The house church has four adults (Miki and Vesna, Sasa and Lidija Veselji) and six children including 15-year-old Milos among them. Since Miki and Vesna and Milos are in Germany, it means that we have one couple in that group (Sasa and Lidija) but much more children.
On 9th January 2015, we visited that village, This was our first visit in the new year and wasn’t only for a couple of people, but we wanted to say in public to all the people in the village that we didn’t forget them and that we want to continue where we stopped one and a half years ago.
I contacted man named Vlada (we used his electricity for evangelisation). Our plan was to share gifts to all children in village. Vlada prepared everything with Sasa, they made list of children, found us very good place, informed all people from village, welcomed us warmly – brought us juices, cookies, brought us heater (because it was cold that day). When some other people heard that our church is going to visit, they came to help this “action”, with preparation for sharing. One other man, also named Vlada, gave us an empty house to settle there and prepare all we need (knitted caps, presents, literature). We couldn’t even imagine that people from this place will be like that. Biggest surprise for us was that in all this organisation there were also people who are Serbian nationality and we are glad for that.
Before we shared presents, I had short message of love from God (John 3:16). After that we sang few children songs. Interesting situation happened when I started to talk about the Americans who made the caps. Some people, and a lot of children still remember songs from Olympics which we had a few years ago with the three amigos. There were a few girls who had come all four days and sang songs with us, and their parents were surprised positively when they saw that their children sing songs with pleasure.
Presents were given to all children in village, around 60 presents, and during our evangelisation there was around 30 children and as many adults. People were thankful because we gave presents to their children, and some of them called us to visit them more and to have a children’s program.
Our next visit was to Dubovo was on the 21st January. This time, we wanted to spend more time with Sasa and Lidija Veselji. For now we will gather in their humble house. Sasa told us that he has two more persons who would like to visit our church, but we didn’t want to hurry.
Sasa and Lidija Veselji have 4 children (Milana 13, Milan 11, Emanuel 9, Mladen 6) After talk with Sasa and Lidija we organised children’s class. Milana was in charge to inform children. At our first children class in 2015 there were 11 children. This we didn’t expect, but we were glad with it. This tells us that children looked forward to see us. I repeat that we weren’t aware how they missed us.
About school supplies which we shared to these children, I have one interesting story. From supplies that we bought two years ago, for children in Zitni Potok, we had left a few pencils, erasers, pens and pair of compasses. We had that in case of need. When last year we bought it again for Zitni Potok, there left some notebooks, sketchbooks, and rulers. Before we departed to visit we made six packages from it. But when we started class, we saw 11 children waiting to pray and to praise Lord.
When we started to sing, children were free so we all enjoyed the atmosphere. Sasa and Lidija were excited and happy, so they started to sing with us. After songs and prayers we split children in pairs. We asked them to answer us two questions:
- What do they liked the most during our visits earlier?
- Which lesson helped them to meet God better?
Almost all of the answers were same. We learned the most when we had club with Caca, Daniel, Cate and Bethany. There we all together as a team learned about God. Thanks Lord that they left positive impressions on those children, some of whom are now teenagers. Children remember them clearly. After we ended class, we knew that we have less supplies, we didn’t have enough to give to all children, so we made smaller packages for all children from what we had. Every child has got: three notebooks, two pencils, two pens, one pair of compasses, one eraser, one sketchbook, rulers and pencil box. Before we gave them, we told, that because they think about amigos and amigos think about them. That supplies, they got from friends from America who pray and think about them. Children asked us to thank you in their name.
This visit was really nice for us for more reasons. One picture you can see also a pregnant goat. This goat came in this family through a “Teach a man to fish” project. One goat they got at beginning of last year, and in a couple months they will have three goats. Even though these people live a humble life, they are responsible and take care of what they’ve got through this project.
Let God bless you and care for you!
Yours in Christ, Marijan and Slavica