By Jay Sorgi for the Register
A simple but colorful quilt can reflect the tapestry God creates, making every one of us a uniquely-hued square in His divine plan for truth and beauty in the world.
St. John the Baptist Parish in the 300-person farming community of Prague in Saunders County marked its 125th anniversary with Mass and a catered dinner Sept. 12. The parish made it a yearly tradition to raffle a quilt at its annual church bazaar each October, but the community’s quilting team retired, leaving the bazaar without perhaps its most prized attraction.
Enter Shirley Johnson and two anonymous community members who stepped up and not only made sure bazaar attendees could receive this year’s quilt, filled with vibrant blues, greens and purples, but quilt editions for 2027 and 2028.
“The whole parish just pitches in and gets this done,” said parishioner Susie Sousek about the work they do with the bazaar. “It’s a fantastic thing for a little parish like us to be able to pull that off.”
The bazaar fills attendees’ bellies with traditional Czech foods like roast duck and kraut, kolache and thousands of dumplings which take multiple days to make. It also attracts individuals with numerous donated prizes, but the quilt has always been the star attraction in this close-knit community (pun intentional).
Sousek estimated that local quilters have constructed a quilt for the bazaar raffle for about four decades, with much of the work completed by a loyal squad of five quilters who created the patterns for the quilt top each year.
“We were the only ones that ever took it,” said Joyce Sousek, Susie’s aunt. “I don’t think we had too many before, but within the last few years, we just took it up and we did it every year.”
Dorothy Coufal joined the yearly party of seamstresses who would take months to seam concept into plush reality.
“We would always get together and we would bring books and patterns, different things, different quilts that we would see. We would just kind of go by that pattern, look at it and start quilting,” she said.
She said the process would begin just one month after the annual October bazaar, with about a three-month process of creating the patterns for the quilt top.
“Some of them were easy and then some of them were very hard, but we always seemed to work it through, and always did pretty good at making the quilts,” she said.
Coufal and her cohorts wouldn’t solely make quilts for the bazaar, but it was a part of a life of constant tailoring – in a region of the country that loves the detailed activity so much that the nearby capital city of Lincoln houses the International Quilting Museum.
“I made about 35 quilts,” Coufal said. “I have grandchildren, great-grandchildren, children, and so I try to get every one of them a quilt.”But the 2026 edition of the bazaar quilt almost never got off the ground. One member of the quilting quintet team passed away, while several others moved into senior living in larger nearby towns, making it practically impossible to connect and create a 2026 edition.
“Here we are wondering at the beginning of the year, ‘What are we going to do for the traditional quilt raffle? How are we going to come up with a quilt?’” Susie remembered.
Joyce had an ace up her sleeve, an anonymous friend who occasionally helped the quilting quintet.
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SNR photos | Natalie Bender
“She moved away,” Susie said. “But before she did, she gave [Joyce] unfinished quilt tops, so she donated them to the church.”
A “quilt top” is the decorative top layer of a quilt. It carries various designs, usually made from different materials into a pattern. “Quilting” then refers to the process of putting the quilt top onto the batting, or soft middle layer, and the backing, which holds it all together.
So the parish still needed two more steps to complete the job, someone to turn the quilt tops into a contiguous pattern of beauty. One quilt can take dozens or hundreds of hours of work.
“A neighbor, Shirley Johnson who’s right here in Prague, just recently obtained a long arm quilting machine,” Susie said. The machine allows an extended space of nearly 2 feet to allow the quilting machine head to move, easing the process.
“This was her first project and she agreed to do it for us. And so it turned out great.”
The final step came from an additional anonymous person, a parishioner who bought the backing material, implemented the back of the quilt and finished the job in time for the 2026 bazaar. It was a joy for the members of St. John the Baptist, who just celebrated the 125th anniversary of the parish Sept. 12.
Susie admitted that down the road, the parish will have to find a permanent solution for creating the highly-prized quilts. Yet she reflected on how the quilt coming to fruition this year reflects the Holy Spirit-filled can-do commitment to faith and community that the annual parish bazaar embodies.
“The willing people that don’t go to church up here and then they even come and help to volunteer to serve, to work for our bazaar, which we’re thankful for,” she said.
“It takes all hands on deck and we’re blessed to have it.”
The Czech dinner at St. John the Baptist in Prague will be held Sunday, Oct. 11, serving from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the parish hall on Main Street.
The meal includes a choice of duck or pork, dumplings, homemade dressing, kraut, mashed potatoes, cranberries, roll, kolach, dessert and drink. Diners can dine in with the self-serve option. Visitors may also choose the drive-thru option, or the carry-out option. For those unable to be in Prague, duck and pork dinners are available with free delivery to Wahoo, Weston, Touhy, Valparaiso and North Bend. Delivery is available for adult meals only. For more information or to place your advance order, call 402-663-4615 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Advance orders need to be placed by Friday, Oct. 9.
The meal cost for an adult is $22 for pork or $25 for duck; children’s meals – pork only – are available for those ages 5-10 at $10 each. Children 4 and under eating at the dinner may get a free pork meal.
The parish will also host a beer “pivo” garden under the tent. The celebration will include Polka music, live and silent auctions, a country store, parish raffle and the quilt raffle. Mass will be celebrated in St. John the Baptist Church at 10 a.m.
