A living tribute to the memory of Baildon pastor Michael Pollard is being created with donations which came flooding in from wellwishers after his death.

Mr Pollard's widow, Jo, has donated £4,000 to help a pair of theology students from eastern Europe complete their studies.

Money poured in from all over the world after a trust fund was set up to help the Pollard family through the aftermath of last August's tragedy.

But more than £10,000 was left over in the Michael Pollard Family Fund and his widow vowed to use it to help Christians in eastern Europe.

Mr Pollard, pastor of the Emmanuel Evangelical Church at Baildon Green, died after he and his wife were attacked by robbers in Hungary during an aid mission to Romania.

Mrs Pollard, 56, has been looking for worthy causes to receive some of the donated cash and by a twist of fate the first two beneficiaries come from the former Czechsolavakia.

Half the money paid out will enable 25-year-old Lydie Kucova, whose course at the International Baptist Seminary in Prague was axed, to come to London to continue her studies at the London Bible College. And the rest will enable Jana Vancova, from Slovakia, to finish her course at the London college.

Mrs Pollard, a mother-of-three, said: "Without this money they wouldn't have been able to carry on studying but now they can finish their courses, go back and be useful in a church situation and be able to train future church leaders.

"I'm hoping to be able to meet them and it's lovely to have both a Czech and a Slovakian to help. I think Michael would have been delighted because the former Czechoslavakia is very special for us. We were in Prague on holiday in 1968 when the Russians invaded and we saw that country completely crushed. It was because of what we saw there that we started our work in eastern Europe."

lMrs Pollard paid tribute to the support she has received from wellwishers in this country and abroad over the last ten months.

"Even after all this time people are still stopping me in the street asking how I'm getting on.

"I don't even know who half of them are, but things can get very lonely at times and if someone just stops for a bit of a natter it makes all the difference in the world."

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