So this
week has been our busiest yet. We started off with a church conference on
Sunday, where a lot of the churches from around the area come together and have
one big worship service. It was awesome to see that there is fruit from all the
labor of the missionaries around Croatia and that they can come together and
encourage one another. A youth group from Virginia came in on Saturday and were
also able to participate in the service. A couple that is chaperoning were
actually the first missionary family from our organization to come to Slovonski
Brod (the town we are staying in). They served here for about 4 and a half
years with their 4 children. He preached at the conference and spoke on what it
really means to be a disciple of Christ. Not only was it challenging and
encouraging, it was also in English so we could understand it.
My friend Maria |
Monday
started off the kids camp and baseball camp. We had the kid’s camp in the
mornings and the baseball camps in the afternoons. The kid’s camp is designed
for elementary aged children and is very similar to a Vacation Bible School in
America. The youth group that is here from Virginia had it all planned out so
we were just able to plug in where we were needed. We sang songs, played games,
did crafts and acted out bible stories for the children. A lot of the children
can speak English fairly well because they learn it in school, but some were so
young that we had to get help to communicate with them. It was a lot of fun to
see the kids laughing and smiling and hearing bible stories and the gospel for
possibly the first time. By the end of the week a lot of relationships had been
formed and the kids were really sad that the camp was over. Our prayer is that
seeds were planted and that God will grow the seeds in the children’s hearts.
Also, that they will continue to come back to camp each year, and one day come
into a true relationship with Jesus as they grow up.
Kids playing sharks & minnow's at VBS |
Some of the kids playing crab soccer |
Guy and Arbonne (notice the SWU hat and Oakleys on Arbonne) |
The
baseball camp was in the late afternoons from 4-7 and was mostly middle school
and high school age kids. Again, the youth group was really involved in the
planning of this camp and they were able to work most of the stations. Guy was
able to help a lot, since baseball is his thing and he has worked many camps in
the past. I mostly just watched and played with the younger kids that came to
the camp, who were not able to participate in all of the activities. The first
day was about the absolute basics of baseball, because not only have most of
the kids not every played baseball, some have never even heard of it. So they set
up 6 stations where groups of kids rotated to begin learning the game. We would
have a break in the middle of the camp where some of the youth from the church
group would share their testimonies about how they came into a relationship
with Christ and what all God has done in their lives.
Our Baseball Small Group |
The first
night after camp was over they broke us up in the small groups where we were
able to talk to them and see if they had any questions about the testimonies or
about what God had done in our lives specifically. We also asked them some
questions about what they valued most in life and what life looks like as a
teen in Croatia. The answers were pretty normal for the teen generation, the
most common answer was that they value soccer, girls, food, and their families.
Guy then got to ask them if they had ever heard of Jesus and that he died on
the cross for our sins. Most of them in our group had heard it before, because
they are from the Roma village where the missionaries to the kids club there on
a weekly basis. Our prayer there is that they won’t only have the knowledge of
the gospel, but that they will truly believe it. There have been a lot of
questions asked more privately by some of the kids at the camp to different
members of the youth group. It’s amazing to see them asking more deeper
questions and really trying to figure out why we believe what we believe, and
them noticing a difference in our lives than most peoples lives here.
Guy in his Slovonski Brod uniform |
Thursday
night we had a baseball game in a town about 45 minutes away, called Nova
Gradiska. It was the American team (the youth group from VA) vs. the Croatian
team (Slovonski Brod team plus Guy). We had a lot of spectators stop by and
watch, and another guy from the youth group was able to share his testimony in
the middle of the game.
Stories are
being shared, seeds are being planted, our prayer is that God will continue to
knock on the doors of hearts and draw people to himself. Please pray for the
people asking questions, who are so interested in finding truth. Pray that they
will continue to see a difference in us and the youth group here, and that we
will be salt and light at all times. Lastly, pray for boldness, that we will
not be timid when sharing our stories or the gospel with people when God opens
the door.
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