Vision Update 9

Thursday, July 19
After breakfast, we got on our rented air conditioned bus for the 3-1/2 ride north to Belgrade. It is 42 C (about 106 F) so we are so grateful for the bus. It turned out that Nena's brother Daniel was able to get a very good rate on the bus rentals so we paid a lot less than we had budgeted for the buses in Leskovic and vicinity, praise God! We got into Belgrade at about 1 PM and checked into the youth hostel, an old and elegant building but unfortunately, not air conditioned. No food is included in this hostel, so we are on our own. We ate lunch at a restaurant near the hostel, but it was so hot that we were more tired than hungry. After lunch, Pastor Darwin and Marshall finally found an internet cafe where they could send attachments, Vision's first update in three days. At about 3:30 PM, we boarded an electric bus bound for the Chinese church in New Belgrade. About 10 minutes into the ride, our bus broke down, so we had to get off, wait 15 more minutes for the next bus. Then we rode it for 5 minutes and had to get off to change to a regular bus. After 15 minutes, the bus came and finally got to New Belgrade. We walked to where the Chinese markets are located and were met by a young man from the church who hailed 7 taxis to take us to the church. This process took about 20 minutes. We finally arrived at about 5:45 PM at the church, a sanctuary after all our travels. There we found that Ellison forgot his camera on the taxi so we prayed for its recovery but by evening, there was still no sign of it. Worse, we found that 2 taxis took 8 of our members to a Chinese restaurant instead of the church. While praying for them, some church members arrived at this restaurant to make reservations for dinner and found them. We then did our daily devotions in separate groups, 18 (Daniel met us this morning at Niska Banja and came with us to be our guide) at the church and 8 at the restaurant. We then rejoined everyone at the restaurant where we were treated to our first Chinese meal on this trip, thanks to the church here. Interestingly, when we all got there, a power failure hit the area and the restaurant, which is A/C'd, got hot almost immediately. It wasn't until close to the end of the meal that power was restored, but much too late to cool down the room. We then returned to the church to join the young people (about 13-14 of them, women sitting on one side and men on the other) for their weekly Bible study led by Pastor Darwin. The rest of us met at an adjoining room to start our debriefing, sharing how we had experienced God personally this last two plus weeks. After the Bible study, their church members and leaders drove us all back to the hostel in 6 vehicles. We are so impressed and praise God for the love shown by this group of brothers who just met us for the first time today.

Friday, July 20
Today is another scorcher in Serbia. According to the locals, these few days has been the hottest days in their memory. Earlier, we prayed for relief from the heat, but it seems God especially brought this heat to us (what with the power failure and all the waiting for buses), that perhaps God wants us to experience Him through this trial, so we are praying that we will experience His grace during this heat, not to escape from it but to learn from it and appreciate God more. We ate breakfast at a nearby bakery with an outdoor sitting area. We had a choice of something like looks like Quiche filled with different things like spinach, ham, etc. and a variety of rolls. We then walked down to the subterranean railroad station. Located over a hundred feet underground, it was COOL! We rode the train to Panchevo where we were met by the local church leader, Mr. Chen. He led us through the Chinese market area where we talked to the merchants and distributed flyers announcing our concert at the Chinese (Kineski in Serbian) Church in Panchevo this evening. We sang in small groups when asked by the merchants and had a good time visiting. Some of them even bought ice cold water for us, which was so refreshing! About noon, we walked to the church building, located about 15 minutes from the market. The leaders of the church had lunch prepared for us, homemade dumplings, fried potatoes and KFC (Kineski Fried Chicken) wings. It was delicious. We are here to minister to them but we have been ministered greatly by their hospitality. It turns out that the two churches here in Belgrade were started two years or so ago by an Elder Chen from Taiwan, but the Lord took him home a few months ago. We don't know why, but the churches here have been struggling for lack of trained leaders since. This church in Panchevo used to have over 100 in attendance, but has shrunk to less than 20 since his death. We need to pray for these two churches and ask God to provide them the leadership they crave. We then debriefed the rest of the afternoon and prepared for our evening program. One pleasant surprise was to meet the wife of Mr. Chen (they were married a little over a year ago). She is a musician we met 3 years ago in Beijing at the music school. Indeed, it is a small world.