Macedonia Day Five

Wednesday, September 18, 2024
                       What Is A Mission Trip by Team Member Alexus
What is a mission Trip?
Mission trips is not about how much you can suffer. But rather identifying the purpose of the mission trip and completing the assignment.
What is the mission? It’s not the sleeping on ground or staying in luxury homes but rather seeing the concern through God’s lenses and how can we partner with God to compete the assignment.
What to consider on your mission trip? The answer is “What is God showing you this place needs?” 
What is the mission? How is God trying to connect to the country he is sending you to? How can you be a vessel for Good to move through?
If there’s a problem God has the solution. So, what’s the problem and how is God showcasing the solution through you?
What is the mission for Macedonia? To till the ground and become a support system.

The words of Alexus are beautifully said and it's what we are all feeling on this mission trip. We are experiencing a day in the life of our missionaries, Ron and Lisa. It's been impactful. The ground here is so hard yet we have met some beautiful people and are moved by John 3:16, God loves the world, God loves the people of Macedonia and God loves the people we encounter back home in Texas.

We had another wonderful day in Macedonia. We started our morning with Melissa as she gave her testimony and shared Psalm 97 with us to meditate on.
Psalm 97: 9 "For you, LORD are the Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all"

Then we headed into the van and drove 30 minutes over to Ron and Lisa's first church plant, Word of Hope Church. We met the Pastors, Slavco and Pero and they shared their personal testimonies of how they came to know Jesus when Macedonia was Yugoslavia. The incredible statics is that there are only 3,000-4,000 believers in the whole country of Macedonia. It's hard soil, but God is moving. Our team was so encouraged. Afterwards we toured the area where Ron and Lisa lived for the first fifteen years of their time in Macedonia.

Our lunch was amazing! Lile, their former neighbor made a famous Macedonian dish, Polenti Piperki, stuffed peppers with meat and rice. We loved it ! The food here is amazing. Our team is enjoying trying new things to eat. Fun testimony, when Lisa was learning Macedonian, she met with Lile to practice her reading. Lisa would read Scripture to Lile. After many months, Lile, came to know Christ through this interaction. 

After our lunch, we headed back to our apartments and prepared for our English class tonight. The topic will be "Your Work". We prepped through the lessons and began working on our ideas for our American party on Friday evening. Sadly, the television clip from yesterday did not air today. We were a bit disappointed but trust the Lord's timing and leave the results to Him. Here's a few clips from tonights class and our prep team. 

As we conclude this blog tonight, here are a few things that we ponder as a team...
The bomb shelters that are still visible from the war, tons of animals especially dogs and cats wherever and you just park wherever even in the middle of the street- Enjoy these ponderings!