She is part of a church in another part of the world with a "missing generation" due to the influence of Communism. Her mentors were her peers in the church of Slovakia. Now, Marcela Dusikova, at the age of 22, recently wrapped up her Seminary studies and is poised to decide on whether to become a parish pastor, teach the Christian faith to others, or perhaps use her educational benefit in some other way.

Dusikova spent a semester at the Seminary, studying, working on a thesis entitled "Augustine, Calvin and the Kingdom of God" and thinking about the career she has before her. The church has only known freedom in her land for nine of her 22 years.

"During my early life, the Communists did all they could do to destroy churches," Dusikova says. "Practicing Communists couldn't go to church or they could lose their livelihoods. Teachers couldn't go to church. As a result, an entire generation of believers (middle-aged now) was lost, and young believers evangelize their parents."

During their heyday, the Communists were unable to discourage the older people who were believers. "Older people kept the church alive," Dusikova said. Those believers included an aunt and grandmother who saw that Marcela attended worship, even though Dusikova admits to often having been "bored." Such older believers often worshiped and conducted baptisms in secret. But in her teen years, activities with youthful peers, including Bible studies, kindled an interest in faith in Dusikova. "I had questions," she says, "wondering what I was doing in the world, what to do when I felt upset, and I found that being. A part of the church really helped me." My peers were my mentors."

During the Communist years, preceding 1989, the Lutheran Seminary, located in the center of Bratislava, sometimes would have as few as four or five students in a class. Now the numbers have swelled to 40 or more in a classroom, and the Seminary, which has modest facilities and dormitory rooms one-half hour away, is in the midst of a new building campaign.

"The new Seminary will make a great difference for the students who will be coming along to study," Dusikova says. She notes that many of those candidates will likely be women. "Because of the challenges the church has faced in Slovakia over the years, we are probably behind the church here in many ways," she says. "But we're ahead of the American Lutheran church in at least one way." The church in Slovakia began ordaining women in the early 1950s, 20 years ahead of the practice in the U.S.