Our morning started out with coffee (when in Serbia . . . ) and fellowship among the team members, including Marijan and Slavica from Prokuplje, and Ivan from Pirot. Breakfast was delicious Serbian pancakes (palacinka) and ham and eggs. Bacon looks a bit different here, but tastes delicious. Afterwards, we walked around the city center a bit, getting an idea of the size of the town and the possibilities here.
We had a light lunch of soup, then walked back to the hotel to pick up our Bibles and materials for the Sisters Meeting. Twelve Roma women from Prokuplje joined us, and with those women, the team members, and the children present, we topped out the room at 20+ people.
We had four lessons in the Sisters Meeting. Teresa opened with teaching on a woman’s worth in God’s eyes. ReNata continued, talking on women in church leadership. We had a short break for refreshments, then LaJuana taught on women’s roles in marriage, and Lorie closed out with the Five Love Languages. There was lively discussion after the presentations, and all present agreed that the men needed a “Brothers Meeting” where the men taught them the same subjects from a male prospective.
We went straight from the Sisters Meeting to home church meetings. Again, we split up into two groups. ReNata and Lorie’s group had a great meeting with three generations of believers from one family in attendance.
Teresa and LaJuana were privileged to see God’s hand on the ministry in Pirot in two ways. First, we witnessed testimony about four generations of disciples making disciples. Marijan was at the meeting, and he has discipled Ivan. Ivan has discipled several men in Pirot, including Bojan. Bojan is currently discipling Zoran, from the village Crvena Reka about 40 km from Pirot. Marijan (1) to Ivan (2) to Bojan (3) to Zoran (4). The book of Acts being played out in Serbia, right before our eyes.
The second wonderful outcome of the meeting was that after we American visitors shared, Slobodan shared, and Marijan shared, then some of the members of the home group shared how their lives had changed since they became believers. Bojan said his life had “cleaned up” a lot in the past few months, and he didn’t even have a desire to do the things he had done before. During all this time, Marija was listening closely. Marijan, clearly led by the Holy Spirit, asked her if she would like to pray and become a believer like we were all talking about. She did, and right there on the floor in Bojan and Miljana, a new name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
We left home church meetings and went straight to distribute knitted caps to another group of children. They were so excited! It was difficult keeping order, but it was so good to see them so excited to receive what many children would see as just another piece of clothing — nothing to get excited about.
Home early, to pack and get a good night’s sleep before we set out for Temerin early Friday morning. Here are a few pictures that we found interesting from our day today.
