Vision Update 8

Monday, July 16

The church we sang yesterday morning meets in one floor of a house with space for at most 60 people. They had about 10 children for Sunday school. The 6 PM service was held in their new building, yet unfinished, but it is a much larger place and much more conducive to worship with another building in the back. They had been trying to work on refurbishing the place (formerly a restaurant), and decided to hold their inaugural service last night since we were here. The place was full with many visitors, about 100 total including Vision. Significantly, it marked the first time the Baptist and Pentecostal churches met together in worship in Vrnjacka Banja. Echo shared her testimony of how she learned to trust God for her school work and how God was able to help her not only pass her fourth exam of the semester (she had not passed the first 3) but get an "A". Glenna also shared her testimony how God took many earthly things away from her and her family but yet met all their needs in His own way. After Pastor Darwin preached from I John 4 about God's love, about 8-9 raised their hands to indicate a desire to get more of God's love, some for the first time. We praise God for this wonderful result. We then rushed back to the carnival for our 8:30 program. This carnival is sort of like New Orleans' Mardi Gras, with costumed entertainers and parades and is actually quite a dark and wicked event. Our singing here is to provide some light in a spiritually dark event. Tonight, there was even a larger and more enthusiastic crowd there than Saturday night, and we are reminded of the time we sang in an Urban poor town in the Philippines with a cock fight going on next door. Jesus must have preached many times to crowds like this. We didn't preach but prayed that many hearts were touched by the songs and will start to seek the truth. When we finished at 9 PM, there were many requests for us to sing more and the Mayor had not yet shown up so we sang "Lord, Have Mercy" and "The Lord Bless You and Keep You", our prayer for this place. Then Dillon and Jamie did the "give your heart to the Lord pantomime" which was well received. Since we sang later tonight than last night, when we sang, the air was thick with moths and other bugs making it difficult to sing with the bugs swarming about our mouths.. At the beginning of tour, many of us would have freaked out, but tonight, we kept singing ignoring the bugs. Two other notable event happened yesterday. Earlier that afternoon, Darwin, Meiring, and Nena went to visit one of the Chinese merchant, Gina Yeh, a 32 year old lady with two young children in China. They shared with her how to pray to Jesus and she said she is not quite ready to receive the Lord so remember her in prayer. Also, when she woke up from her nap in the afternoon, Czrilla felt chills so stayed home and slept the rest of the afternoon. After we returned from the carnival singing, Czrilla was fine already.

This morning, the Pastor and his wife along with one older lady from their church and Nena's cousin came to see us off. We had just finished our devotions when they came and thanked us for blessing their church. We gave them a love offering from Vision to help with their remodeling, and sang for the hotel clerk before leaving on our rented bus. Overall, this has been the healthiest Vision tour in recent memory, with only a few minor illnesses which were generally quickly healed. However, today, Pastor Darwin is hurting. He started hurting earlier on the trip in his back from sleeping on a soft bed and the last couple of days, his left side started hurting. He could not raise his left arm above his shoulder today. When we got to Niska Banja, we tried to find a Doctor for him but were unsuccessful. He is going to stay behind and rest instead of going with us to Nis this evening to sing at a poorer Gypsy village. He is also concerned with what to do with his aging and ill mother in Toronto and may take a detour when he returns with Vision flying through Chicago. Remember Darwin in your prayers.

After dinner, we (without Pastor Darwin) took a city bus to the center of town and walked about a mile to the Gypsy village. We were greeted warmly by the pastor and after a short worship, went into our program. Dillon shared how he felt God's love when given by a Thai believer and Slim shared how she was assured of her salvation. We performed the empty heart skit and the lamb of God skit and because Pastor Darwin was not with us, Marshall preached, using the passage from John 4 about the nobleman who asked Jesus to heal his son. Pastor Mio who drove up from Leskovic to see us translated for all the testimonies and message. Even though the message was short and simple, the power of the Holy Spirit was evident. When he gave the invitation, 4 people raised their hand to accept Christ, and then two more, and at the last call, another 3-4 also prayed to receive Christ. Praise God! After the meeting, Christine and several Vision members shared the beads with the Gypsies, teaching them how to use it to share the Gospel with their friends. When we got back, Pastor Darwin was up and about, looking a lot better, but Melissa had a very bad pain in her stomach, and a local Doctor had to be called in to examine her. She couldn't find anything really wrong with Melissa. We prayed for her, and in less than an hour she was feeling better.

Tuesday, July 17

It was a very hot day here in Serbia. We had planned to go to the city of Nis, where we were last night, to meet the Chinese merchants in this city but instead spent the day at Niska Banja, hand-washing our clothes and just limp from the heat. Darwin was examined by Nena's cousin who is a Doctor in town and praise God, they could not find anything wrong with him. Just as we were walking to the restaurant next tot he hotel for dinner, we were surprised to see Pastor Stefan with 4 of the youths from Leskovic, Tamara, Duke, Sara and Maria, who drove up to see us. What a joyful reunion we had. This is what heaven will be like, when we see brothers and sisters in the Lord. This evening at 8:30, we sang at the park (in the open air with not amplification) next to our hotel, arranged by someone from the ministry here. We were also taped for the Nis TV station and the "Good Friends" TV station in Serbia. Marshall was interviewed while Stefan gave a nice introduction o f Vision and translated. After we sang for about a half hour, we spread out among the crowd to share the 4-laws, aided by our Serbian youth friends. It was good to see how focused we were in trying to share the Gospel, using both the 4 laws and the good news beads. Even in small groups, they would sing to the people to whom they were witnessing. Meiring shared with a man in a wheelchair who knows God loves him but has not yet developed a personal relationship with Jesus. Pray for him as he took the 4 laws with him and seemed to be genuinely seeking. We also met the local pastor and his wife (Nena's cousin) whose church we will be visiting in Nis tomorrow. He said there are only about 200 Evangelical Christians in Nis (don't know if this included the Gypsy Christians), the second largest city in Serbia with a population of 350,000. This is even a lower percentage than we saw in Thailand last year. Surely, this land needs much prayer and revival.