Vision Update 11

Monday, July 23
Well, we have returned to LA, some as late as 10 PM. We thank God we had a fabulous trip and did experience God in many ways. But first, here are some details of the last couple of days. On Sunday morning, we took our minibus to the Chinese church in New Belgrade, where we had our Sunday service. Sunday is the busiest business day for these Chinese merchants as they handle not only retail business but do the wholesale business as all the Chinese merchants all over Serbia descend to New Belgrade to pick up their wares for the week. That is why church service is in the evening on Sunday (Tuesday is their Sabbath but they do not worship on Tuesdays). We ended the service with communion, breaking a loaf of bread and dipping it into blueberry juice, It was a meaningful conclusion to our trip, except our mission isn’t over yet. We spent the afternoon finishing our debriefing and practiced our skits for the evening program. The skit practice is because there will be some of the same people coming from Panchevo so we modified one of our skits and came up with a new skit which we could do in Mandarin. Last night, over a hundred came for the meeting, including several newcomers. Jaspher shared, we did our skits, and after Pastor Darwin preached, Gloria gave her salvation testimony. When the invitation was given, 9 people responded to accept Jesus for the first time in their lives. At 4 AM this morning, we got up to check out and headed for the airport on two minibuses. We all got on the flight to Frankfurt (was actually on the same flight as the USA basketball team – they were all so tall!) and left from Frankfurt on different flights back to the US. Some of us were again waitlisted and some in fact got upgraded to first class on the return flight!

During the debriefing, several significant and potentially life changing decisions were made. One young man was quite distraught over where God was leading him for the future, having seemingly closed some doors on career options. A word was shared about praying for him to serve the Lord full time, and that seemed to resonate well with this young man. A second young man said he too felt called to become a Pastor and made a pact with this first man that “if you go into the ministry, so would I”. A third young man also felt God was closing some doors on his future career but was more than willing to go into full time if God calls him. A young lady felt challenged to come back to Serbia and conduct training for the Serbian youth to do VBS for the Gypsy children. These and other decisions would likely change the majors of several of the members in Vision. Indeed, God has met our theme for this year’s tour of experiencing Him and we praise Him for it. Thank you so much for your faithful prayer.

Looking back on the trip, we have seen so many answers to prayer. We had the healthiest trip in memory, with only a few problems with colds and coughs, stomach issues, and allergies, most of them lasted for only a day or two and did not spread to the whole team as in past years. Unity was excellent among the team members – there was much caring and support for each other throughout the trip. Although we had standby problems with the airplanes, we all got there and back together and only Nena’s luggage going and Amanda’s luggage was lost coming back. Ellison lost his camera but no one lost anything. Most of all, in my (Marshall) spirit. I sensed several significant breakthroughs in the spiritual realm, some that we might never know its significance until we get to the other side. These include:

• Participating with the Cerritos Chinese church planting team in Leskovic
• Encouraging the Protestant Evangelical churches in Serbia to be bolder in evangelizing and their young people to step out in faith
• Singing at the Roma Gypsy Cultural Center and opening relations with the Chinese
• Participating at the inaugural service at their new building in Vrnjacka Banja and seeing the Baptist and Pentecostal churches worshiping together
• Singing praises to God at Vrnjacka Banja’s carnival and to bring light in darkness
• Feeling the darkness in the Muslim Gypsy village in Nis, yet bringing salvation to more than a handful of Gypsies; then seeing Tiff loving a paralyzed 4-year old, kissing her and praying for her healing blessed many of the Gypsies who were watching her after the meeting
• Singing in the park in Niska Banja two nights in a row and sharing the gospel openly with the passer-by
• Encouraging the Chinese churches in New Belgrade and Panchevo after they lost their leader and sensing their great need for trained leaders.

One last item, it appears we will meet all our financial needs for this trip. Expenses have been significantly less than we budgeted while we were in Serbia and although we have not completed tallying all our expenses, it seems we will end up with a slight surplus. God indeed is faithful!