Saturday, July 14, 2012

Last Children's Day in Prokuplje!

Hey everyone!

So things are going very well hereis Prokuplje! We are very excited to be here, and can definitely see Godworking in these people’s live! Last night, we attended the youth meeting,where Bethany and I spoke. We talked about spiritual growth and the importancereading your Bible and spending time with God. The youth responded with a lotof questions, and we were able to explain about how to make time for a quiettime, the prayerful mindset that it should be approached from, allowing it tochange you, and about not keeping what you learn to yourself, but sharing itwith other Christians to help them also grow.
            Iwas reminded while studying for the lesson that it is not something that we dofor ourselves, but it is God who works in us to give us the desire and strengthto seek Him (Philippians 2:13.) He alone is our source of strength, and we areto look to Him for everything that we do! It’s easy sometimes to try to doeverything on our own, but when we try to rely on ourselves, not only is Godnot glorified, but we will never be able to accomplish half of the things thatGod would have had we just given everything over to Him!
After we finished teaching, weworshiped, and it was very powerful. We sang songs that we knew in both Serbianand English, and praising God in both languages was so beautiful; everyone wassinging from his/her hearts, and the result was an amazing time of worship!
After we worshiped, we got pizzasfor the youth and hung out with them for a while (our limited knowledge ofSerbian made for some very funny conversations!) Talking with the youth is soencouraging, and they have such servant’s hearts! The youth have a key to thechurch that they pass around so that they can help Marijan and Slavica(pronounced “mar-ee-on” and “slaw-veet-sah” (“j” is a “y” sound, and “c” is a“ts” sound)) and they frequently go to the church before or after service toprepare and clean the building. The youth have been an incredibly wonderfulhelp with the children’s meetings, also. They are at the building with us early,setting up the chairs and tables, and they stay late with us to clean up thebuilding every day!
Today was our last day of thechildren’s meetings in Prokuplje, and we ended with a craft and awards forcoming. It was so much fun to play with the little kids and talk to the olderones. There was a lot of “Cait! Cait!”, “Bethany! Bethany!”, and “Daniel!Daniel!” as they tried to get our attention, and lots of hand signals andbroken Serbian followed in trying to understand what they needed; we had a lotof laughs, though, and were able to communicate what we needed to (with thehelp of a couple youth who speak English and a lot of pointing.)
Tomorrow we will have church, andMonday we will go to Dubovo to begin another round of kid’s camps! We are soexcited to see what God has been doing, both in our lives and the lives of thepeople around us. Please pray that we would be open to what He would have usdo, and that He would continue to work in amazing ways! We are picking up Serbianmuch faster than last year, but it’s a slow process, nonetheless! Please prayfor understanding and patience as we continue on this incredible journey!
In Christ’s love,
Caitlin

2 comments:

  1. AWESOME! Praising God for the work He is doing thru and in you all :)

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  2. I love reading and keeping posted with yall! It's great hearing all that yall are accomplishing in Serbia! I love you guys. Praying for you!

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