We had our last week in Macedonia, and we got to finish with a couple of things. The two that stuck out were painting a tree at the church, and making a friend with a gal who has a disability.
Our host asked us to paint the church sanctuary last week and I asked if they wanted a mural painting as well. We figured out where they would want one and what it would be. They decided on a tree in the meeting/children’s ministry room where the pictures of the kids were. So Jordan and I set to figuring out what kind of tree would look good, what Bible verse would go with the tree, getting the paint, and starting this mural. Our host’s daughter helped us paint and write out the verse (first part of John 15:5) in Macedonian. We decided to paint an olive tree since those are more common since we’re in Europe, and they’re pretty biblical trees too. They are going to put the kid’s pictures in the tree so it’s like a church family tree.
Here’s a picture of the tree, even though we hadn’t completed it yet. Jordan was working on writing the verse because she has awesome calligraphy skills!
My ministry host in Cambodia (where we painted the big tree) told me to keep up the painting and to ask other ministries if they wanted something painted. That has stuck with me and has given me encouragement to seek opportunities to paint. I love painting and I love giving our ministries a little something new to hopefully bring beauty and creativity. You never know what will stick with someone and encourage them, so give out that encouragement!
One evening last week we visited a family who have two children with disabilities that make them dependent on their parents. The daughter is 22 and she can’t walk or talk very much but she understands everything that’s going on and has learned how to communicate very well. We got to take her out to coffee and it was so cool to see that many people knew her. She has an electric scooter to get around in, but even so it is difficult with a lot of hills and cars and obstacles in the way. It didn’t seem to phase her, though. We visited her twice last week, and whether we went out for coffee or just stayed at her house she was joyful. She can’t go to church very often but she will watch the pastor’s sermons on Facebook Live. Her goal is to one day learn how to stand and then how to walk. She is able to improve in her disability, while her brother is not. He is 14 and they said he will not be able to improve. Their mom told us that he cries a lot of the time, and that his hips are going out of joint so he’s in pain a lot. That first night we were there, Nick felt like we needed to pray for the son, so we prayed for the Lord to set his hips right and for him to sleep and not be in pain. We went to visit them a second time last week and the mom told us he had been sleeping well and had been doing a lot better. Praise the Lord!
This month is manistry month, so all the men on our squad are serving together at a ministry. That means the gals on the two coed teams are joining forces and becoming one team this month! We call ourselves NoBros. Although it will be sad to not be with the guys this month, it will be fun to be back with the gals.
Now we’re in Bulgaria and started ministry on Monday. This month we are working at two orphanages and helping our host run a VBS for the kids. One of the orphanages is for kids with disabilities and the other is not.
We have a big debrief at the end of this month and there are going to be quite a few changes, so more to come on that later!
Keep the faith,
Malia
