My story

I know what cancer is. My father died of cancer and my grandfather too. So I know what malign tumour means. I was sure I was going to die.

My name is Robo Slamka. I am 52 years old and I am a lawyer. I have a beautiful beloved wife, Helena, and 5 beautiful children, Róbert, Jakub, Andrej, Annamária-Rút, and Lukáš.

With this testimony I would like to tell all of you that through the power of God it is possible to defeat everything, incl. cancer!

In 2010, after a longer period of physical problems and disturbs I underwent a "colonoscopy". The doctor hadn’t finished the test yet and he told me: “Robo, it doesn’t look good.” He found a tumour the size of an orange, right in my bowels! That night I started my preparation to death – or, better to say, to the passage to new life and to the encounter with my God!

I know what cancer is. My father died of cancer and my grandfather too. So I know what malign tumour means. I was sure I was going to die.

You cannot even imagine how I felt when I heard that news. I was unbelievably sad. And I felt even sadder when I saw desperateness in the eyes of my beloved wife, Helena.

After having apprehended the news about my physical status, Helena exploited her last mental forces and called one of our sisters in Christ and asked her to pray for me, because I had cancer. I do remember it very well. It was a Friday. Our house was full of tears when friends from our fellowship came to see us early in the evening (five families with whom we meet every week for prayer). God sent also a priest together with them, father Peter Jakub from Sigord.

God is good. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28)! Those beloved people prayed for me and for us all. They called for Divine Mercy and Love to get deep into my problem. I must confess that during their prayer I was kind of “switched off”. Before my eyes I only saw death and I didn’t really concentrate on my God and on His almightiness. God reacted very soon to the call of my brothers and sisters. Late in the evening I went to bed. Note: I said “I went to bed”, not “I went to sleep”. Indeed, in those conditions it is not possible to fall asleep. I started my dialogue with God in a natural way, without too many formal prayer acts.

I thought I was going to have a monologue. I spoke out everything I had inside me. I told Him about my beautiful life, about my love for my wife Helena, for my children, and I also told Him that I didn’t really want to die right in this time.

As I was speaking, I heard a physical voice of a young man: “Don’t be afraid, you will live."

In that very moment, I was so concentrated that I didn’t even realize I was talking with my God. I objected. How can I live, when so many people around me are dying of cancer? Of course, this is not true, because in more and more cases cancer is no longer a lethal disease. By the way, this was my thought back then. But God was talking to me. I do believe it was God. He told me: “Don’t be afraid, you will live." He repeated that time and again.

Here, I would like to say one thing. Maybe, some of you can think that I felt very bad psychologically and that that voice was the fruit of my imagination. In other words, I got crazy.

I can assure you. I was completely conscious. What I heard was no fantasy at all. It wasn’t any positive energy or other things relating to such theories. I was sure I was going to die, but God told me: “Don’t be afraid, you will live."

Read more and you will see that it was God!

I went through the whole Calvary. God warned me about it through the Spirit, by means of prayer and His Word. During my therapy, some doctors said I had just two more months to live. When they said that, they still didn’t know about what they would find when they open my abdomen. Ok, let’s follow the chronological order. The doctors ordered me to undergo radiotherapy in Bratislava. At the beginning of radiotherapy cycles, the night before, I prayed and God spoke to me through His Word:

This is what the Lord says: “The people who survive the sword will find favour in the wilderness; I will come to give rest to Israel.” The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit. (Jeremiah, 31, 2-5)

Through this word, I was sure God was concretely speaking about my case. He was telling me that He loves me and He promised me that I would keep playing timbrels (for those who don’t know me: I play percussion instruments). Through this word, I felt a clear promise of life, of continuous happiness. I can plant; I can work and I can enjoy the fruit of my work!

God also saw that I was not completely confident. So He sent a man from Ireland who has the gift of prophecy and who, at that time, was visiting Bratislava. We met in the house of our dear common friend and brother in Christ, Branislav Letko. We just went to see him and his family together with my wife, after my radiotherapy session. God’s Providence sent us there “by chance”. This man, Brendan, and his wife, Angela Mc Cauley, prayed for me.

When they started to pray for me, at the very beginning Brendan stopped and said: “God already spoke to you”. And I replied: “Yes, He did. He told me not to be afraid, because I will stay alive”. Thus, Brendan and the other people present prayed for me and for my wife Helena. Among the rest, in his prayer, Brendan also said: “Don’t be afraid. You will live. Regardless of your decision, God tells you that you will live! This fight is not your fight. It is the fight of those who like you and of those you served until now."

He also told me that, once I will have definitively won my battle against this disease, I will pray for other people and many of them will be healed! My wounded spirit and body were not able to face the aggressive attacks of cancer. My wife and my friends sent messages to other friends throughout the whole country. Many people forwarded these messages to their friends and so on… So thousands and thousands of people were praying for me (many of them unknown people for me). I thank God for the Church, full of loving and good people ready to sacrifice. They called and pray our God and He listened to their call!

At the end of the radiotherapy sessions, the doctors sent me home and defined the next date of surgical operation. Eventually, that date was postponed of one month, because I caught flu.

Exactly in the same hours when I underwent the surgical operation, a holy mass was being celebrated for me. The priest who celebrated that mass was Jozef Maretta, in our Church school in Dolný Kubín. All my fellowship attended that mass. Many other friends, brothers and sisters in Christ were also participating! It was good, because it was not just a bodily fight, but the battle was fought even in the spiritual spheres!

They brought me to the operating room. They administered me anaesthesia and they opened my abdomen. They wanted to remove my intestine tumour, but they found another tumour in the rectum and several ganglion metastases, quite close to the bones. Later on, a friend of mine revealed me that, after having discovered my real status, the first intention of the doctors was sending me home. Nevertheless, they eventually decided to operate. So they removed part of the bowels, rectum, ganglions, and they cleaned my intestine and bones. Then, let’s wait and see...

After that operation I got a streptococcal infection right in the operating room. Pain was added to pain! After ten days of suffering, they finally sent me home. One of the doctors told that same friend of mine: "He just has two more weeks to live."

My status was miserable. Back home, I suffered from severe haemorrhages. It didn’t look like God’s sentence (“You will live&rdquo was going to be a true sentence! Let’s come out of this suffering. Just let me remind one more thing. After my body got recovered from inflammation and other operation consequences, the doctors sent me to chemotherapy sessions. At the beginning, nothing was happening. Then, my body became to dissolve due to the effect of chemical drugs. When I came back from hospital after chemotherapy, I was not able to do anything. I just wanted to be left alone. I got nervous for whatsoever small matter. I felt incredibly bad.

My fellowship kept fighting. They visited me on several occasions. Every time they came and prayed I felt much better. You won’t believe me. It is the power of prayer! I experience little miracles… After their prayers I was able to walk, talk, and even eat. Thank you, Lord! After the sixth chemotherapy session, my nerves became to necrotize; I had problems in several part of my body (nose, upper and lower limbs, etc.). The doctor decided to interrupt chemotherapy. Today, I still don’t have enough words of gratitude for this doctor… And, of course, for my God!

After those chemotherapy sessions I began to recover very slowly. I had inflammations everywhere (joints, hands, coxae). I was not able to walk. I could not put my knees one close to the other. My post-operatory cicatrices were inflamed. I started to suffer from bedsores. I also had inflammation inside my oral cavity (teeth, mandibula, etc.). I was not able to open my mouth properly, because I had a jaw-bone inflammation and it caused severe pain… I kept fighting with the help of my dears and of all those who prayed for me; and – of course – I was fighting with the help of my God.

Back then, every time I met a priest, I always asked for the prayer of the anointing of the sick and – of course – for sacerdotal blessing! I must say that many priests were praying for me, but also many religious communities and lay people. My friends did not want to surrender… After each prayer I felt stronger and stronger! Nevertheless, I still was not able to freely rejoice and truly believe in those words: “You will live.”

I lived under a sort of prudency cover. I will be honest with you: I didn’t have enough faith. I often thought that I was just going to live a little bit more, but I didn’t believe in full recovery. One day, about one and a half year after operation, God was probably tired of my scarce faith. That day we were playing in a Christian conference in the town of Dolný Kubín, in a place called Aktivcentrum. I noticed a man (aged 35 to 40) who was continuously looking at me. It was just as though we knew each other… as though he had something to tell me.

I know quite a lot of people, but my memory is not so good. I didn’t know who that man was. I replied to his smile with another smile and I thought it was it. God didn’t think so! Suddenly, the speaker looked at that man and invited him to come forward:

"Just come here, I think you have something to tell us". That man went forward. He stared and pointed at me with his finger and started to speak. I do remember his words: “before I tell the testimony of my life, I have something to say to this man: ‘God is telling you: don’t worry, you will live!’

It was so strong. They were the same words I heard that night after colonoscopy. He just added "God is telling you"!

I know that it looks like a fairy tale, but all I have written is pure TRUTH! All people gathered in the Aktivcentrum started a big applause. They screamed and whistled for all the joy they felt. I lifted both my arms and hands to the sky like the winner of the Tour de France. Do you want to know what happened in that exact while?

The Spirit of Joy and Freedom descended on me. I was filled with the Holy Spirit. In that precise moment I didn’t really realise it, because I was so excited. I became a free person! I was freed from fear, incredulity, doubts, various medical “diagnostic truths” uttered by doctors and other false prophets. The grace of my God was in me and over me. God had drawn me with unfailing kindness, just like He told me through the words of Jeremiah!

Since then, I have lived my life in freedom, just as though I never had cancer. Bad thoughts are not persecuting me anymore...

My God made me free!

What about that man? I found out that we never met each other before. He is a doctor, a gynaecologist from Bratislava. He later told me that God had sent him to me early in the morning, in order to reveal that word to me. He hesitated. He thought it was just illusion. Fortunately enough, that voice inside him was so strong that he was not able to resist. So, when the speaker invited him to come forward and tell his own testimony, he just moved ahead and did what God wanted him to do!

Thank you, God, because you are faithful even when I am unfaithful. Thank you, because you helped me cross and pass the valley of the dead and I am back among the living. Thank you, because I recognized in You my good and careful Father! This is what I wanted to confess: God is good and God is faithful.

If you are in troubles or you are suffering because of major problems, just tell your problem about your God. The knees of your problem shall bow before the name of Jesus Christ and you shall feel the odour of liberty and the Kingdom of God here on earth. Amen!

God bless you. God bless all your steps and all your decisions!

With love, Robo Slamka