March Report from Prokuplje and southern villages
Great and blessed things happened in March. I can freely say that a positive explosion has happened caused by leaders we work with. House visits, the beginning of studying the Acts, different visits, preparation of materials for children’s work and many other activities we had in this month, show that there is readiness to serve God in many different ways in our church. We have been especially refreshed and encouraged by your visit and support.
Many things happened in March, so I will try to emphasize only those important I think I should share with you.
First of all, house visits in Prokuplje, since people who attend our church come from different parts of the town. Many of them live in Roma Settlement. We had all these things on our mind before we started with visits. In order to include as many people as possible to help them to join a house group, at the very beginning we’ve made a practical and simple plan.
Since David lives in one of those Settlements where most of our church members live, there are six people who regularly attend the church and other four which come from time to time. Only three out of them gave their life to the Lord, so it is a great responsibility and a privilege to work with them, especially with those who have not yet gave their heart to God. We believe that our work with the and a house group will help them to meet with the Word of God, to get near to God and eventually to accept Christ as their own Savior.
David decided to start a house group in his home. As we talked and prayed for this idea, he wanted to do two things with this visit. First, to upbuild those who are already in the church (his parents are among them) and second, once the house group starts to meet on regular basis and when it “begins to live”, he will try to activate those who are not so active in the church. We believe that it is feasible, but we don’t want to do it with our human convictions, but to be led by the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of March David had his first house group in his house. At that first visit there were seven of us (me, David, the leader of the group, Caca, David’s parents and two other persons). The theme of David’s talk was “Don’t look at circumstance”. He was talking about Christ who has a power and dominion to help and free us from different vices and burdens. This will be the theme for the whole month in that house group. After the message we spent some time in prayer. I think you know about the details of this visit. I’ve sent you a short letter about that. The words which still echo in my mind are the words said by David’ father: “For so many years I’ve been studying God’s Word with false teachers, but I never experienced what I experience in “your” church”.
Not everybody from the church who lives in this Roma settlement comes to the house group, but David is working on that. Another important thing connected to all this is that there is a rumor going on in this settlement that “there is a prayer meeting” going on in Mikita’s and Goca’s house (David’s parents). We take this as something positive, for we expect that people will start to come out of curiosity and that they will also have an opportunity to hear the Gospel. During the month mostly same people came to the house groups meetings. Once one person came for the first time and for the first time heard God’s Word. It is great encouragement for us. I already can see a shift in this house group. Some have started to use the Bible and find verses which David reads. This is big step in such a short time. We expect even greater things.
David is also responsible for the house group in the village of Topionica. He prepared the plan and schedule for April. We expect good things happen there too, because we have hope, willingness, desire, passion and confidence and that, according to my belief, is very important factor for the work in God’s field.
Pera leads a house group in the center of the town. There are six to nine people who attend the group. They are believers for many years now, so the things in this group are going very well. At the meeting everybody takes part in prayer and singing and they know the Bible quite well. Niki is also part of this group, because he is responsible for the singing and he plays guitar. Beside message from the Bible, singing and worship is also important part of meetings in house groups – the family, enjoyable and spiritual atmosphere works in the hearts of God’s people in a special way and many feel free to pour their hearts before God.
As Pera talked to them they expressed their joy because of the possibility to meet during the week too and have fellowship with God and with each other. Since all the members of the group are believers, Pera is in better position than David, but it doesn’t diminish his responsibility and commitment. The themes Pera talks about at the group are mostly about spiritual growth and talking to others about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. His talk was based on the story he read in the script we’ve got at the training in Beli Kamen in November (the story about two missionaries who visited people in a village sharing the Gospel – man of peace). Pera encourages members of his group to preach the Gospel, for we all are called to do that. This is his plan for the whole month of March. He also has a plan to start to visit house group in Zitni potok. The group exists now for a few years. We have two young man there – Mile (24) and Rade (20) who also have some responsibilities there, so Pera’s obligation is to work and spend more time with them, to establish and encourage them in the Lord. This is challenge both for him and for all of us. We also have very well developed work with children in that village. That too is Pera’s responsibility, but we want to help him for some time until we see that the things have improved. We pray for this.
Ilija – Niki organizes house group meeting twice a month in a very different part of the town, in home of Arben and Marina. This couple has been here since the very beginning of the church in Prokuplje. They are believers now for almost thirteen years. Arben is a refugee from Kosovo and comes from Muslim background, but God called him to know the real truth. Since he became Christian, almost whole his family denied him. Arben with his whole family attends church on regular basis. Alongside Arben and his wife, there is another person who started to come to the church after only her first visit to the house group. This lady – Lenka (55) – learned about our church even before, she heard the Gospel, but did not come to the church. We are very happy that things have changed and improved.
Ilija’s plan is to visit the village of Jasenica on regular basis. He will be responsible for this house group. There are three persons who attend the meetings in this group and only one accepted Christ as her Saviour. Strong point in this village can be work with children and Ilija is preparing plan for that too, together with me and Slavica.
As for the work with children, that’s Slavica’s responsibility and she already started to work with few girls from our church. We want them to visit this house group once or twice a month and work with children there. These ideas are very practical and more importantly, feasible. We are looking forward to seeing its implementation.
We are especially happy to see zeal and commitment in these young men. I meet with them once a week. We talk and share experiences from visits. They inform us about number of people at prayer meetings, problems, plans, good and bad things they experienced in house groups. Slavica and I were present at almost every house group meeting at least once and we are very much encouraged by what we saw and heard. Of course, our goal is to please God and not ourselves, so we continue to work with them more intensively in their work and preparations so that they might be more effective in leading those groups.
As for the Bible studies we are very busy with that too. On Thursdays we study the book of Acts. We go through lectures you gave us. Almost all youth group attend those studies, eleven of us. After your lecture more people more people want to join, so we will move from our home to the church for the Bible studies. During Bible studies everyone has“equipment” – notebooks, markers, New Testament, Bible. We had Bible studies before, but now it seems that we are doing it now much more in depth. All of us are very active and much focused. I have to say that we study Bible for the first time in such a way (Power Point). It is very simple, practical way which helps us to better understand (it is easier to remember verses, events, etc.) – I can see that in people’s interest during study. It goes very well so far and we believe that as we continue we’ll be spiritually more mature and enriched. I also want to set a challenged as we study the book of Acts: to encourage each one of us to spread the Gospel more freely and to as many villages as possible. We are aware of all circumstances, but we also believe in Bog who is above every circumstance. We surrender to Him our desires, pray and wait on Him.
We also started with studying the First John’s Epistle. We have a material for this book (it is not PowerPoint), but written material with questions. Since by the beginning of April we finish our study of the First John’s Epistle, we will invite people to continue studying the Book of Acts. We already talked about that. Some of them were present in the church when you Jim had a lecture, so we expect that the group will be extended. For now I am the one who leads all studies, but I plan to do it together with Slavica in the future.
Our working week looks like this: On Sunday we have a service, on Wednesday and Thursday Bible study, on Saturday children class (two groups) and on other days visits in Prokuplje. Beginning April we will change some things. We plan to visit house groups in villages. Maybe we will have a house group in Prokuplje only on Fridays. Every leader will have a meeting with his house group on Fridays.
During the month Slavica and I visited a couple (Aladin and Goca). We prayed with them and spent a lot of time with them in teaching them and explaining verses from the Bible. They accepted the Lord few months ago and are very interested in learning and spiritual growth. We are aware of this opportunity and we do our best to be available to them whenever they want to talk about God’s Word. I spend a lot of time with Aladin and sometimes he joins me in visiting house groups in villages. I would like, with God’s guidance, to take him through the same process of learning as I did with David, Niki and Pera. I pray for that, of course, and we’ll see how it goes. The need for workers in God’s Kingdom is great. Many people die without having opportunity to hear the Gospel. That cognition raises in me a sense of urgency which we talked about with you on many occasions.
Since there are no enough seats in the room where we gather, we created two groups of children: younger ones, from 4 to 10 (13 of them) and older, from 11 to 14 (15 of them). This work requires more responsibilities, but also more workers which need to be prepared for this ministry. Slavica included few girls in helping this ministry: Elvira, Mima and Kristina are responsible to gather children, to prepare premises for the meeting (setting chares, blackboard for the verses, etc.). They also help Caca in preparation of the material for children work and every Saturday one of them opens the meeting with prayer and songs for children. Caca is helping them in teaching children Bible verse. Soon she will show them how to prepare a lesson for children.
This is the concept we planned at the beginning of the year. As we thought about this we decided that every time a leader has a meeting in a house group, one of the girls should go with them ready to work with children. We already recognized few girls who are ready to join, so we believe that soon this will start to happen.
This is an example how we’ve envisioned this:
When David goes to visit the house group in the village of Toponica, since there is no bus to the village, we take David and one or two girls to go with us by car. Before the meeting with house group we have a meeting with children – I play guitar, one girl leads singing and a memory verse from the Bible, the other one is telling a story. After that we have a meeting with the house group. We learned that this is the best way through many years working in Zitni Potok. It worked very well and we believe that we can apply this model in other villages too. We are aware that people and their mentality are different from village to village, but this is how we planned. Still, we are flexible and there is always plan “B”. We plan to start work in such a way beginning of April. So, we’ll see. Please, pray for that.
Also, some ladies from the church (Marina and Goca) were involved in some practical activities, like preparation of presents for our sisters in USA.
During March we visited some people we did not visit before (Ivan-28 and Sevda-25). Beginning this year Ivan started to come to our church and joined a worship team (he plays drums). We visited them twice so far and prayed for them and their children. Only Ivan attends the church for now, but we believe that his wife will join him soon. During one visit Sevda told us that she was a bit suspicious about what we are doing, but during prayer time she was crying and through sobbing saying: “Jesus help, Jesus help my children and my family…”. After that she told us that she believed that there was a God and that she would pray every day on her own. Some youth visited them few times during the month and encouraged them in their faith. We expect that they would give their hearts to God.
One very important thing for me happened by the end of March. Marija is age of 17. She lives in the village of Bojnik, near Leskovac. Last year she enrolled the medical high school in Prokuplje. Elvira goes to the same school. She too lives in Bojnik as Marija. Beginning this year Elvira brought Marija to the church. This was her first contact with the church and the Gospel. Since then she regularly comes to the church. Youth group accepted her and started to work with her – they introduced the Bible to her, Bible verses, etc. She said she wanted to pray a prayer of repentance. When we asked her for the reason to make such decision she said that as she was reading the gospel, God reviled her that she was a sinner and that she needs to ask Him to come into her heart. Following day at the church service Marija accepted Christ as her own Lord and Savior. I strongly believe that young people were very good teachers – they taught her the truth and showed her the way to go. Since the beginning of the year two young persons (Seba 20 and Marija 17) gave their hearts to the Lord, accepting Him as their personal Savior. We are very happy because of that.
Your visit and the fellowship we had with you is a great encouragement and spiritual refreshment to all of us. We are always very happy when we see you. We want to thank Luana and Renata very much for their ministry to the ladies in our church. I was not present there, so I don’t know what was happening there, but the ladies are so touched with the atmosphere at the meeting that they talk all the time about Luana and Renata and can’t wait to see them again. some of them said: “They are true servants of God. May God bless them and keep them.”
Jim thank you again for everything you do in order that God’s work might grow and develop in this part of Serbia.
