Happy Palm Sunday Everyone!
I must confess that when my team leader announced that we were going to be doing ATL in Serbia this month, I was the only one on my team who was not uber thrilled about have to do ATL again due to my God awful experience with it back in Vietnam, and I even said that if I ever got ATL again during the Race I was gonna quit as that was just how much I HATED my ATL experience in Vietnam for I felt like I was in hell during that time (and it carried over into Cambodia too).
I really need to fully learn the lesson of keeping my mouth shut as once again what I said/thought came back to bite me in my butt as the Holy Spirit had other plans, and not to mention that he knows my fears and failures, but so does satan, and both of them were messing with me.
Throughout the rest of my month in Albania, the 12 hour bus ride to Serbia, and the 5 days of debrief, and the 5 hour bus ride to Novi Pazar, all my mind was focused on was prep talking myself into being able to handle ATL, and not freak out about it. Some days it worked, and some days it didn’t, but I kept fighting all of the negetivity that was going on in my mind as well as fighting my own bias about the people here. In the end, my mind won, and I was convinced that I was just going to “go through the motions” like I did in Vietnam.
“The Lord spoke his word to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it, because I see the evil things they do.”
3 But Jonah got up to run away from the Lord by going to Tarshish. He went to the city of Joppa, where he found a ship that was going to the city of Tarshish.”-Jonah 1:1-3
Islam and Eastern Orthodox are the 2 dominant religions here, and to them the idea of being a Christian means that you are in some kind of cult. When I heard this I wanted to be like Jonah and run away from having to do what the Lord asked of me for I was freaked out, and I had totally written off this month last month. It took alot of encouragement from my teammates, and my friend to keep me from actually running away, and I arrived with my team in Novi Pazar, ready to face another round of ATL whether I wanted to or not.
When I finally arrived in Novi Pazar with my teammates, I was shocked to see that it wasn’t like what I had imagined the town would be like. Yes there were mosques and women walking around with the head scarf on, but not every single woman like I thought (and not being forced to wear one myself) were wearing one, but during our time here we have met some of these women through our contacts here, and they are normal friendly down to earth people, not the radical, infidel hating people that I thought they were going to be like (ok I know that is a bit extreme sounding but I blame the American media for putting those lies in my head post 9/11), so because of this my whole perspective changed, and I have allowed myself to put aside my bias, and see all these people as Christ would.
In our 2 weeks here so far my team and I have been so blessed by all the locals who have reached out to us, and wanted to get to know us as well as hang out with us. The main question that we have been asked is “Why Novi Pazar? since Americans are a rare sight here, not to mention 7 American gals who are Christian missionaries living together here for a month, so in a weird way we are like celebrities here in town, and I kinda know how Jesus must have felt whenever he arrived in a new town for the first time during his ministry.
Speaking of ministry, our main goal as a team is just to build relationships with the people, and plant seeds of faith in hopes that they will grow into something big here. We have been out to coffee more times then I can count with our friends that we have made, and have gotten so many people’s numbers. They have taken us to all of their favorite places to eat and have coffee, and shown us some of the landmarks in town. Overall this has been such an amazing month, and I looking forward to each day, and doing what we are doing here in Novi Pazar.
Oh yeah and about the fact that satan was messing with me, and what did I do to get rid of him?
I simply told him to “F off” and it worked for I have been enjoying this ATL month which is a total 180 from my ATL month in Vietnam.
Til next time your fellow sister in Christ,
Bonnie
Team SC
P Squad
Psalms 18:2
YOLO
