This is our last day in Leskovic. Tomorrow, we will bus to Vrnjacka Banja where we will stay for two nights. From here on, we will be living out of our suitcases until we return to LA and may be unable to send email reports back as often. Continue to pray for the health of our team members as we have been here for about a week and getting tired. Gloria and Victoria seem to have most of the bug bites, but that seems to be more or less controlled, but several have stomach and sinus problems, nothing serious so far, praise God.
Slim did a wonderful job directing Vision last night at the Thursday night Serbian service. She introduced the songs and transitioned between the numbers, testimony and skit flawlessly, as if she had been doing this for years. Gloria shared from her heart about her search for God and finding His love. Pastor Darwin gave another powerful message, this time from John 5 about the healing of the paralytic at the Sheep's Gate. Everyone in the audience of 60-70 (including us) were touched.
After the service, Pastor Darwin, Nena, Marshall and Meiring then spent over an hour talking and then praying with Pastor Mio, his wife Else and Pastor Stefan. (Mio is the former Senior Pastor of this church, now officially retired but still actively involved and they are Stefan's parents.) Mio shared how a little over 30 years ago, while under Communist government and with a membership of 30, God gave him a vision for a church of 30 times 30 or 900, as well as having a multi-ethnic church with Serbs and Gypsies. The Serbian part of the church still has less than 100 people, but God brought a deaf mute Gypsy lady into the church, miraculously healed her, and then many more Gypsies started started coming and getting healed. This caused them to grow to about 1000 with 4 services on Sundays. Then about 3-4 years ago, the Gypsy Pastor leader fell into sin, caused the church to split, so only 100 Gypsies were left the following Sunday. But most of the Gypsies who left with this man have since back, asking for forgiveness, some as recently as last Sunday. Pastor Mio was deeply wounded by this man, who he treats as his son, but has learned to forgive him. Soon after this split, God gave Mio a vision for a church of 7000, and they have purchased over 2-1/2 hectares of land which we saw this morning, with plans to buy another 2 hectares for their new campus. The cost for two of the remaining 3 plots of land is surprisingly inexpensive, about $50,000 in US money and the third and smallest piece is priced at about $100,000. Parts of this last three plots of land is where the new highway will pass through, so it will provide excellent access to the church by both cars, bus and train. Where all the money is coming from, they don't know, but they have seen God move and provide just as they needed so they continue to walk in faith. When we saw this land, we were immediately impressed with its potential to be a center for spiritual revival for Serbia and maybe all of central and eastern Europe.
After lunch, the team went to the Chinese markets to again invite the merchants to come to our program tonight. We then practiced our Chinese songs and routines for tonight's programs under Slim's leadership. At 6 PM, we went to the Gypsy Cultural Center to perform a short program for the Gypsies. Its about a 15 minute walk from the church, and their new director is a member of this church. The room was quickly filled up and there were people standing everywhere, so there must have been over 100 people there (not counting us). The room is a solid rectangular room with a high ceiling so everything we sang echoed nicely. As a result, it was probably the best concert we sang. The audience responded enthusiastically to every song and our "dance" routines. Ellison shared how he carried bitterness inside for years while Jessica cleverly disguised the sinner's prayer into her salvation testimony. Pastor Darwin spoke briefly about forgiveness but did not give an invitation due to the fact this was the first such program at the Cultural Center. After the concert, we were invited to drinks and snacks. We then returned to the church to join the Chinese program, which will be reported next time.
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