Pray for our SpeakUp! information meeting tomorrow at 8pm (noon MDT) in the Philosophy Building. God has provided us a room and now we just need students. Kyle and I sent out about 700 text messages today to students that had left their phone numbers last fall. So we could potentially have a lot of students! Pray that we would be able to give a clear explanation of the English Camp and that students would sign up!
During the next two weeks we will be doing some hard core recruiting for the English camps. We have a total of 47 applicants so far for 150 spaces. Our goal is to have 200 applications by May 1, so that we can ensure that the camps will be full. We are expecting that not everyone who fills out an application will be able to go.
Please pray that we would have energy as we spend about 5 hours a day on campus during the next two weeks. We will be following up with the 180 students that said they were interested in more information, holding information meetings, presenting in front of English classes, hanging posters, and doing anything else creative that we think of! Pray that the professors would invite us to talk to their classes and that the administration would approve a room for us to do the information meetings in.
I’ll let you know how it goes!
This weekend is the Stint kick-off weekend for all the Stint teams next year. That means that those who are planning on coming on Stint here in Serbia next year are right now spending time getting to know each other and being introduced to the initial paperwork process of Stint! How exciting!
Please be praying for them, that it would be an exciting time for them, that they would have a good bonding time, and that all the information wouldn’t be too overwhelming. I’m excited when I think of the people that God is raising up to come here next year to continue the work that He is doing!
I just wanted to take a moment and show everybody the new bottle design of my favorite water. I’m definitely a fan of the new sleek design and postmodern feel of this plastic bottle. This carbonated natural mineral water is one of the products of Serbia, bottled deep in the mountains of Arandjelovac. I have enjoyed this product since the summer of 2004 when I first came to Serbia. Others have been enjoying it since 1811, the year it was first bottled and sold. If you ever get the chance to try it, do! It might take a little while to get used to, since it’s carbonated and has minerals in it, but it’s by far the best that I’ve ever tried! I know many people that gave it a chance and it soon became their drink of choice. Even at this moment I’m drinking a glass of this proven thirst quencher. If you want to know more feel free to visit their website by clicking here. Prijatno! (Enjoy!)
(Disclaimer: This entry was made at 4:00 am Serbian time. Perhaps posts should be generally avoided at this time of day, as the relevance may be questionable. The author asks that judgment be withheld in respect of his state of mind at the time of the writing. Thank you for your consideration in the matter.)
Wow, do you ever look back at the last two weeks and wonder where in the world the time has gone? Tonight I had a moment like that. Last Friday night seems like only yesterday and it doesn’t feel like Palm Sunday should be two weeks past already!
When I reflect on all that has happened, it makes sense that this time has gone so fast. We are currently in the middle of recruitment for the English Camp “SpeakUP!” that we will have this summer. Kyle and I have been doing a lot of work for that like getting rooms on the campus for meetings (praise God that He provided two rooms for us last week!), working on a presentation explaining what it will be, making a paper version of the online application, and emailing and texting the 180 or so students that have expressed interest so far. Right now we have about 40 students that have filled out applications. We have a total of 150 spaces, so we still need quite a few more students. Please pray that we would be able to get more rooms for info meetings and that we would be able to present the camp in some English classes.
Another thing that I’ve just finished doing is a short ministry highlight video for Erol, Vesna, and Čuki, who flew to Denver today to raise support during the next 6 weeks. It was only 4 mins in length, but it took me a couple days to put together because I’ve never used Final Cut Express before. It was relatively fun to teach myself and do the editing, but it did drag on a while. I have a new found appreciation for film editors now!
Pray for Erol, Vesna, and Čuki during these next few weeks. They are excited to have the chance to travel, but it is the first time in the States for Vesna and Čuki, so pray that it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. Pray also that God would give them many opportunities to meet people and talk to them about what God is doing here.
Thanks for your prayers!
This is Mirko with Kyle. I have become good friends with him during this year. He lives pretty close to us and we’ve been able to hang out at my apartment or over coffee on campus. I met him when he came to the English camp last summer. He had a great time there and grew a lot while he was there. He has been thinking a lot about his life and how to best live throughout this past year. He said that he learned a lot about God and expanded his perspective at the camp last summer. That change has been continuing to happen and I’m excited to have seen it! He recently become the student body president of his department on the university and that responsibility has been good for him. He’s seeing how he can help people and impact their lives for the good.
One of the things that has excited him is what he’s heard about CM2007, the multi-national student conference that Crusade is having this summer in Korea. He wants to go to broaden his perspective of Christianity as he meets with other Christian students from around the world. He wants an experience that will change his life and help him see how he can be a part of change in others lives. We have explained to him well what this conference will be and he wants to be a part of it.
So… he’s approved to go and is now just trying to raise the money. Pray that God will raise the money for his flight (~$900) and the conference cost ($100). Praise God that He is working in Mirko’s heart and calling him to follow after Christ!
I want to capture what I was feeling on the bus last Tuesday as I talked to a student named Marko. As he was sharing his view of this country, my heart broke. He has no hope of a future here. He sees all being destroyed and thus, is leaving. I think of so many similar reactions that students have to my being here: “Why in the world are you here?!?! We’re all trying to leave!!!”
Internally, my response to Marko is, “What of those who have no hope of anything different? What of those who cannot leave?” The Markos can perhaps state reality the most plainly because they have seen the rest of the world and they are not trying to deceive themselves any longer. They are soon to leave this country. They don’t have to be optimistic anymore. They can wash their hands of this situation and move on.
What of those left here?!?! When will hopelessness reach a climax? When will this country’s identity be lost in the ocean of past history?
I feel that we as the western world have been deluded into a false sense of security and peace. There is an enemy within that will one day reveal itself. Society does not make a man and the men that make society are wicked and bent on pleasing self. When pushed to it or pressed to, this identity will spring out with destructive frenzy.
I wonder if we will again see that here. World peace will never happen and I doubt if the powder keg identity and role that the Balkans have played in the last 1500 years of human history will ever change.
Jesus said that in the end times the love of many will grow cold. He said that we would hear of wars and rumors of wars. Nations will rise against nation and these are but the beginning of the birth pangs.
I don’t have much hope for the nation of Serbia. I have seen some of the strongholds that exist here and I don’t know if they will ever be torn down. But they don’t need to be. Because this is not the promised land. This is not Zion. My job is to call people to see heaven’s kingdom, to see the true promised land. To shout the warning cry of coming destruction to the people.
Our internet went out for some reason soon after I posted the last post so I haven’t been able to blog. It’s back on now, hopefully it will stay that way for a while. I called our ISP to try to resolve the problem. The first guy, after listening briefly to my broken Serbian, hung up on me. The second listened to me, had me try a few things that didn’t work, and then told me that there was nothing more that he could do but file a report and have someone call me later. We weren’t to hopful about this, so we finally called our landlord, who is a manager of a big shopping and sports complex in Novi Sad and has lots of connections, and then our internet started working the following day.
So I’m back now.
Thanks for all your prayers last week. Praise God, we did receive permission to distribute on the natural science department. We had great reception there, the students were friendly and some signed up for more information about the English Camps this summer. All in all over the last two weeks we distributed about 5,000 magazines, which have some evangelistic articles and an advertisement for the English camp, and about 170 students left their contact info saying that they are interested in finding out more about the English camp. We are putting together some information meetings that we will have in one week.
We are going to two different departments this week to ask for permission. Please pray that the deans of the Philosophy department and the Technical Science department would allow us to have a room for the info meetings.
Tomorrow we will start our second week. We won’t be on campus everyday this week because we have a meeting in Belgrade on Tuesday. But please be praying for us as we are out every other day at the following places:
Monday - Dorm courtyard
Tuesday - no distribution
Wednesday - Sports and Physical Education
Thursday - Law
Friday - Natural Sciences
Pray particularly for Friday. We don’t have permission for the natural science department yet and they have denied us in the past. If we can’t go there, we will be on the law department.
Thanks for your prayers!
This is Dijana. I had asked for prayer for her in a previous post. She spent a week with her dad in Bosnia and while there talked to him about what she has been doing lately with us and about her desire to go to Korea for the conference. He had always been displeased and antagonistic toward her involvement in church, so she was apprehensive as to what he would say about Korea. He said that he doesn’t want to talk about this type of thing with her anymore. Basically he’s fine with her going to Korea and with her involvement in church, but he doesn’t want to know about it. This is a step, I guess. At least he’s not forbidding her from going. But please keep praying that God would reveal Himself to Dijana’s father and that he too would become a Christian. And praise God that Dijana is one step closer to going to the conference this summer!
