Vision Update 2

Yesterday, after waking up and eating lunch, we went for the first time to the Chinese stores to invite the merchants to the Saturday night evening program. There are two buildings within half a kilometer from the church and a third a little farther away, so we spit into three teams with 3 Mandarin speakers per team to visit these stores. These stores are really little shops stacked next to each other, all housed within two floors of each building. Even though it is supposed to be air-conditioned, it is extremely hot and humid inside and only cool directly beneath the A/C vents. About half of the Chinese store owners were not very interested, saying they would come if they had time; but some of our team members did get to to talk to some of the store owners and did meet some Christians there, who were only too happy to talk to us. What was interesting is to see the store owners take our invitation pamphlet and discuss it with other store owners. Because we were still jet lagged, we did not last very long and returned to the church to rest.

After dinner at a nearby restaurant (paying about $4 a person), we returned to the church for our program where we sang for about 20 minutes and Jamie shared her testimony of how when she was lonely at a new school in Taiwan, she heard God speak to her and called her “precious”, and found God to be a personal savior for herself. Pastor Lao then spoke. All seemed to enjoy the program, wanting to stay and fellowship instead of hurrying to eat the delicious dinner the Cerritos team had cooked for them. There were maybe 15-16 guests there with a few new-comers.

This morning we sang at the Serbian Sunday service at our host church, the Protestant Evangelical Church of Leskovic. The congregation is fairly small (about 50 mostly older congregants but with several young adults and high schoolers), but very enthusiastic and warm. Czrilla shared about how God led her in His good time to attend the college of His choice and not her choice. Brian also shared how God rewarded his desire to come to Serbia (and thus missing his freshman orientation slot) by putting him into an earlier orientation class and thus getting into all the classes he wanted. Pastor Darwin spoke from Exodus 19. After lunch, Pastor Stefan gave us a short orientation into Serbian history and reminded us to be aware of how his culture would view our actions. Pray that we would remember this and not be loud Americans but Christ's ambassadors. We then practiced our Chinese songs and skits. Tonight we will be singing at the Roma-Gypsy service held at this church.