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!
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!
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!
I knew that before, but it seems that I still try to underestimate my body’s need for sleep. Four to five hours a night just doesn’t seem to cut it.
To prove a point, my body let me get sick.
So that’s what I’ve been doing all day, fighting off these cold germs that are causing my body to cough, ache, and generally not feel good. Hopefully after rest I have given it today, it will decide to be well tomorrow…
But despite all of that today, I was really encouraged after a conversation I had with two students last night. They both went to the English camp last summer and I have known them for about a year now.
We were talking about the different retreats that we do and they were wondering if there is any way to make them multi-national. They want to see a camp at which students from different countries in the Balkans that are involved with Campus Crusade come together. They said at something like that we could see that we are all really just people.
This was really exciting for me to hear, because this is one of the things that I would like to see happen here. I would like to see students from the different countries in the Balkans get together and do humanitarian aid in the name of Christ. I think that would be huge in illustrating the love of Jesus to a people that have experienced tragedy and horror. I believe it’s also the only way that people here can experience peace, through the forgiveness and love of Christ.
Pray that guys like these would see the vision of what God could do through them. Pray that God would be raising up more change agents in this generation of students!
Tomorrow we will start our spring distribution of the VOX magazine. This will revolutionize the view of Christians on the campus of Novi Sad and start a revival of which the borders of Serbia will not be able to contain. From this place, at this time, the ocean of God’s love and mercy will be poured out in a way that the EARTH has never before seen! The mountains will quake, the seas will roar, the skies will thunder as our GOD displays His glory and majesty in spectacular clarity for the peoples of the earth to see and then to fall down and worship! Pray all the details will work out well and that all the students who have volunteered to help will come. Pray for receptivity in the hearts of the students that we will interact with. Thank God for the approval to be on the departments that we will be on. Pray that GOD would receive all the glory and honor due HIS NAME!
