Weekend in Negotino

Every Tuesday and Saturday, we have had the privilege to teach English classes in Negotino. Brittany has been teaching the beginners, with little to no English understanding. Dustin's class is more conversational for Macedonians who know the foundations of the English language. Brittany is teaching the basics of grammar (alphabet, numbers, simple sentences and basic English phrases) and Dustin is helping his students speak English correctly (reviewing more advanced material and helping them with more advanced conversation exercises). Brittany has about 15 students and Dustin has around 13 students. These classes started at the beginning of October and will continue until the end of December. This is a great tool for the church as many people do not trust the protestant church. They call the Christian believers "New Faith People" and say that we wrote our own Bible. The majority of people in our groups have never set foot in the church, so it is great to get the word out there about the Evangelical Church and show them that we are just normal people. Please pray that our student's hearts will be open to hearing about Jesus and will want to visit the church on Sundays.
Also, our youth group has been going strong. We still have around 5-10 youth but they are consistent and we are enjoying the time we have to teach them more about God. This past Saturday, Dustin preached a message about the importance of reading the Bible. As a prop, we painted a large, cardboard "Bible" and put things in it to represent what the Bible is. Some things in the "Bible" included: a flashlight, pillow, mirror, and instruction manual (to show that the Bible illuminates our path, provides comfort, shows us who we really are, and instructs us about how to live). Overall, a very interesting lesson!

Prayer Requests

If you think about it, please pray for the following needs for our ministry here in Macedonia:

1. Language Acquisition
We continue to have Macedonian lessons three times a week and we learn more every day. We are able to say many things, but the biggest challenge is understanding. Please pray that God will continue to help us learn the language at an accelerated pace. When it comes to one-on-one ministry, especially in youth group, this is a huge need for us.

2. Albanian Church Plant
We will begin to lead worship for a new church plant on the Albanian side of Skopje in a couple of weeks. We are specifically trying to reach out to Muslims, so we need both God's direction and protection. We are going to be learning songs in the Albanian language, so we need prayer for that as well. Please remember the missionaries, the church and us as we participate in this exciting new endeavor.

3. Girl From Youth Ministry
We have a girl who has recently been banned by her father to come to the church anymore. He has even threatened physical violence against her, her family and the leaders of the church. Please pray that God would intervene and that the father would not only have a change of heart, but come to know Jesus in the process!

Two Days, Four Cities

Last weekend, we had a great time traveling around the country for ministry. We started on Saturday evening in Negotino with guitar lessons and youth service. We had several visitors from Veles, along with our usual group, so it was a good crowd. Things are going well there as we continue to make improvements to our service format.

Sunday morning, we were in Kratovo to preach at the church there. We are enjoying getting to know Anita and the church there. We stayed and had fellowship over lunch, and walked around the city and talked. We will be doing our best to go and preach in Kratovo every month as we are able.

From Kratovo, we stopped in Stip and visited the church there. Several of the pastors in Macedonia have come out of the ministry of the church in Stip and we had not been able to meet anyone there until last weekend. We met with the pastor of the church there and spent a little time getting to know them. Unfortunately, we had to leave to get to our next service, but it was nice to at least introduce ourselves and meet some new faces.

From Stip, we traveled to Veles for the evening service. Pastor Dragan was out of the country, so he asked us to come and preach. We had a great time there as well. When we finally got back home, we were very tired, but it was a very exciting and productive evening for us.

Youth Ministry Updates

Well, much has happened since our last post. We are getting into the regular pattern of the school year, so we haven't posted much lately so that we don't get too redundant on our post. Almost every week, we travel out to Negotino for our youth meeting. Things are going well there. We have around 5 students coming on a regular basis. Each week, we try to add another element into the service to make it more like what we want. We have a good friend from Veles, named Borche, who comes out each week to interpret and help out on the praise team. Dustin plays guitar and sings, Brittany is on keyboard and vocals, and Borche helps on bass or guitar. It is challenging to concentrate on playing and singing words in Cyrillic at the same time. We try to learn a couple of songs for each service.

We arrive each week early to have guitar lessons with two of the teenagers in our group. Our hope is to teach them until they are comfortable playing on the team with us. So far, everything is going well with the lessons.

Our youth service consists of some worship, a game, some Bible quiz questions, preaching and prayer. We are teaching a series called "Kingdom Living." Last week, we talked about being a servant. In the next few weeks, we will cover the topics of prayer, fasting, worship, giving, and talk about what the Scriptures teach us about how to live in the Kingdom of God here on earth. We are excited about being able to work with these young believers.

We have had the great opportunity to meet many of the believers and church leaders throughout the country. It is exciting for us to feel more accepted by them and feel like we are actually a part of what is going on here. We talked with some of the leadership about an idea that we had for a short winter teenager camp, and we have scheduled a three day event in January that we will help coordinate. It is very exciting to be a part of the team. Pray that our numbers will grow so more will be reached.

Trip to Strumica/Hiking Mount Vodno

This past weekend, we were invited to come out to the city of Strumica to visit with friends of ours there. Strumica is located in Southeast Macedonia. We met Zivko and Stephanie at youth camp in Struga. They are the leaders of the youth in the Evangelical Church in Strumica. When we arrived, we walked around beautiful downtown Strumica, which is nestled in between mountains. That evening, we went to the youth service, where Dustin was able to preach the Word and sing a few of his rap songs. After service we were able to fellowship with some of the youth we had met at camp and meet a few new ones. We had fun getting to know them better and practicing our Macedonian. The next morning, we went to the village church outside of Strumica and worshiped with the fellow believers. After that service, we went to the afternoon service in downtown Strumica for a wonderful service. When the service ended, Zivko and Stephanie took us to see the church that is being built in Strumica. When completed, it will be a beautiful building. The only thing they are lacking are funds to complete the building. Please pray that God will give them the money to complete this church. After visiting with the head pastor, Pastor Toni, his family, Zivko and Stephanie, for lunch, we headed back to Skopje.

Yesterday, Wednesday the 26th, we decided to climb Mount Vodno with Caleb and Daniella (the White's teenage kids) to see the cross up close. We live at the base of Vodno and see the cross daily from our window. The cross is at the peak 1066 m up (3497 feet up). Eddie took us halfway up toward the back. From there, it normally takes two hours to hike up hill to the cross. It took us 2 1/2 hours to arrive. But when we did it was well worth it. The millennium cross is 66 meters high (217 feet) and is the biggest cross in the world. We took many pictures and rested, then, we started the climb down. We were supposed to meet Eddie at a hotel halfway down which would take us 1 1/2 hours. We followed the main road some of the time and trails the rest. We never saw the hotel and got lost several times on small trails. After curving down and walking straight down the mountain for hours, we realized that we landed at the bottom right by the White's house. By the time we arrived at their house, we had walked about 3 hours!!! We may not do that again for a long time, but it was worth it! Enjoy the pictures that do not compare to the real thing.

Seven Days of Youth Camp!

We just got back on Sunday (August 9th) from seven days in Struga at the Evangelical Church Youth Camp for all of Macedonia. There were about 100 students from all around the country that came together for this event. It was a great time for us to build relationships with youth and meet people that we otherwise might not have a chance to meet. We had a chance to really work on our Macedonian language practice. The students were patient with us as we stumbled and fumbled with our words. Quite a few of them spoke English and were able to help us understand what was going on. Every morning, we had breakfast and a worship service with a devotional message from different leaders from around Macedonia. We then broke into small groups. We helped to lead a small group of students who were 15-16. We shared about our lives, played games, and discussed spiritual things. Two of the students in our small group were students from Negotino, where we will start working every week in September. It was especially great to get to know them on a deeper level.

We had lunch and them free time until dinner. We went to the beach, out on paddle boats, played soccer (or football as it is called almost everywhere but the U.S.), badminton, corn hole, swam in the lake, played volleyball, video games and had organized team relays. It was a blast!




Every evening we had a worship service with a conference speaker. The theme of the camp was "What is my identity?" and we discussed with the students what the Bible says about who they are. The worship team was called Tora, from Strumitsa, and they were incredible. We then played games after the service. The last night, we had a talent show. The students asked Dustin to rap and he shared "Redeemed" with them.




We had at least two students ask Christ into their heart for the first time and had someone get baptized on the final day.



We also had a chance one afternoon to go to Ohrid and see a few of the historic sites there. There were several churches with artwork dating back to the 13th century and earlier. We also got to see an ancient fortress. It is the most historic part of Macedonia and the history of the country is fascinating.






It was an exhausting week for us, but one that was invaluable. Now we have friends around the country, and were able to make connections with many students and leaders. We were also encouraged to press on in our language study because there was much that we were unable to say that we wished we could. Overall, we are glad to be back in Skopje, and will be busy preparing for weekly youth services and other prospective ministries beginning this September!

It's still all Greek to me!

We had an incredible opportunity to help out with a youth missions team in Thessaloniki, Greece. Almost every Greek person will claim to be a part of the Orthodox Church, although very few are actually devout. A pastor there shared with me that around 98% of Greeks claim to be Orthodox, but if he had to guess, maybe 2 or 3% actually practice it. Protestant Missionaries are not allowed to move into the country for religious reasons because of the strong Orthodox roots. There was a team of about 25 students who came from the States to do ministry there. We arrived on Tuesday night(July 21st). If I wasn't confident to drive a standard before, I certainly got my practice. I (Dustin) drove the 10 passenger van that we have on the field for the team that week. Thessaloniki is a city with narrow streets on steep hills. By the end of the week, I felt like I could do almost anything in a stick shift.

On Wednesday morning, we helped to drive the team to a small gypsy village to start a three day Vacation Bible School type outreach. There were dramas, testimonies, dancing, games, Scripture reading, face-painting, snacks and much more. The kids really enjoyed us being there for the three days we were there.






Thursday morning we continued with the ministry for the Roma (Gypsy) kids. That evening, we split up into teams of 4-5 and each went to a different Starbucks location in the city. The students had passed out flyers earlier that week that advertised conversational English practice. After a while, our group realized that we would not have any takers, so we decided to go out and approach people with a brief survey about their culture and church participation. After speaking to a couple of young people, both of whom were not faithful to church, Brittany and I began to get discouraged, as our conversations were not leading to any deeper discussion. We decided to approach one more person on the street. She was a girl from Spain who was visiting Greece. We asked her about her culture and whether or not she went to church. She immediately opened up to us about her spiritual search and her openness to God. We told her, "We probably will never see you again, but we need to tell you that God loves you and sent His Son, Jesus to die for your sins." We were able to have a brief conversation about our beliefs about Christianity and then she had to leave for Spain. We believe God put her in our path to direct her toward Him. Please pray for her that our short conversation would lead her to think more seriously about Jesus Christ.




The following night, we teamed up with a ministry in Greece called A21, that assists in fighting against human trafficking. Sadly, prostitution is legal in Greece, which makes it a huge market for human traffickers. Trafficking in many countries, especially in our area (Macedonia included) is not limited to women for prostitution. Children are often trafficked and forced to work or beg to make money for their owner. Elderly men and women, and the handicapped are targets as well for this terrible industry. We went around Thess and handed out sandwiches to over 300 people who were most likely victims of trafficking and also gave them a card that said "If you are being trafficked and want to get out, contact us" in five languages. We pray that this ministry would be effective in reaching people who are victims in this worldwide epidemic.




After the last afternoon with the Gypsy children, we prepared that night for a community outreach in a city park. We played games with kids in the park and setup for an outreach. We had several dramas, dancing and testimonies and had a large group of people gathered. We had a lot of fun interacting with the kids and showing them God's love. It was a great time.





We arrived home on Saturday, July 25th very tired, but excited about all that went on. Being with the youth from America reminded us why we love youth ministry and gave us a fresh vision to reach young people here.