Hey everyone! My team made it safely to our third continent (Eastern Europe) and our sixth country Serbia! We went from mid 90’s weather in Thailand to 30’s-40’s in Serbia, it was quite the change! If you know me though, you know I love the cold weather and especially snow!
Our ministry this month is taking place in Novi Sad Serbia. We are working/ living at a local church helping with church and community events. We also have a lot of freedom in ministry this month to go out into the community, meet people, share Gods love and use our gifts and passions! I am extremely excited about this month and I have already met so many amazing people! You know me, the romantic, I’m already in love with Serbia and so ready to see what God has in store for my time here!
With that said, we had a cool opportunity to go and pray downtown this week and there happens to be a historical synagogue here in Novi sad. My new team has another Messianic jew on it and my team is very interested in learning about our history so we decided to start our prayer walk there.
The synagogue is said to be one of the largest non-active synagogues in Europe. It was in active use from 1909 to 1941 until Serbia was invaded by Germany. Before the second world war, there were 33,000 Jews living in Serbia. About two thirds of Serbian Jews perished in the Holocaust.
When we first arrived the synagogue looked closed up and no one was around so we decided to walk around the outside and pray. Our team was rounding the last corner of the building when we ran into a kind security officer who offered to let us in by showing his key, seeing as we couldn’t understand what he was saying in Serbian.
As my team entered this beautiful building that use to echo praise, prayer and reverence for God, I was met with the most heart breaking silence. I stood shocked, my teammate Miranda burst into tears. We wrapped our arms around each other and prayed.
God started speaking to my heart about the beautiful worship that use to take place here. Singing, dancing, prayers and reading of scripture and now it sits empty.
It was in that moment I felt like God asked me to sing the Shema which is a Jewish prayer song ( Shema means to hear.)
English translation of the Shema.- Here oh Israel the Lord your God, the Lord is one, Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever Amen
I paused for a moment fighting my flesh, fears of being embarrassed by messing up the words or not having the greatest voice flooded my brain but as I stood trying to ignore Gods request my eyes stung with tears at the unbearable silence, my flesh died to my great reverence of God and His worthiness of praise. So I asked my Messianic teammate to go to the front with me as I sang the Shema and she had it on her heart to sing the Aaronic blessing. Here is a video of us praying there.
It was a special and powerful moment that I can’t really put into words, I’m so grateful to my wonderful team who had it on their hearts to go and pray over this place!
Here is a link to one of my teammates blogs about this experience. She writes about it so beautifully! http://averiwing.theworldrace.org/post/i-cried-in-a-synagogue
Fundraising update! I am too close to being fully funded! In order to stay on the field and continue serving I need to try to have the remaining $1,356 in by the 25th of March! Thank you to everyone who has sown into this trip so far it wouldn’t be possible without you! <3
I’ll be updating you again shortly! Love and blessings~ Megan
