A bit more details from yesterday is in order. First, Christine actually had the opportunity to share the bilingual 4-laws with four of the Chinese merchants in the afternoon. One was so happy talking to Christine she gave her the shirt Christine intended to buy and later all of them showed up at the meeting that evening. Second, the Gypsy Cultural Center is in the middle of the Gypsy village. The Gypsies tend to live as multi-generational families in large homes, some quite nice and some getting run down. This Gypsy village is reasonably well off as the people work seasonally in the different cities and farms around the area. The streets are unpaved and quite littered. In many ways, it resembled the better poor areas in the Philippines and India (from which the Gypsies originally are thought to have come). We felt very comfortable singing there, since this has been a large part of Vision's ministry in the last few years, among the poor and disenfranchised. In turn, we were warmly welcomed by this community. Only God knows what spiritual strongholds between the Chinese businesses and the Gypsies were broken down (because the Chinese businesses took away a lot of what used to be traditional Gypsy business). Third, the Chinese meeting was quite well attended, with some merchants we had not seen at these meetings before (including the ladies Christine befriended). A little girl (about 6) who Esther befriended when we were visiting the marketplace) also showed up with her mother. This little girl walked around the church looking for her "big sister" until she found Esther. During the meeting, David shared (he started in Chinese but got Jamie to translate the majority of his testimony) how he experienced God on this trip so far ¨C in living dorm style with 8 guys, sharing one bathroom, etc. Christine then led a workshop on speaking English while Jamie led one on child development for the merchants. Jamie ended up just answering questions from the parents instead of using the material she had prepared, but it was nevertheless a good experience.
We tried to leave Leskovic early this morning but the goodbyes, hugs and tears took a lot longer than we expected. In only a week, we felt so bonded with the Protestant Evangelical Church. On the bus out of town, we stopped by to show everyone the land on which the new PEC will be built and prayed for this project. We then took the three hour bus ride to Vrnjacka Banja, which turned out to be a beautiful tourist resort with its own mineral spring (but no geyser), large landscaped parks, brooks, and pine trees. There is a week-long carnival being held in town and the town is crowded with tourists and visitors. We are invited to sing tonight and tomorrow night at one of these outdoor stages. The local church here, pastored by a friend of Mio's welcomed us to town and provided a keyboard and microphones for our outdoor singing. Also meeting us here is Nena's cousin who will take on the role as our guide and helper (as Nena's brother, Daniel did in Leskovic). We would be lost in Serbia without all these friends and relatives of Nena's helping us. Thank God for them.
Wearing our dress shirts and dresses, we sang tonight at 7 PM (actually 7:15) for 30 minutes with no explanations of the songs or interpretation. There were several hundred in the crowd gathered around the stage area. Even before we started to sing, several Vision members and Pastor Darwin handed out the bilingual 4-laws. After we sang, most of us changed and returned to the carnival to mingle and share with people. Being Chinese in this predominantly European society would certainly make us stand out. Pastor Darwin and Nena visited two Chinese merchants here and had a chance to share in some detail with one of them.
Sunday, July 15
After breakfast, we walked to the PEC, a sister church of the Leskovic church in this city. We sang a little, but could not communicate well so we had the rest of our program preempted. Pastor Darwin as a consequence had time to give a long sermon on Luke 11 about prayer. We walked back to the hotel (we have a special rate of about $30 a person a day at the hotel including all the meals) for lunch and group devotion. Most of us are tired because there was loud music playing all night until 6 AM so we will rest before going to the new church building of the PEC this evening at 6 PM and the carnival at 8:30 PM.
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