Vision Update 10

Saturday, July 21
We found out that the temperature yesterday got up to 45 C (that's 110 F) but God had mercy on us, the church in Panchevo had air conditioning so while we were not cool, we were at least not boiling. Not only did the Panchevo church cook lunch, they also cooked dinner for us while we were debriefing. Pastor Darwin also spent that time mentoring two young leaders (both named Chen). We sat on the floor at the front to make room for the audience at our concert and the place was pretty full except for the first row of chairs so there were maybe 60 people there, some for the first time. Victoria and Jamie both shared their testimony and Pastor Darwin again spoke on love and forgiveness. Praise God, 2 people prayed to receive Christ at the end of his message. Remember the young lady Christine was talking to for two nights at Leskovic? She originally lived in Panchevo and has friends here and we heard today that she accepted the Lord! What an encouragement, this young lady was sitting by herself in the lobby of the Leskovic church while her husband (a believer) was going for training by the Cerritos team. No one could talk to her, but somehow, she and Christine connected and now she has also joined her husband in believing the Lord. Hallelujah! After the meeting, the brothers from the New Belgrade church again caravaned us back to the hostel in 6 cars and mini-vans. We are so blessed to be so loved and well treated everywhere we go.

After breakfast today, we rented a mini-bus to take us to the New Belgrade church. On the way, we stopped to see a newest and largest Serbian Orthodox church still under construction. We passed the parliament building, the Chinese embassy and walked through the most popular tourist spot in Belgrade which constituted our sightseeing tour of Belgrade. We then were met by several leaders of the New Belgrade Chinese church at the Chinese market, divided up into teams and walked through the two buildings housing over 700 stores to pass out flyers for our evangelistic concert Sunday night.. Our reception was similar to Leskovic, some welcomed us, some rejected our invitation to the concert, and some gave polite non-committal answers. We then walked upstairs to a small Chinese restaurant owned by a brother and ate a delicious Chinese meal. We then had about 45 minutes of free time and most of us spent it improving the economy of the merchants by buying different souvenirs. We were then driven to the church building where we rested for a few minutes before beginning our group devotions and continue our debriefing where we are sharing how we can bring these experiences of God back to LA. After dinner (all our meals here except breakfast have been freely given us by the local Chinese church in Panchevo and New Belgrade), our mini-bus took some of us back to the hostel where we started to pack up and get ready to leave early Monday morning, while the majority of the team were led by Nena and her brother downtown to do a little more souvenir shopping before returning.

Our plan for tomorrow is to be bused to the New Belgrade church where we will have our own worship service. We will finish our debriefing, and prepare for the joint (Panchevo and New Belgrade) evangelistic concert at 6 PM. We plan to be up around 4 AM the next morning to finish packing and catch our rented bus to the airport to catch our return flight back to the States, so this will be the last update from Serbia and a concluding update will be sent after we return. Remember to pray our Sunday night program and for our return. Although we all leave Belgrade on the same flight, we are arriving on 4 different flights and times back to LA. Some like Pastor Darwin will have to change his ticket so he can spend a few days in Toronto to visit his ailing mother and make some decisions how to proceed with medical treatment for her care. Tour may be over, but the work of God continues. May the Lord take the little we have done and multiply it for His glory.