TRANSCRIPT

NATHAN JONES

Heading north from last month, we arrive in Czech Republic to spend time with Adam Walach. Adam shares about his incredible journey to business success which has led to a powerful platform for Kingdom inspired generosity and influence.

My name is Nathan Jones and as your host, I want to thank you for joining me on this episode of the Inspiring Stewards podcast.

Adam, thank you so much for your time today. I've been looking forward to this interview. I've heard so much about you from Gary and just excited to hear how God has been at work in your life. So let's jump into it. Give us a bit of your story, your background, where you're from, kind of life growing up.

ADAM WALACH

It's also an honor to be in this podcast, Nathan. So I live in Czech Republic but actually I am Polish. I live very close to the Polish border. I am married. I have my wife. Her name is Grace. I have three kids. I grew up in a Christian family but very nominal family. However, our broader family, brother and sister of my dad were committed Christians. They evangelized us.

I would like to say I had a wonderful childhood. We are four boys. I have three brothers. We are ordinary family, poor family. We had no TV but we read books. We played musical instruments. We had no Communist connection. And we also sit around the table with my dad and we discuss because they valued education, reading books. And also I would like to say I have a twin brother. Both me and my brother, Valdemar, study theoretical mathematics in Prague. We started our studies in 1983.

NATHAN

That's wonderful. We have four boys in our home right now. So I can imagine what that was like for your parents, so a lot of energy. So Adam, share with us how you came then to a personal faith in Christ.

ADAM

When I mentioned my broader family were committed Christians, I am the youngest. My oldest brother – his name is Yanu – he studied in Poland. There was a movement among young people and he accepted Christ there and he evangelized us. So he tried to lead us to Christ as his younger brothers. And he invited me in me in 1984, me and my brother Valdemar (my twin brother) to the evangelization camp in Poland. It was during Communist time but many famous evangelists even from US at that time came to Poland for this camp, like Josh McDowell and others.

In 1985, I spent there one week and I remember at that time Samuel Kamaleson, evangelist from US, was evangelist. And in the end of this week, I accepted Christ together with my twin brother, Valdemar. But this is a nice part of this story. Unfortunately, I didn't grow in my faith. It was during my study, I didn't find a Christian fellowship. I studied in Prague. I would say I stood on two legs, tried to live a worldly life, and Jesus was calling me all the time.

So right after I graduated, there were so called Velvet Revolution in 1989. It was huge political changes and it was a great time for startup. It was right after my graduation and we decided with my brother Valdemar, who also studied mathematics, to start a company from scratch.

But maybe the last addition to it regarding generosity. At that time, both of us, we drifted a bit from God and we were aware of it. And I told to Valdemar, “Valdemar, the success can even put us farther from God.” I was fear of the success. I took literally parable camel and eye of the needle. So we decided, “Let's give 50% of our profit for the Kingdom causes.” But at that time, we have no money. But we felt that the success can come.

And maybe this story what would happen in ‘90s, it was a great success. Market was empty. It was great timing for startups and we built company. And for the next 15 years there was double digit compounded growth. And we had two big companies: one in beverages and one in pharmaceuticals. But frankly speaking, in ‘90s, I was far from that. I was young, I was rich, and it is not a good combination. Young, rich, alone. So, my life was much more about the parties than about committed Christian living.

But Jesus was calling me all the time. Very softly called me because I lived in quite Christian area. So I saw lives of many Christians and I understood that they have something, they had something I don't have.

And in 1999, I met my wife and started to slowly come home as a prodigal son. In 2006, I made a radical decision, very radical. I again dedicated my life to Jesus. I found church. We had Bible group in my home and we decided to study two years distance Bible school with my wife. And it was great blessing. It's super if you can study Bible school with your wife. We challenge each other, you know.

NATHAN

Yeah.

ADAM

When I finished my Bible study, I start to ask, “How can I serve God as a Christian businessman?” And I Googled Christianity and business and I found the book Halftime and I start to build and to look for my calling. Make it short: I spent eight months for my sabbatical and my calling is to be a Kingdom investor. I mean, givers to the Kingdom of God and mobilize and motivate other Kingdom investors. So it's very briefly my story: accepted Christ, drifted from Christ, coming home, and finding personal calling.

NATHAN

So Adam, the difference between that initial decision and the coming back to Christ, what impacted that new relationship with Christ where it was more than a decision, it was an orientation of your life? What would you say was different that second time around?

ADAM

I have to say it was the radical change. My priorities changed significantly. Really, I try to put Christ on the first place in my life. And I want to bring glory to Christ by whatever I do in my life and to bring fruits as it is in parable of the sower.

But what is quite important, I put first my relation with God. This is absolute priority then my wife, children, before my ministry and business. I really want to finish well. And you can ask me what my faith gives me and it gave me purpose in my life and the hope for the future. I know where I'm heading. It also gave me peace and joy. It doesn't mean that I'm always joyful and all day is full of joy. No, but this is something like inner peace, inner joy.

NATHAN

Yeah. You mentioned the success – what you pursued as success – after your initial decision was replaced by just the pursuit of relationship with Christ and letting that be priority, which is a tremendous difference.

ADAM

And I can add to this. I can add to this and I really want to stress nothing in my life, nothing like wealth, power, prestige, success in business, and so on. And in fact, I experienced a lot of them. I experienced fame and recognition, but nothing gave me such a deep satisfaction and sense of meaningfulness as a close relationship with God. I wouldn't change for anything. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's really… this is my purpose. This is the deep sense of my life and brings me joy.

NATHAN

Adam, that is a wonderful overview of your life. So why don't we jump ahead. Walk us through your journey from that point to today and give us an overview then of what is your work and calling and vocation as the Lord has you in today.

ADAM

So after my rededication to Christ my life, I started finding my calling, as I told you. And it's Kingdom investor and mobilize other Kingdom investors and serve them. But parallel, business was growing very well. After my rededication, we even, with my two brothers, we were named Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of the Year in Czech Republic. And it was a great chance that we can testify our faith here in Czech Republic and our values. We built company, very successful. We are number one in juices in Czech and Slovakia. We had ten branches, 14 branches in pharmaceutical. We were also a pharmaceutical company.

But you know what? It is said that the lack plays significant role in business. I agree, but I'm a believer. I would say God blessings. We are not smarter. We didn't finish Harvard University. We were really blessed significantly by God. And we feel that we were blessed to be blessing for others.

We sold business in 2015. We started investment company. And since 2010, I started to be more intentional about my giving. We had been giving for 20 years from companies, but it was like relational. But my good friend took me on the business trip to US. For seven days, I met different Christian business people and learned from them how to give, how to be a good giver, a good steward.

And it all evolved in decision in ten years of my journey to establish family foundation. So we established family foundation. We transferred one year ago, we transferred there 30% of our wealth as a first step. We would like to transfer another 20% irrevocably. So we have an investment company, we have a family foundation. So we also invest from this family foundation and give away from this foundation.

We are entrepreneurs with my two brothers. We like multiplication and leverage. So we also set, we called it EGCC: European Great Commission Collaboration. It's a collaboration of high capacity giver to re-evangelize Europe. Our vision is to see generosity movement of givers, collaborating to resource the advancement of God's Kingdom in Europe. So we are mobilizing and serving communities of givers, encouraging collaboration in strategic giving. But we also provide tools for founding European Great Commission ministries.

NATHAN

Wow.

ADAM

I try to be intentional giver. And also I like leverage. So I try to build a network of givers and help each other and help each other and collaborate.

NATHAN

That's amazing. What percentage of your time would you say you spend on running business now versus growing the generosity of Europe, whether that's through your own personal giving and considerations there or speaking or discipling others? Would you say it's half and half or still more business focused or…?

ADAM

That's a very good question. I am blessed because I have two brothers and my brother, Valdemar, earn the money and I give away money. So we collaborate. But Nathan, I'm still in business. 25% I'm in business and 75% I am more involved in our foundation and building collaboration of givers for Europe.

NATHAN

That's tremendous.

ADAM

And I would like to also mention that our foundation, 80% of our giving is for Great Commission, for evangelism and discipleship in Europe. Why? Because I believe that Jesus is the only answer and the biggest good came to people's lives when they accept Christ, grow in Him, and be with Him in heaven for eternity. So we are really missional givers, missional investors.

NATHAN

Yeah. Boy, there are so many questions that come to mind around how are you seeing the Kingdom expand in Europe. But we'll have to save some of those for another time. We are getting to a question that will allow you to respond there in a moment. Before we get to that question, this is the Inspiring Stewards podcast, Adam. So how has this concept of “steward” informed your life? I can think of many reasons, but I'd love to hear from your mouth.

ADAM

So I will come back how we started. It was ten years ago. I started asking myself, “Why did God give me this wealth? And is it okay to be rich and how rich? How much is enough? What does God want for me and my giving? We know, I know how to make money, but do we know, do I know how to give money in a wise way?”

And together with my wife, we started I call it generosity journey. We are still on it and discovered our stewardship. So our journey, I would say, was from why to be generous to how and what. I would say we started from simple written two pages giving plan. Ten years ago, we sit down with my wife and together we written a giving plan and it evolved to professional family foundation and to impact measurement and capacity building, from relational giving to strategic giving, from being isolated givers to collaboration and multiplication.

And very briefly, in this initial giving plan, it was based on our foundation rules and foundation definition. We organized it in four sections: Purpose of our giving – we clearly stated – and also why to give, how to give and what to support.

And the why is very important because the why helps us to be faithful. And we put several whys, like we give as a reflex in response to God's grace. We give because God loves us so much and He first gave Jesus. Or we are blessed to be blessings. Giving is in line with my calling. Or joy in giving, giving gives us joy. Foster intimacy with God and protect us against the disease of materialism. And also giving is an eternal investment.

I like this concept because I'm an investor, commercial investor. So we put several why. We read it from time to time with my wife and it keep us faithful. And it follows by the how. How, I mean, geography, sectors of giving because we have a great capacity so we support mostly around 130 ministers. So we put also some principles. Various programs rather than buildings. Giving to indigenous ministries. Efficiency and evaluation. Reporting. Partnership and relationship with grantees, and so on.

And we started and step by step, we built a foundation. Now we have a foundation. As I mentioned, we moved to there, we transferred 30% of our wealth and in the next steps we are going to transfer another 20%. And this is great joy that my two brothers is with me in this.

You know what? We have been together for 30 years and it's not easy. It’s not easy. We argue from time to time but our values we took from our parents or from our faith will not allow us to fall apart. It's really great blessing.

NATHAN

That's amazing. Before I get to the last question, Adam, I want to ask how would you advise somebody who's at that point in the journey where they've been pursuing worldly success and realize that it's not satisfying. So this may be a Christ follower who has not yet aligned that pursuit of success with where it needs to be. What advice or encouragement would you offer that person?

ADAM

I would say something. Three books changed my life: Bible, of course. And the second one is Halftime book. It's the book that helps people who achieved some success in the first half of live to find a purpose for the second half of his life. So I would recommend such a people to spend some time with God. Maybe to go for sabbatical and to look for their purpose to find your significance and your purpose for the second half of your life.

NATHAN

That's great.

ADAM

But it’s a long journey, but for me, the biggest importance is to keep deep relationship with Jesus. It changed everything. And it's must. If you want to be generous, keep strong relationship with Jesus.

NATHAN

That's wonderful. Okay, so we're getting towards the end, and I want to ask you this question. You have a unique perspective, Adam, as somebody who has been successful in business and has a global perspective, as well as a perspective on Europe. How are you seeing God at work in the world around you? Maybe it's locally or maybe it's more on a larger scale.

ADAM

Ah, that's not easy questions, but I will ask you something. Do you know, Nathan, which is the fastest growing religion in the world?

NATHAN

Oh, I wish I knew off the top of my tongue. What was it?

ADAM

The answer is quite strange. It's unbelief and Europe is number one in it. And Christianity in Europe is in the free fall.

So in the EGCC (European Great Commission Collaboration), which is collaboration of givers, higher capacity givers, we believe that God calls us gospel patrons to do something about it. And because of the war in Ukraine, Europe is even more in a need than it was and ready for the harvest. It's gaining momentum. So I'm very much focused on Europe and I believe we are living in the turning point of history now.

And also I believe that God is doing something special and significant these days, not only because of the war in Ukraine, no. And I am persuaded that givers and business people will play a very important role in God’s plans. So this is because I try to encourage and to serve givers and marketplace leaders. And I'm focused on Europe. Even our giving is also for other parts of the world, the Europe we see as a very strategic mission field.

NATHAN

That's tremendous. Adam, thank you so much for your time. As we wrap up, any final thoughts you would share with those listening today?

ADAM

I have already mentioned it. For me, to be faithful till the end and finish well is absolute priority. Know my business, my good projects, and my ministry as much as good and godly they can be. And in the end, I would like to say, like Apostle Paul, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will offer to me on that day. I really want to finish well and be faithful till the end.

NATHAN

Adam, that's tremendous. Thank you so much for your time today.

ADAM

Thank you, Nathan. It was great honor to be with you on this podcast.