Final Vision Report

Sunday, August 3 - We got there about 4 yesterday and shortly after, Sarah, Maria and Misha were picked up a brother from the English camp.  It was hard to say good bye to these friends. The Chinese church in Panchevo cooked a great home cooked meal for us, many vegetable dishes, mostly grown in their backyard.  After dinner, we started the program about 7.  Joseph led the meeting and shared his testimony about how God took different hardships in his life to prepare him for more ministry.  Ellen preached an evangelistic message and 2 people accepted Christ while one rededicated himself to follow Christ after having backslidden.  Praise God.  Danielo took Stephanie to the airport so she could catch her flight to LA.  After breakfast, we took the bus to go to the Chinese church in New Belgrade.  On the way, we stopped at St. Mark Cathedral and later at St. Sebastian Cathedral, both large Orthodox churches.  There was a mass going on at St. Mark's, and a child dedication in a small section of St. Sebastian's (the rest of the church is still being remodeled).  We then completed our journey to the Chinese church where we held our own worship service with Mike preaching and sharing about how he learned to listen to God and be obedient.  We then continued our debriefing, ate lunch, and debriefed some more.  The Chinese church here is cooking dinner for us.  We also met Ellen Wu, on a short term (1 year) missions here.  She is from Canaan Church in Irvine (David Fan's church) and a friend of Lucy and Victor Chen.  We started our program at 7 with Joe leading the service again and Josh and Wahpui gave their testimonies and Ellen preached.  This meeting had been advertised as a musical outreach evangelistic meeting.  There were about 60 at the service and praise God, one soul accepted Christ when Ellen gave the invitation. After the service, the bus took us back to our hostel and left us to go back to Leskovac.  This bus and the driver has been with us almost the whole time since we left for Macedonia (except the day we went to Greece).  He is also a new brother in Christ.  We took a love offering for him, raising $86.  It was hard saying good bye to him too as we sang Tebe Poem (To Thee We Sing).  Joseph, Fiona is leaving early Monday for their vacation in Rome.  Marshall, Meiring, Michael is leaving a hour after to return to LA and Betty is leaving a couple of hours after that to return to LA.  The rest of the team except Nena is returning early Tuesday and will be back in LA at various times, depending on their connecting flights. Tuesday, August 5 - (Yesterday, Stephanie and Keiko arrived safely back to LA. This morning, Marshall, Meiring, and Michael returned safely.) In closing out our trip reports, we thank you all for your potent prayer support.  God was working so powerfully and we just followed on His coattails, picking up blessing after blessing. This has been one of the most memorable Vision tours.  God was so good to us and blessed us so much.  The team felt like a family, with everyone contributing from the youngest to the eldest.  There were almost no complaints and grumbling when meals were missed or delayed several hours, or there was not enough showers or water for showering. Each of us were stretched beyond our comfort zone, and found His grace sufficient for us in our weakness.  Fiona sang and eventually memorized all the songs adding to the soprano section, especially after Keiko and Stephanie left.  Wahpui was a wonderful role model for us in his enthusiasm to witness – to Serbs, Gypsies, Chinese, kids, adults, everyone.  During our debriefing time, we found out how God had instantaneously and miraculously healed one of our members of his headache and dizziness after prayer.  One spoke about how a couple of people irritated him during tour and how he was able to pray blessings on them instead.  A couple of the Vision members feel called to the mission field and one girl wants to come back to Serbia and work with the children. From an objective basis, we have so much to praise God and these stand out: - Wonderful responses in Macedonia with many coming to Christ and powerful meetings in Serbia among the Serbs, Gypsies, and Chinese - Great interactions during the music camp with the Serb and Gypsy youth - The enthusiasm of the Serbian youth for mission and evangelism as they led several children to Christ - Michael's wonderful preaching and stepping forward in faith to call people for decisions for Christ and to go out for missions - Good health on the part of just about everyone, only some minor sore throats and a few with some bad stomachs for a short time - Betty Anderson's anointed preaching and prayers which touched our team and more importantly, the pastors and leaders of the churches we visited God is good.  Thank you all for praying.  We each have our little stories of how we saw God work in our lives.  If you can make it, come to our Home Concert in Glendale on August 23 so we can share more about what God is doing in Serbia and Macedonia. You can catch up on any missing items by going to http://visionchoir.blogspot.com