After 65 hours, 4 plane rides, 3 taxis, 1 hostel and a very long bus ride, we made it to Bitola, Macedonia around 1:30am on July 7th. We are staying at the guest house of the Evangelical Church of Bitola. Our contacts, Pastor Josip and Bilijana, are amazing. They go out of their way to make sure that we have everything we need. I am excited to work with them and their church this month. We will be passing out flyers to invite people to church and also to invite them to the two week English class we will be teaching.
The first day here in Bitola, Bilijana showed us around the city. We walked around their Main St., the market and the park. The city is old and beautiful. I am already in love with the city and the people. The first night here in Bitola, we attended church. The people at the church are very friendly; you can feel the love that they are pouring out on you even though they don’t know you and can barely speak to you. During worship they sang songs in Macedonian. It was cool to see people worship Jesus in another language. Some of the songs we recognized the tunes and could sing along in English. Josh shared his testimony with the church and they expressed that they would like for all of us to share our testimonies over the next month. They also asked for us to prepare a song to sing for the church (even though no one on our team sings or plays an instrument). So towards the end of the church service, we stood up and sang Amazing Grace. Much to our surprise, they loved it! They asked for us to sing every week. At the end of the service, Paster Josip called the team to the front to pray over us. Our team stood in the middle and the Macedonian people stood around us with their hands on us. They prayed in Macedonian and someone translated to English. Their prayers were so powerful and passionate. It was wonderful to hear them pray in their language. You could feel the love and blessing they were pouring out over us. I am so excited to partner with them for this month.
This month you can be praying that God will use our team to bless and serve the church in any way possible. Pray that we would be an example of Christ’s joy and love. Pray that we would be an example that points to Christ and gives Him all the glory. Pray that God would prepare the hearts of the people of Bitola to hear about Christ and that we wouldn’t miss any opportunity to share with them. Pray that the city of Bitola will be impacted by our time hear. God Bless, Lyndie
