Jim, LaJuana, and ReNata will be spending 10 days in Serbia, traveling the length of the country to meet with Roma leaders in south Serbia, the Belgrade area, and throughout the northern area of Vojvodena. We appreciate your prayers during our travels.
We leave Little Rock and Washington DC on Monday, March 24, around dinnertime. We will fly through the night, meeting up in Munich, then traveling to Belgrade where we will meet Rodja. After checking into our rooms, and a brief period to freshen up from our 22-hour trip, we jump right into ministry!
We begin by meeting with friends Dane and Melita. Dane is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Belgrade, and a printer by trade. We will be talking with them about establishing a library both physical and digital, of Bible study resource books to be available to Serbian speakers. Please pray that there will be a good variety of books available, and that the cost will be affordable to make these study resources available to the growing number of home church planters in Serbia.
Wednesday and Thursday, March 26-27th, we will spend with Linking Partners’ Belgrade coordinators, Dragan and Danijela. They are a Roma couple with home church ministries in the city of Belgrade, and are planning to move to the city by mid-summer. Please pray that we will be able to speak to the right people to begin a project of cooperation between Serbs and a Roma mahala that are located in the same community. We have reason to believe there are Serbian believers who live in the area who are sympathetic to the plight of the Roma.
Pray for strategic planning for our move into the metropolitan Belgrade area with ministry to the Roma. Pray also for the home church leaders Dragan and Danijela already disciple, that we would have a fruitful meeting with them.
We travel south to Prokuplje late on the afternoon of the 27th.
Friday, March 28 will be very busy. We will meet with Marijan and Slavica, Linking Partners’ coordinators in south Serbia. On the schedule is planning for the summer short-term mission trip by FBC Sherwood, meeting with city officials, long-range planning, a women’s meeting in the church in Prokuplje, meeting with a home group in Toponica, and a status update on the Teach A Man to Fish greenhouse project. Pray that we will be sensitive to God’s wisdom in planning, in sharing with the various women’s and home groups, and evaluating the ongoing projects.
On Saturday, we will visit the site of the greenhouse project, travel to the village of Zitni Potok and attend a home church there, then return to Prokuplje where Jim will teach on Acts to the leaders Marijan has been disciplining in the city. Pray that we will bring God’s message to the people in each of these settings, and that they will be encouraged to reach out and evangelize and make disciples following the examples we see in the book of Acts.
Sunday, March 30 is a travel day, from Prokuplje north to Novi Sad. By this time, we will have met with quite a few of the Roma leaders who are working with Linking Partners, and ReNata will have been introduced to many facets of our work there. Pray that our conversations on the long trip north will reflect insights God has given each of us, and provide confirmation for current plans and/or ideas for new avenues God is opening up among our work with the Roma. A specific thanks to God for Rodja and his willingness to coordinate and then drive us all over the country is appreciated!
Monday, March 31 finds us in Novi Sad, the 2nd largest city in Serbia. Novi Sad is a university town, culturally sophisticated, and located in the midst of the Vojvodina area, which is much like the fertile farmlands of Arkansas. From Novi Sad, we will travel out of the city to villages where Roma pastor, Bora ministers. We will meet with the leaders he is discipling to become disciple makers. Bora covers a large area, and has done so via bicycle or bus, at a great cost to himself and those in the home churches where he leads. We have arranged for him to have a serviceable automobile, and look forward to seeing how that will expand his ministry. Pray again that God will lead us to the scriptures He wants us to share in these home churches. Pray for the leaders in each location, that through our investment in Bora’s life, he will in turn be effective in bringing them to the point where they replicate his example and identify new leaders to spread the gospel farther into the Roma villages.
During this time in Novi Sad, we will also meet with our website developer, Zoran. Pray that this will be a productive meeting, and that our English/Serbian website will soon be launched with the capacity to keep people up-to-date on Linking Partners’ work, store resources for the Roma leaders’ use, and take donations for ongoing projects.
Tuesday and Wednesday, April 1-2, will be spent with Rodja, his wife Natasha, and their daughters Teodora and Jovana. Rodja’s work in Serbia is invaluable to Linking Partners. As country coordinator, we depend heavily on his work and insights as we make long-range plans to achieve our goal of a Roma home church within walking distance of every Roma person in the country. Pray for a refreshing time together these two days. Pray that Rodja’s family will know how much they are appreciated, and how important their work is to the kingdom of God. Pray that we will each be sensitive to God’s leading as we pray, plan, and visit together, and that we will each be committed to our place in God’s plans for this mighty work.
Thank you for your prayers and your love for these precious people in Serbia. As we go, we really do take each of you with us. And as we share in each of these contexts – in villages, with leaders, about the Teach A Man to Fish project, with government officials, you all are on our minds, and in our conversations so that everyone knows Linking Partners isn’t just the people they see in front of them, but so many back in the United States who love Serbia, who love the Roma, and who are committed to bringing the gospel to the Roma and to Serbs.
