Today, we went to Mladenovac, to visit a Roma community made up of both small houses and storage containers turned into homes. The community flooded in mid-May, when Serbia was hit with floods higher than any since records began being kept 120 years ago. This morning, Serbian Pastor Dragan Stanojlovic was awakened by a phone call from a resident of one of the homes. The elderly man was crying, telling Dragan that his house was flooding once again, and he didn’t know how he could survive losing everything yet again.
It was raining very lightly when we arrived, and we stood around outside for a while, talking with the people. They were surprised when Caitlin counted for them in the Roma language, and even more surprised when the group from the USA sang an entire worship song in their language, with Daniel playing Nenad’s guitar while we sang.
We went inside one of the homes, and found everything neat and clean. The mother explained to us how she took the rugs from the floors outside once a month and washed them and let them dry in the sunshine. Their homes show great creativity and pride, and we are always welcomed with generosity — coffee, Turkish tea, and other treats.
After our visit, we distributed some humanitarian aid Pastor Dragan had arranged. It was much appreciated by the families in the containers. We walked a short way down the road to another area where there were homes that were 20-60 years old. These were also suffering flooding, and we spent some time talking with, then praying for a family who had been moving their belongings to higher ground. They showed us where they had begun to repair the damage from the floods in May, and now the walls are wet from flooding rising in the house again. By this time, a group of children had gathered, and they sang joyfully for us. They were very happy to have their pictures taken, especially when we turned the camera around to show them the picture after taking it! We are all just in love with these beautiful little ones.
We returned to Dragan and Danijela’s flat and had another delicious dinner Danijela prepared for us. Afterwards, we continued with two more lessons from the Multiply study — The Command to Make Disciples, and the Heart of a Disciple Maker.
Tomorrow morning we leave at 3:30 a.m. for the airport to return to the USA. Our hearts are full. I leave you with our reason for coming on this trip:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)
