Wednesday, July 6, 2011

This morning I woke later than I had hoped to, but I was able to quickly ready myself and had some time for good coffee with Vladica and Iveca (for maybe an hour) before heading to Irena’s house. I had some reading I wanted to do in the Scriptures, and so the brothers brought the coffee to me and then we joined to drink it in another room. We headed over to Irena’s house around 10:00am and met another sister along the way who proceeded to kiss and hug us. At Irena’s house she and her mother-in-law and her children greeted us. Theirs is a home of peace and love. We spent time talking and hearing about their life and I shared a little about who I was. They had so many good things to say about Pr. Bob, Pr. Bill, Ray, Roger, and the brothers who came with them last time they visited, and they gave abundant thanks to God for our church and the elders and leaders who have blessed them so much. I shared that as our sister we are glad to be obedient to provide for our own household, and that we love her and that her husband encouraged our faith. She had planned for us to have breakfast/lunch with her and had cooked a feast of a meal for us. It was great, though I find my stomach shrinking every day. It’s somewhat of a conundrum for me. Either way, I love eating the food, especially in homes filled with love. They wanted me to pass along the greetings and thanks and kept making sure I would remember, and so I took video to reassure them that word would get back. They want to encourage you all, as I shared with them the difficulties faced in the past few years, and they are very glad to pray for you. We had some coffee and desserts, and then we watched a video of the service that Janosh led the week before he got sick and quickly died. The week prior to his death, his mother had a dream. He had been sick, and his mother had a dream in which there was a lamb lying on the ground. I didn’t understand from the translation whether the lamb was sick or not, but it wasn’t until she saw Jesus pick up the lamb and hold the lamb gently and tenderly care for the lamb that she understood that the lamb was Janosh and that the Lord was in control and going to forever care for her son. After a couple hours of talking and relaxing and enjoying fellowship together, Vladica, Iveca, and I left to go to the church where some of the youth would be coming to hang out with me and take me around. We arrived about 30 min. early, and I took the time to finish reading some of the Scriptures and then a good while to pray – as the boys arrived late and then needed to do some work and talk with Vladica about an upcoming camp for the younger youth. When I had finished praying, Chaslav and Stef took me on a walk around the city. We went to the park where I had eaten with Vladica and Iveca the other day and we sat and talked and ate some fruit that Irena sent with us. The boys wanted to show me a river area, and so we headed there. When we got to the place where they wanted to rest and eat some fruit, there was a large horse in the pathway. Chaslav is a little afraid of animals, and so this was a bit frightening to him, and he thought we should probably just head back. He was a little disappointed, because he wanted us to go down to this rock in the middle of the creek for relaxing. We tried to go forward a bit, but the horse just snorted and would snap at us. Stef tried moving forward but got an even more foreboding jerk from the horse. Chaslav really thought we should head back at that point, but I decided to pray out loud about the horse moving – to enlarge their faith that God answers prayers, and to have the joy of the day that they had planned. The horse didn’t move. Chaslav started to lead us back, but in our way from the other direction came a shepherd. He was leading his goats. Chaslav started to say, “Oh man…” because he didn’t want goats snapping at him. But this shepherd was a good shepherd and very kind. He led his goats along the path and their bleating and numbers scared the horse and moved it down across the creek to the other side by a tree. Thus, we were able to go relax on the rock as planned. This also provided a good illustration for my message that night – though I forgot to use it when the time came…haha. When we had relaxed and talked enough, we headed back to the home of Iveca and chatted for a little and I showed the guys some of my music. Then Vladica, Iveca, and I had some late-lunch/dinner that Iveca’s wife had prepared. After lunch, I took a rest, briefly looking over my notes and praying, and then I listened to some music while lying down. When the time came to go to the church for the service, I was ready. Vladica and I headed down the street – Iveca was already there leading the worship group (the youth) in pre-service worship. We sang for a good long while, and I took some video of a few of the songs. Eventually, Vladica and I went up and shared from the Scriptures about praying and God’s character being good and the assurance we can have in God’s answering our prayers so that His justice and greatness are made known and that we are filled with joy in the process. I prayed for the church afterward and sang a song with Chaslav before them all. Then Iveca shared with the church about some announcement issues. I took pictures with some of the brothers after that and prayed for a young boy who had been through a fire years ago and was still in need of healing for his arms. Then, Vladica took a picture of some of the group of us in front of a statue in the Roma district outside of the church. After that we all went to Iveca’s house for coffee and to grab my bags before heading to Leskovac (I’ve heard it pronounced both Lesk-o-wits and vits). After coffee we took the bags to Vladica’s van (received from a brother after 9 or 11 years of prayer while faithfully traveling by any other means he could to visit the brothers and preach and teach). He and I left and traveled to the bus station in Leskovac to see about ticket prices to Belgrade, and we then headed to the Evangelical church in Leskovac (which he says is the spiritual center of southern Serbia) where I would stay the night. I cleaned up, organized my things, and went to bed.