Vision Report #7

Friday July 25 – After a day of practice, we went to the Roma Gypsy village in Leskovac to sing.  The main group walked there to interact with the Gypsies and play chess with them while the elderly group (Marshall, Meiring, Wahpui, Ellen, Betty and Nena) went to Pastor Mio and his wife Else's home for dinner.  They were then driven to the Gypsy village for the meeting which started at 7:30.  At about 7, it started to rain heavily and we prayed for the rain to stop.  Turning the corner to the Gypsy village is like walking into a different country, but we felt so welcomed by everyone we met on the street. We later found out that this village is maybe 10% believers which explained why we did not feel a lot of oppression although we did feel some spiritual warfare going on.  Instead of singing at the social hall (where we sang last year), the Gypsies had built a stage in front of the porch of a believing Gypsy's home that extended out about 15 feet from the porch (the porch is about 15 feet wide and 7 feet deep.  Just as we started to sing, it started to rain heavier so we just moved back and sang from the porch area.  The audience of well over 250 plus maybe 50 children, all stayed through the whole program, although we had to cut the program short since with the dark rain clouds and rain, it started to get dark about 8:30.  Since this area was provided to the Gypsies by the Serbian government, they asked us not to preach but just sing and give testimonies and skits.  We complied, but Long, Tanya (a local Serbian college student who had been with us the whole music camp and Pastor Mio's grand-niece), and Keiko gave their testimony which contained the essence of the 4-Laws (God has a plan for you, but sin separated us from God, Jesus is the only way and we must receive Him by faith).  After the singing, we were treated to a wonderful dinner served by the Gypsies in the social hall.  We also sang some more after dinner and then the Gypsies sang to us a couple of rousing choruses.  It was now raining heavily again (the Lord did hold off the rain until after we sang) so we had to wait for the church van to transport us back the church in small groups.  While waiting, we saw a lame man and felt led by the Lord to pray for him.  So in faith, we (Mike with Tamara translating) prayed for his healing, both in his lame leg and for a heart problem he had.  It was our responsibility to pray when the Lord leads us and healing is the Lord's work.  Mike also prayed for an older lady who was one of the first Christians and started the work there.  They were both blessed while all of us felt most blessed to have gone there.  After we came back (actually during the singing), Janine felt ill (probably from something she ate) but felt somewhat better after throwing up.  Remember her in prayer. Saturday, July 26 – Janine is better this morning and ate a banana for breakfast without feeling ill.  We had our daily devotion and debriefing time where we shared what a great experience we all had last night.  We were told that of the 5000 people in this village, only 10 had jobs while another 10% had some government assistance for living.  In the midst of such abject poverty, we marveled how they could afford to cook such a wonderful meal for us last night.  They are like the poor widow with two mites who gave it all to God (in this case, we were the fortunate recipient) while we are like the Pharisee who had so much and gave a token.  Nevertheless, we collected an offering among us to give to the Gypsies through the church here. In the afternoon, the rest of the Serbian youths joined us for some polishing up of our music.  We then spent some time to get their feedback on our music camp.  They expressed their appreciation, including the time they had spent with us during devotions and prayer.  They also suggested we have more fun times, group games, and physical activities together.  After practice, we walked over to the Serbian Orthodox church in Leskovac to see what it looked like but the sanctuary was locked, so we walked back to church to play some group games.  Tonight, we meet again with the Chinese congregation where we will sing for them and they in turn will sing for us.  Tomorrow, we sing for the Serbian Sunday service (Betty is preaching again) and we will leave immediately after lunch for Macedonia.  It is about a 4 hour drive there and we will be singing in 5 different venues on the 5 nights we are there beginning with a 6 PM service Sunday night in Stip.  Email may not be readily available so even though you don't hear from us, keep praying. You can catch up on any missing items by going to http://visionchoir.blogspot.com