Wow! The summer has flown. Have you also had such nice weather? Here we even temperatures at 40 degrees! In the summer everyone lives more outside than inside, and Uzice in the summer is very pleasant.
Although we have lived Serbia for some time now we still have a strong connection with our Romanian neighbors.
The missionary Festival Medias (Romania)
In July we went to Romania to work with the "Pro misiune" Festival, we also gave training to the staff about "our identity in Christ” and how we can be salt and light for our surroundings. Outreach team from Romania.
5 Romanians then traveled back with us for a 10 day outreach in Uzice. That was quite a challenge for them because they are very accustomed to work within the church among fellow Christians. Here they worked almost non stop with non‐believers. Photo exhibition in a club in Uzice Anca, the leader of the Romanian outreach team organized a photo exhibition at a club showing pictures about herwork with kids in Asia and Africa.This was very interesting and it received with great interest. Afterwards some alcoholic drinks were served and some visitors smoked. The Romanian team went outside.
We wondered why they did not try to make contact with the Serbian guests.They then responded that “they drank alcohol and smoked”. We respond with: What would Jesus do (WWJD)?
Helping with the summer school.
We also helped with the Summer school of the orphanage "Petar Radovanovic Dom" here, which was fun. We did some practical tasks and did a lot of sport with the kids and even went an afternoon to a small river and did some face painting for the kids. We hope to be able to help this orphanage a more often. Our break in the Netherlands After the Romanian team had left, we spent 2 weeks in Holland.
We stayed in the house of our friends in Gouda. We really enjoyed this, and had some time to rest We saw our family and some friends and then went back to Uzice to receive our next guests!
Clown and Musician friend from Budapest
Sam and Terry from Budapest (Hungary).So great that cafe's here were open for us, Sam gave some blues concerts at
several cafes! Terry could be found in the town square every afternoon where he showed his clowning skills with many balloons and the banjo.
Miriam was creative with face painting many children. Miriam had practice before the real work started so Chris became a "popular" guinea pig.
We made contact with families and could bring the Lord’s his life and joy to the city.
On August 25,, Chris celebrated his birthday with some local friends with a blues performance from Sam. The gospel message was preached again in the musical cafe Vermeer.
Kiev (Ukraine)
In September there was a YWAM workshop on our agenda.
Mirja
m (with assistance of Chris) was asked to organizevarious seminars on “How to share the gospel in a cross cultural setting” and “how to lead an effective outreach”. There were many participants from Russia, Belarus, Central Asia and even groups from Sweden and Korea. Very international, super! With 200 people, we went into the center to reach out.Quite a task to lead everyone in and out of the subway train!
Miriam met Natasha there and talked to with her about an hour, talking about Jesus. We found the people in Kiev to be very open
The HUB Bible school in Belgrade
Just back from Kiev, we joined a 2 day conference in Belgrade attended by 120 former Bible school students. It is good to network. It was so good and encouraging to hear from different young people what they are doing in Serbia and abroad. God is at work!
Orange house
The transfer of the house has been completed (August 31).
We are very pleased with the result and are now busy finalizing and preparing the house for the upcoming teams in October and November. The heating, kitchens, beds, furniture etc. require our full attention.
We are planning to set up a "program" for the teams. We pray for the opportunity to have sports events ,
live music opportunities in café’s and also to start running an English club for the youth here.
The good news is that we have got one years visa.
This means we do not have to report to the police every time when we travel in and out of the country.
The Serbian Law on creating an organization has changed. Instead of 10 we only need 3 people to appoint for the board! That makes our job of finding suitable people a lot easier. And one other NGO in Serbia offered to help us out. Great!
Here is our agenda for the next few months
28 October: Romanian team from Medias in Uzice working with us !
Nov. 3 to Dec. 3: The Constanta DTS Outreach team in Uzice December Dec. 20 ‐Jan 5: Christmas break in Netherlands with our families.
Prayer Points
• Making contact with the right people / organizations
• Preparing for the next outreach teams
• Learning the Serbian language and culture
• The Orange House
• Forming a government organization and the papers for YWAM
• Our health
• Our personal relationship with our Heavenly Father
Thanks you so much !
We want to thank you for all your involvement, friendship, love, prayers and support. Above all we thank our Heavenly Father without whom this work is impossible.
with love, Mirjam and Chris
We want to thank you for all your involvement, friendship, love, prayers and support. Above all we thank our Heavenly Father without whom this work is impossible.
with love, Mirjam and Chris
