began in 1975 when a Christian acquaintance invited him to visit a weekly prayer group. Having subsisted in Austria four months without a job, Mihal decided he had nothing better to do than accept the invitation. When the group asked him how they could pray for him, he mentioned his need for work. One week later, while waiting in line among a dozen other people to apply for an opening, the employer pointed to Mihal, asked him if he wanted a job, and hired him on the spot. “From that moment on,” Mihal said, “I have believed that prayer works and God is real.”

Mihal continued to attend the prayer meetings, and gradually involved himself with the group’s church. He grew especially close to a man who emerged as an example of how Mihal wanted to lead his own family someday. Noticing how appealingly different this friend was from the average person, Mihal finally asked him how he might emulate that difference. “It begins with prayer,” the man told him. So one night, standing before the open window of his Vienna apartment, Mihal prayed. “God, if You are there let me know You,” he said. “Take my life and transform it according to Your will. Show what You can do with me, a lost, guilty, wandering creature.” Mihal points to that night as a milestone in the development of his deepening faith. “That was a real breakthrough for me,” he said, “when I became aware that I could talk to God.”

Since then, Mihal has taken risks that have put his faith to the test. In 1996, for example, he planted a church in the western part of Zagreb. His fledgling congregation would need a place to meet, but there was no money for a building. Mihal did have $10, however, which he placed as a down payment on a $120,000 pizzeria where the church could gather. He then proceeded to raise the rest of the money in a mere eight months.

“We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Thessalonians 1:3

But Mihal took an even bigger risk when he decided to move his family to the United States in pursuit of a seminary education at Bethel. “There would be many difficult adjustments,” he said, “but I had to trust that God would provide and take care of them.” The result? Mihal is nearing the completion of his master of arts in theological studies at Bethel. And he fully expects to put his Bethel-supervised research on church planting models to practical use when he returns with his family to Croatia next August. “I go to bed and wake up with dreams for our country every night,” he said, “dreams of transformed relationships in our society, of the hope our people can have in Christ. A thousand pictures parade through my head.”

To be known by love

Mihal’s capacity to love is especially evident through his selfless deeds toward complete strangers, his ability to forgive his father, and his dedication to the welfare of his family.

When Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian war refugees fled to the vicinity near his home just over a decade ago, Mihal and his wife Lydia rallied their church family to provide food and clothing to the displaced wanderers. Over a period of five to six years, the church distributed truckload after truckload of supplies from the United States, England, Spain, and other European nations to more than 1,200 families. Some of the refugees were from enemy territory, but Mihal and company extended their hearts to them nonetheless.

An even bigger stretch for Mihal, however, was to extend forgiveness to Pavel, his father, following a lifetime of wrongdoing. For years Mihal poured out his bitterness to anyone who would listen, detailing the abuses to which Pavel had subjected his family. But then Mihal had two dreams. In the first dream, Pavel roamed the streets as a homeless, alcoholic beggar. Someone asked him how he had fallen so far from the respected military officer he once had been. “I am in despair that one of my sons will never forgive me,” he answered. In the second dream, Pavel languished on his deathbed declaring, “I will not die in peace until I know I have Mihal’s forgiveness.”

“It would seem that Mihal Kreko already has achieved his life goal. He does live by faith. He is known by love. He continues to be a voice of hope wherever he goes.”

Mihal waited no longer to journey home to grant his father that forgiveness. While Pavel received his son’s heartfelt words with joy, Mihal laments that his father has yet to accept responsibility for his actions. Released from his bitterness, however, Mihal has never since felt compelled to expound his father’s sins. “It is not finished,” Mihal added. “From America I call my father every month, and at the end he always cries. The tears are a mystery to me, but they speak about something; perhaps he is haunted by his memories. I have great compassion for him. Today he says I am his ‘best son.’ There is a relationship, and I do not give up hope that my father will one day experience complete healing.”

In Mihal’s own home, the cycle of dysfunction is broken. His 17-year-old daughter Tabita speaks of the deep love her father demonstrates to his family. He prays faithfully for each of his five children, and he is sincerely interested in the details of their lives. “He may have a huge seminary paper due the next day,” she testified, “but he’ll drop everything to spend two hours helping us with our homework.”

To be a voice of hope

Mihal learned early in life what it means to hope and dream. His father had been an officer in Tito’s army during World War II, and saw little distinction between commanding the troops and heading a household. As a teenager, Mihal wanted to be a dentist, but Pavel forced him to become a builder. Swayed by a communistic worldview, Pavel saw life as a giant wheel trying to run over people—and if one wasn’t careful, the wheel would win. Mihal disagreed with his father’s ways of thinking, constantly arguing with him and questioning what Pavel considered to be nonnegotiable rules. Mihal hoped for a different, better life, so at 17 years of age he struck out on his own.

Mihal also entered marriage full of hope. He met 16-year-old Lydia at a friend’s wedding in 1980. Her father was a pastor, and didn’t want her to date. Therefore, the young couple hardly knew each other when they married in 1981. Nonetheless, they decided from the beginning that the word “divorce” would never be in their vocabulary. “Today, our marriage is as strong as ever,” Mihal said, “and we intend for it to stay that way the rest of our lives.”

Mihal’s penchant for hope pushes beyond career and family, however. In 1991, the year Croatia was attacked and drawn into war, he founded a private publishing company. His purpose was to publish works that would encourage people during hard times. To this day, thousands of Croatian readers continue to receive wisdom and instruction from Mihal’s books Super Dad—You Can Be the Father Your Family Needs; The Power of Ethical Management; and his co-written From Debts to a Peaceful Night. Mihal also reprinted an essay by C. S. Lewis called “Learning in War-Time,” circulating it among college and university students in an effort to encourage them in their educational pursuits, even through such dark and dangerous times.

Heart & Mind readers will remember Mihal’s “Speaking Up for America” (see the Winter 2001-2002 issue, page 14) written in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. His compassionate sympathy and passionate call to Christlikeness rang with the authority of his own experience in wartime Croatia, finding hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.

It would seem that Mihal Kreko already has achieved his life goal. He does live by faith. He is known by love. He continues to be a voice of hope wherever he goes. And he is determined to live out his goal all the way back to Croatia. “Our friends and relatives did not believe we would ever come back,” Mihal mused. “After all, America is the ‘Promised Land’! But we have no desire to immigrate. We are returning home with great hope, vision, and energy to take our local churches to a place they have never imagined.”

Lindsey Wible is a junior at Burnsville High School, Burnsville, Minn., who plans to attend Bethel College.