So, as I have said, we’re right in the north of Serbia, close to the border of Hungary and I’m told when some people migrated here from Hungary they didn’t realise they’d crossed the border because so many people here are or speak Hungarian. Church services are delivered in both languages and one thing I’ve noticed is that Serbian has both a Cyrillic alphabet and a Latin alphabet and so things are written using either or. For example, Bibles:
These are both Serbian New Testaments, just with the different scripts used.
We’re with a ministry that belongs to Campus Crusade (although they can’t go by that name here because they are not technically allowed to evangelise on campuses, so they are FOKUS) and we are the first World Race team they have had. We are connected with a man named Pedja who unfortunately doesn’t speak English so we speak through his wife, who is pretty much now our contact, Angela (and they have a six year old daughter, Talia).
Her father is the pastor of a church and it is in his house, directly next to the church, that we are staying – we have the top level of the house and are split across three bedrooms (Dusty and I get beds consistently whilst we’re here! For the first time in 4 months!) with two bathrooms to share.
The kitchen and dining rooms (and others) are in the downstairs of the church and the services take place upstairs.
Similar to Bulgaria we are spending a lot of our time doing visits to communities and taking services. We speak about who we are and what we are doing this year, we sing a couple of worship songs, a couple of us share a bit of testimony of our lives or specifically from the race, and someone gives a message from the Word. This month we are also working in the use of short skits where we have the space to do so.
It’s great to come out and minister to these communities and share in the life of the church with them.
We tried to go out for a walk around the lake the other day, but within ten minutes of arriving the heavens opened and down it poured! It’s funny because the day we got here was very warm and I thought “Darn, I should have sent my winter clothes home from Sofia”, but the next day it poured and it’s been really chilly outside (even inside the church building, although our house is warmed) and so I have no regrets. We may go back on a day off and rent a couple of pedal boats for fun 😉
