I have been meaning to write a blog about God’s provision and what happened once we set foot off the train in Osijek, Croatia, but my wonderful teammate, Tim, did such a great job I have decided to borrow his:)
“So a week and a half before we were supposed to be headed into Egypt, we got word that our direction was changing and that God had a different plan for us in October. It turned out that having 83 of us in the Middle East was not going to be the responsible thing to do for safety and logistical reasons. So with the Middle East delayed a month, being here in Eastern Europe, now with no set destination, we asked God where He wanted to send us.
Through prayer and seeking His voice it became clear that Croatia was where our team should head in order to pioneer new ground and find new ministry contacts and opportunities for future World Races. So it being a pioneer destination having nothing set up for us ahead of time, we jumped on a train and via a two day stop in Budapest, Hungary arrived in Osijek, Croatia knowing not a soul and having no where to sleep for the night. Praying on the train for God to provide for us and listening to Him for direction I heard in my head “follow the Croatian flags.” That was it. That’s all I heard. Kinda silly I guess but we went with it. So we walked out of the station and immediately saw a huge Croatian flag hung on the front of the station. Well we are at least in the right place I thought. 
Our first need was internet and sim cards to be able to get in touch with our leaders. So about two blocks down the road to the right we spot another Croatian flag and set out in that direction. There, just past it, is this little place that a young man has set up with computers and WiFi and right on the door is a Croatian flag. We are all starting to laugh about how this is working out and we go in to pay for some internet time to get in touch with leaders and potential contacts and research the area. The guy who owned the place turned out to be awesome, giving us directions of what is in the town and finding out that we are missionaries makes a couple calls and we end up hanging out with him and some Christian young people from the area that night. When we tried to pay him for the internet he refused to take it. He and some of his friends also ended up taking a couple of us to the super market and buying us a bunch of food and stuff. Whoa.
But back to the task at hand, we need sim cards. A couple of us head down the street and of course seeing another flag a few blocks down head that way. We come to a corner and look both ways and there to the right is another banner of red and blue with whit checkers in the middle flying in the happy afternoon sun and just beneath it is a T-mobile super center. With more laughing a teammate of mine says “ha, I like this game” and in we went to buy sim cards. We followed the flags back to the internet shop and ended up meeting with some other missionaries working in Osijek who offered to put us up at their youth center and we have been working with them here in northern Croatia since. It turns out that they are part of a union of Churches in Northern Croatia and we have already made some great friendships with churches in the area who need help from us and future WR teams.
Stepping off the train with nothing but a crazy idea from God that we will find what we need and what He has for us to do, we have so far been blown away by the provisions He has made. We didn’t have plans and arrangements getting off the train but He did. Yeah, God knows the plans He has for us and it’s as simple as listening to Him and Following the Croatian Flags.”
