Vision Report #4

At the Roma Gypsy service Sunday night, the place was quite full (maybe over 200 people) when the service started.  During the awesome praise time which was very energetic and heartfelt, more people came in so some of us in Vision had to stand.  We sang some songs alone and some with the Serbian youths and performed a skit with the VBS song "Come to Jesus" (we sang this song arranged for SATB by Marshall instead of using the VBS CD and performed the skit with a mix of Vision and Serbian youths, who turned out to be quite good actors).  Jeanine gave a wonderful testimony of how she was touched by Christ's love during her sixth grade retreat that led to her joining Vision so she could share this love with others. Michael then brought a powerful message from I Corinthians 1 (translated by Nena) about how God uses the weak and foolish things of the world to do great things for Him, using Vision as an example of how God brought a group of ordinary folks to sing for Him (instead of the world's way of using only the most professional and talented "dream team" to do His work).  At the end, he said he feels God is calling some in the audience to give their lives for cross-cultural missions so Mike boldly and in faith gave an invitation.  Two men stepped forward so Mike began to pray for each of them.  During his prayer, 4 more ladies came forward to dedicate themselves.  The Holy Spirit moved very powerfully during this time as the entire congregation stood to pray for these 6 as Mike and Pastor Mio prayed.   A couple of the Gypsy youth expressed interest in joining the music camp and we welcomed their participation. After the meeting, about half of the Vision team with a few Serbian youths did a prayer walk around the church, preparing the soil for the work ahead.  The area around the church was quite "dark" both physically and spiritually. Monday, July 21 – Yesterday was a wonderful day where we experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit and the release of God's anointing through Betty and Mike in two different and yet marvelous way.  We are so grateful that God is so good to us and for all of you for your prayers.  It is making a huge difference. After breakfast at 7:30 and group devotion, we debriefed (as we do each day) about the past day's activities and what we see God doing.  Many of us felt that even if tour ended today and we returned to LA, we would feel this has already been a good tour and we would be quite happy with what God has done.  But in fact, tour is really just starting with a full day of music camp today and tomorrow followed by all the concerts planned and the trip to Macedonia and Belgrade.  We look forward to see what blessings God is going to bestow on us.  He is so good! This morning, we were joined by three more Gypsy youths bringing the total of Serbian youths to ten, a number we are more than happy with since it gives us one translator for every two Vision members.  Not only that, we ended up with 3 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors, and 3 basses among the Serbs, a very nice core choir for anything singing they might want to do in the future.  God is so good!  Since the next two days will be heavy on practice, we will not be sending any daily reports unless something unusual happens. You can catch up on any missing items by going to http://visionchoir.blogspot.com