Svaki Dan Sa Vama Gospod

Hello friends!

We have made it to Prokuplje!  We are staying with Marijan and his wife Slavica and their two boys Andrija and Filip. They are extremely welcoming and we are so grateful to them that they have let us stay with them like we were their family. We have Internet connection, but the only free time we have is a night and we are so exhausted that we drop to our beds like a sack of potatoes! We will try and update as much as possible.

From left to right: (top row) Daniel, Danijel, Arif, Igor, Marijan. (Bottom row) Bethany, Caitlin, Andrija, Slavica.

We have been very busy here in Prokuplje and we are enjoying every minute of it. We will be teaching English for seven days, and have a children’s club for three days. There is church on Thursday night and on Sunday. We will all speak at church on Thursday for 10 minutes each, sharing our testimonies and what God is doing in our lives. Daniel will preach on Sunday so pray for him because he is extremely nervous!! We have met one gypsy family and some youth from the church, and we plan on meeting more gypsy families.

Yesterday we had our first English lesson with people a church. It was mostly teenagers that came because the adults are working from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. picking cherries. The cherry season will be over by Sunday and those adults will come to the last few days of the English lessons. We were again surprised at how much English the people knew and because this is our second time teaching English, it is much easier. 

We also visited a gypsy family and it was very heartbreaking. While walking down to the village, we saw children in tattered clothing, adults with sad faces, huge piles of trash along with the smell. When the Roma people saw that we were white and American, some stared with glaring looks and others would not look at us at all. We got to the Jagoda’s home and we noticed they did not have very much. She offered us coffee and juice and we felt bad taking it because it was all they had (but we were told it is rude to say no). Danijel is Jagoda’s son and he is the only Christian in the home. Jagoda says she believes in God but she has not accepted Christ as her Savior. Pray that God will show her who He is and that she cannot go on in life without Him. She will be coming to church for the first time tonight and pray that she comes with an open heart.

Danijel, along with his father and younger brother, has muscular dystrophy. You can see the sorrow in his and his brother’s face. I can’t imagine a harder life, to have this sickness and to be extremely poor. Because there are three sick people in the family, Jagoda has to work picking cherries. They told us that they get 10 dinars for every kilo of cherries (that is 15 cents)! It is an extremely tiresome job and you can see the scrapes and scars on her hands and arms. Can you imagine working like this for next to nothing pay? It is so heartbreaking that this family is going through so many hard times and they don’t have any hope (except Danijel).

Pray for this family that God will give them the strength they need to go throughout the day. Pray that God will open the hearts of Danijel's family and that they will come to know Christ. Pray that they will find peace and hope through Christ.

Yesterday morning I had a “WOW” moment in my quite time. I’ve been trying to read to entire New Testament through and I was at 2 Timothy chapter six. Verses 7-8, 11-12, and 17-19 slapped me in the face!!

7 After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. 8 So if we have enough food and clothing let us be content.

11 Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you.

17 Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. 

If this doesn’t make you realize how extremely blessed we are in America, you need to pray that God will soften your heart to a world that is starving for hope, for Jesus Christ. I pray that you will realize you are blessed and that you will use you blessings to bring others to Christ. You don’t have to go on a mission trip across the world to tell others, look around you! Look at the homeless people in the street; look at your coworker who is a single parent and barely paying bills. GIVE HOPE!

Love,

A servant trying to do God’s will