I greet you in the name of Lord Jesus Christ.
With Caca and Andrija (my son) I visited brothers and sisters in Pirot, and what has happened there was really special and we are thankful to Lord for His Grace and opportunity to feel here on the Earth taste of Heaven. First, I’ve met Ivan and Srdjan. We talked about our plans with team which comes. Since one part of the plan is to have English course with team for Roma children, our plan was that it happens in the middle of Roma settlement where there is already room for these kinds of workshops. Together, we visited president of Roma association, who is responsible for that room. (school)
He welcomed us nicely, talked to us and of course he accepted proposal with encouragement. We just have to meet with him again to schedule the date, when we will start with realization of our plan. Thanks God for His Grace. After that, we visited home of Srdjan, which is in Roma settlement in Pirot, and there were some persons who wanted to see us. For short time, almost all who are coming to church, knew we came there, and they came up to see us. Also, we met some new persons, since we were standing on street couple of minutes (in front of Srdjan and Najdan’s home) and talked to people, since Ivan arranged service for 17h, we just had enough time to go and take Ivan’s family in village.
Meeting Ivan’s family was really blissful. Since all of them were ready for departing, we used time and while we were in their home, we prayed all together. When we came back, rest of the brothers prepared everything (made bricks for sitting, planks, blankets so people could sit) for the start of service in house of Najdan and Dragana. (Dragana is converted with first group, and later she brought her husband to church). When we came, room on the floor was full of people waiting for us.
While Ivan talked with people, and welcomed them, I choose opportunity and in hallway with few young people from Pirot, practiced songs for worship. Andrija (my son) was great help here. Before service, few persons prayed – Lord thank you for our Pastor, thank you for our brother and his family who came to talk about you – that’s how one sister prayed for us. And it was great encouragement for me, and we didn’t yet started with service. I just thought – Lord, you blessed me much till this moment, I am sure, you want to do something more. When we started to sing, they all started to sing in one voice and praise Lord with song – Devla bical do duho akana – it was flowing through the room, where almost 40 people were. During praising, there were a lot of tears shed, a lot of prayers, great anointing and presence of Lord. That was only preparation for what was in front of us.
Since I knew, that is new house group, and that they started short time ago to collect contribution (Ivan did a great job about it), I was thinking if its right moment to talk about giving (because during our talk in Srdjan’s home, people told us how they don’t have job for long period etc…) I am not sure, neither in this moment, how i started to preach about it. I spoke from two texts, 1. Kings 17:10-15 and Luke 21:1-4. At the end of the preach, I called all for repentance – they all stood up.
On that service, 17 people repented for their sins, and accepted Jesus in their heart. All what I could more write about this would be insufficient. Only one I want to tell – if then I didn’t commit my plan to voice of God, I would miss His plan and will (in spite of listening stories about people who lost their jobs etc) and that is the worst what can happen to me. After the service, in that atmosphere we could feel presence of Holy spirit, brother love, spiritual happiness, freshness.. We weren’t able to go out from the room immediately (even I needed it, because it was too stuffy) because questions started, about baptism, wedding, visit etc.. Since I was too weak, Caca helped me and answered it. After that God didn’t stop with making us amazed and blessings.
On that service was one man, named Zoran (25) who gave his heart on that service to God. Zoran is from village named Crvena reka (red river) and its 40 km away from Pirot. (I didn’t have time to ask for details, he just said Ivan spoke to him about God). Zoran has wish to visit him in his village because there are at least 50 Roma people, who have never heard about this. It is interesting how Zoran heard about Lord, church… Bojan (one of those who are coming to meetings regularly with their family) talked to Zoran by phone about God. After that, Zoran came to prayer meeting in Bojans house, and since then he is talking with Ivan by phone and talk about Lord. After all of that, we went to drink with Ivan’s family, where talked about service, baptism and a lot of other things. Our day finished at 23:30. And we are not complaining, but we are happy because we could be part of what God wanted to bless.
Yours In Christ, Marijan and Slavica