I saw a van roll by and the man in the driver’s seat looked really intently at us. I thought hmm, I wonder if that is Greg? We continued our chatting and after a while I look up the sidewalk and see that man and a woman walking toward us. I get very excited now, they approach our mob and walk right into the middle of it and stop, I asked
“Are you Greg and Lidija?”
“No, we are David and Winnie, but we work with Greg.”
What a relief, they had actually shown up, they were here and we got to talk with them about possible partnership on several levels. I was so excited. They explained to me that Greg had not been able to find the place so we would wait for him to get back to the spot where we were. Finally, up walks Greg, a taller man in a plaid shirt. We introduced ourselves and proceeded inside to sit down for a short talk. We talked about our journey, the vision of AIM, what a pioneering month is about and what types of ministries the World Race will partner with (mostly anything). They had a lot of questions (we were absolute strangers) and they told us about their vision for their ministry in Osijek. Toward the end of the meeting, they offered to let us stay at their youth center for the night at least that way we would not be camping and end up arrested or something.
So we figured out how to make this happen, they had one vehicle and several of our teammates had left to go to the church service with Davor. We loaded their bags up and left Joe and Stacy at the café to wait for them to return. Tamica and Matt left with Greg and their bags and the rest of us made the trek with Winnie all the way to the youth center.
While we were walking she showed us some of the left over damage from the war (bullet holes making walls into mesh, buildings with entire chunks blown out of them by a bomb) she talked to me about the kids and their reception of the gospel and how desperate they are for some attention and how spiritually hungry the young people of Croatia are, the effects of communism still remain and a relationship with Jesus is not always acceptable. She told me the story of one young woman who started coming to things at the center and her mother told them that she would rather her daughter be a drug addict than a Christian. So I am very excited about the possibility of developing relationships with ministries here and loving on people here and getting them plugged into ministries here that want to show them the love and hope of Christ and want to build the Kingdom for the glory of God.
Yet again we are blown away by God’s ability to floor us with his abundance. So not only are we staying here tonight for free, we are staying here tonight for free, there is wifi, a wii, a full kitchen, two showers, a ping pong table and life is good.
