Vision Report #8

Sunday, July 27 – Pastor Mio explained one of our questions, how the Roma Gypsies could afford to feed us such a fabulous meal Friday night.  The money for the burgers came from the Serbian government (probably the city), but the snacks and cookies were all offered by the villagers themselves.  Even that must have been a large part of their annual income.  We're humbled by such generosity. We sang for their Sunday Serbian service this morning and Betty preached.  After a quick lunch, we left about 1:20PM for Macedonia .  About an hour later, near Vranje, we had to wait almost 45 minutes while a minor (no one seriously injured) car accident was cleared up.  We got to the Macedonian border about 4 PM and it seemed it took forever for us to clear the Serbian border and then the Macedonian border, so it was almost 5PM by the time we left.  We finally made it to Stip a few minutes after 6 (Meeting started at 6), getting a little lost along the way.  Betty had reminded us that we were going to a new enemy stronghold and should expect opposition and it seemed the delays were to keep from making our meeting, but we rushed out of the bus and did not even bother to change to our Vision outfit but just showed up to sing.  Tania gave her testimony in Serbian (Macedonians understand quite a bit of Serbian) on her first witnessing experience the other night and Mike followed up with a strong message from Matthew 5 about being salt and light o encourage the church.  This church is a very nice church with a good mix of old and young.  The place was quite packed with maybe 80 people.  They have a youth Pastor who translated for us.  He is only 19, married for a year, attending seminary and serving in two churches.  We finally walked to town, cashed some money from the ATM, and ate dinner at about 10.  All the young people stayed to pass out invitations for our performance at the center of town tomorrow night.  They stayed at the church while the old people and Fiona and Joseph were hosted by different families. Stip is a beautiful town built on several hills.  One local told us you cannot take 10 steps without going uphill or downhill.  The streets are cobblestone and curvy, very picturesque.  The people are much more prosperous than Leskovac.  For example, the couple Marshall and Meiring are staying with are grandparents in their 50's.  Their son lives in a separate house built on top of their house and they take care of their grandchildren as both parents work, so it seems there is a lot more opportunities here than in Serbia.  Their house has a high speed internet and computer. You can catch up on any missing items by going to http://visionchoir.blogspot.com