Macedonia Day Four

Tuesday, September 17
Psalm 33:3 "Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy."

Dobro popladne (Good afternoon) readers. Thank you for those of you reading this blog. We are so appreciative of your interest in the details of our trip. On our last blog entry we shared about a unique opportunity that Ron and Lisa were given yesterday with a local television station here in Skopje. Part of the purpose of our Macedonia Mission Trip was to help Ron and Lisa build relationship and connections in Skopje. Our team is doing this through Free English classes, called American Week with the non profit organization, Let's Talk. Our team has been praying that the Lord would use us to help them build these connections. Well yesterday while we were having lunch, Lisa receives a call from the television station about the American event this week and they wanted to know more of the details and why Americans would come to Macedonia. Heidi Barrier, Lisa and Ron went down to the Let's Talk building this morning for the interview.  Wow! the Lord answered this prayer in a creative way. The segment will air tomorrow all through Skopje spreading the word about America week.  

After the taping, our team met together for our daily morning devotions. We began by singing to the Lord and magnifying His name. Then Morris led us in devotions and reminded us of 1 Corinthians 3, that we get the opportunity to plant some seeds of the gospel this week. Though we may not see the fruit in one week, we can continue to pray for Ron and Lisa to water and tend to the plants growth after we leave. Our team agreed that being here this week helps us better understand what our missionaries go through on a daily basis. It's hard work! We, as a team pondered & reflected the work that the Lord gives us back home in Texas. The question we should always be asking, how am I living missionally? 

After our devotion and prayer time, our teams split up and did another prayer walk toward Link Across, a non profit organization that helps in mentorship of Macedonian small businesses. We had lunch there with the workers and Clay, the President helped us better understand how this organization can spread the gospel through Biblical applications in business and Proverbs- Linking, Developing & Flourishing. 

One fun opportunity that my team had (Morris, Denise & Melissa) was while we were praying on our walk was that we asked the Lord to give us an opportunity to share with someone on the street. Well, one of our team members wanted to buy a Coke so we stopped by the little street mart and met the owner, Igor. We had such a nice conversation with him and shared about our English classes tonight and invited him to come. We also shared with him about Link Across & he was super interested and wanted to learn more. We are praying that he will come.  

After our lunch, we walked back to the apartments to prepare for our first English Class tonight. The topic will be "Your Family". Lisa helped our team prep with the questions presented and how we would conduct the classes. Each person on our team would be paired by two with two guests at each table for the evening of English Conversation. We were a bit apprehensive as none of us are ESL teachers, but guess what? we've got the Holy Spirit indwelling inside us and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. With this attitude in mind, we had a bit of some free time to explore the city and grab some dinner before our class. 

We had a blast serving in a new experience with our English students always being ready to share about the hope that we have in Christ. We weren't able to take pictures of everyone present, but we did take a few from our first evening.  We will continue to do this for the next few evenings. We'd love for you to pray for more students. A few that we invited did not come. We learned that in Macedonian culture you have to invite the person three times before they will come. Our team will continue to keep praying and sharing. We'd love for you to join us in lifting this request.

One fun sharing moment a table, was from a lady named "T". The table was discussing adjectives and she was describing  that her father was very good about thinking about other people. T asked about an English adjective word & the word given was humble. She asked for the table to give an example of the adjective humble. Then the table to proceed to share that Jesus, God's Son was humble to the point of death on a cross. It's moments like these where English class can bring moments of sharing Jesus. Please pray for more of these opportunities over the next few nights.  Se gledame utre. Dobra nok