Since we went to the mahala last night in the dark, I really didn’t get to see the surroundings. I had a more eye-opening experience today as we went to a mahala in the daylight. My first impression was, the further you got out of town, the poorer the houses became.
We were greeted by children . . . and turkeys! As we were trying to gather the children to sing with them we noticed that many adults were standing around the edges of the crowd, listening to all that was happening. While we were singing, the turkeys were harmonizing in the background.
A lot of the children were not properly dressed for the weather, which really tugged at this mother’s heart. It did make it clear that everything we were doing with and for them would be a true blessing. We were able to distribute the hats, school supplies to older children and toys to younger children, as well as blankets to babies.
We also saw the possible setting for a children’s ministry room, upstairs in an abandoned building. The room had a dirt floor, but was large and had lots of natural light from the cracked windows.
Dragan and his wife Suzan graciously invited the team into their home for refreshments and conversations about future ministry possibilities in the village of Recica. We left these possible “people of peace” in the village as the sun was setting behind the mountains.
From there, the team split into two groups. Our team went to observe an operating greenhouse started by the Teach A Man to Fish program. Because the sun was setting, we entered the greenhouse first. We saw rows of spinach in two different stages of growth. I was amazed at how deep the greenhouse was — how far it went back. We also saw supplies used for other crops, such as peppers.
We visited with the family that runs the greenhouse. I have been very touched by how everyone has been so gracious to invite strangers into their homes and treat them as family. The first thing they asked was for us to pray for them. One of their children is nearly blind in one eye, and the other one had stitches from an axe accident. We talked and prayed with the family and shared a little about how God called us to Serbia. The verse that stood out to me in my quiet time this morning was Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth . . . and Serbia.”
After prayer and conversation, we distributed the hats and made a lot of pictures with this family and the neighbor children who had come over to receive a hand-knitted hat. When we left to say goodbye, it was like leaving our family.
The other group visited a home church in Toponica. It was a happy reunion, as we have visited them several times in the past. In the summer when we were there, the baby in the house was very ill, and we prayed for him. Today, he was all smiles, completely healed. His mother, grandmother and grandfather caught us up on their lives. It was especially powerful to hear the grandfather passionately declaring that he could not imagine how good his life would be if he had found Christ sooner. He is so overjoyed at the difference in his life in the three years since he became a believer that he cannot keep from telling his co-workers in the potato fields all about it.
It was dark as we rode back to Prokuplje. Tired and happy from our full day, we decided to have dinner in a familiar place — Segafredo. It was great pizza one last time. Tomorrow we leave for Pirot, the newest ministry location for Linking Partners.
