Lee Svanda - Slovenia

We are Lee, Tina, Madeline, and Benjamin Svanda from Kansas City. We are missionaries with Avant Ministries to the country of Slovenia. Our home church is Antioch Bible Baptist in Gladstone, MO. We are just an ordinary family that God has called to be full-time missionaries.

Lee accepted Christ as his Savior during a Promise Keepers event in Denver, CO during the summer of 1996. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in Civil Engineering. He recently completed over 11 years working as an engineer in Kansas City, and is now on deputation. He felt a burden for reaching the lost during a 2001 missions conference at Antioch, and surrendered to that burden in December of 2006.

Tina accepted Christ as her Savior in the spring of 2001 at Antioch. She is a graduate of Stephens College in Columbia, MO. She is a former Doc Marten shoe sales rep, and communications director at Antioch. She is now a stay-at-home mom. She surrendered to God’s calling to missions in April of 2007.

Lee and Tina got married in May of 2002, and God has blessed them with 2 wonderful children. Madeline is 5, and Benjamin is almost 4.

During a chance meeting with their future team leader in January of 2008, God began to open the door for them to help grow His kingdom in Slovenia. Lee and Tina discovered that Slovenes have common interests, a key to reaching them. They discovered that the suicide rate in Slovenia is near the highest in the world. There is an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, a lack of meaningful relationships with people, and most importantly a lack of relationships with Christ as roughly 1% of Slovenes are believers in Christ. God gave them a burden for reaching Slovenes and planting an evangelically reproducing church during a spring of 2008 survey trip.

They will be joining a team of 7 other adults and 2 other children, all hoping to reach Slovenia by the fall of this year. Each member of the team will have specific roles in which God has gifted them. Lee and Tina will be key contributors in evangelism and discipleship, as well as involvement with tasks within the team. Our goal will to have a nationally-led church planted in 5 years through God’s power.

Key components to making this happen will be to act concurrently and not simultaneously in our work, to have high trust in God, His Spirit, our teammates, and Slovenes, to be sharing the gospel early and often, to restrict our scope of work and not do what a local believer could do within the church, and finally to be looking for tactical ways to accelerate our efforts. This process is called Short-Cycle Church Planting.

Please pray for the hearts of Slovenes to be softened by the Holy Spirit as we look to share Christ’s love for them beginning this fall.

Please pray for Lee & Tina Svanda who are currently serving as missionaries in Slovenia.