"I heard you can tell us about Jesus. Would you please visit us?"

 

 Toponica village is on the way to Dubovo, few kilometers behind Zitoradja.
It is situated some 20 kilometers from Prokuplje.  We have learned that
there are about 150-200 people who live there (some 69 families). People are
mostly Orthodox and pretty poor and Roma families in the village live beyond
poverty and mainly engaged in seasonal work. We don't know how they learned
about us, but they told us that they heard about us from some people. They
met Sasa and wanted to know more about our church. Sasa told me about them
and we visited that family.

When we visited them for the first time David, Arben and Sasa's wife
Lidija came along with us. We are especially glad that Lidija came because
we wanted her to be more active in visiting people, because we believe that
it means a lot for her spiritual growth and development. We believe that
we'll be able to motivate her for that, but we also need Sasa's support in
this.

As I have informed you earlier, Ljubisa (40) has opened his home for the
gospel. He is very educated man and in comparison with other Roma houses in
the village, his house is quite good. He lives with his wife, two sons,
daughter-in-law, his mother and two grandsons. They welcomed us in their
home with much gratitude. We told them who we are, what we believe and
preach. Sasa also shared his testimony. They were listening with much
attention , asked questions about Roma's tradition. We are very happy about
this first visit and much encouraged. Right then we set our next visit.

After ten days we visited them again and we were happily surprised.
Beside Ljubisa's family there was also another family whom Ljubisa invited
to join the meeting. That's a family of three, so during our second visit, 20-22 people attended, and there were 9 new people who came.  

For the first time we have experienced that a house group which is not yet
formed has been visited by so many people. We think that it might be because
it is very small village and there is not much going on there, people were
curious and wanted to see and hear what it is about. Whatever the reason we
were very excited about that.


David had opportunity to share how God worked in his life, how his heart
has been changed and that he is great testimony in his home and the place
where he lives.

Sasa also shared what we believe, why church, etc. It seems that they liked
everything they heard, but not much excited until we started to sing. We
could have seen the radiance on their faces during time of worship and we
were able to see that the Holy Spirit works in their hearts. After that and
a prayer they tried to explain their experience during time of worship. They
were especially touched with the prayer in their own language. They told us
that the prayer gave them assurance that we are "the right ones". They told
us to bring them CDs with songs in Roma language and material for Bible
study. We couldn't believe what we heard, because we thought that maybe it
is still too early for something like that, but God has taught us a
beautiful lesson.

Maybe it is too soon for conclusions, but we can see some faith in these
people's hearts. This small faith has a potential to grow and to become
faith which God wants all new born believers to have. I know that we are
responsible what will happen with this people and the village so we pray for
God's guidance and wisdom, especially when time comes when the whole village
will hear about us, their comments and reactions.

We want to visit them more often and every time to bring some young people
with us, to give them a chance to share God's Word with those people and to
grow in their faith in such a way.

If there hadn't been $35 . . . .

From a village in south Serbia:

I want to start this report with one very interesting situation. It is about evangelistic meeting we had in Zitni Potok. Since our expenses in Prokuplje and Recica were great we almost ran out of money and we were not in a situation to organize evangelistic meeting in Zitni Potok. As Christmas was approaching it was harder and harder for us because we knew that children were expecting Christmas presents. Many people even phoned and asked us about shoe boxes. We didn’t know what to say. During prayer time God gave me an idea. I was a bit afraid of it, but I anyway obeyed God’s voice. I phoned brothers from that house group, shared the idea with them and also talked to one man who doesn’t come to our house groups meetings, but supports our work. (His name is Sveta and he is also member of the School board in the village).

We decided to include Sveta in this idea. Sveta and Rade (brother from the house group) went from house to house throughout the village and asked for the freewill gift for our travel expenses. We were not sure  that this would work, but we were very much encouraged. People from the village gave gladly and willingly gave. Some gave 20, 30, 50 dinars (20 cents - 50 cents), and some gave 100 dinars ($1 - $2). Some said that they would have given more if their income had come. Some did not have any money to give. They went to about fifty Roma houses and in two days they collected almost 3.000 dinars ($35). That was what we needed for the transport for two cars. We had to transport 110 shoe boxes. Sveta offered to help us with his car and we saw again God’s hand upon us.

Since God took care for the transport, we told our brothers to tell the people in the village about the evangelistic meeting and very soon after we came, people started to come to the village hall, which Sveta also made available for us. There were about 60-90 children who came.
Even though it was cold and most of the people who came don’t come to our church and are not yet believers, we all felt the love and warmth because we all were involved in making this event happen.
We did not have enough shoe boxes for all children, but we took care that there would be not even one family without at least one or two presents. Parents understood and were thankful that again we were thinking about their children and brought presents for them.


The program consisted few songs, Christmas message and drama.
Stefan, David and Pera had main role in the drama about Roma’s life. Many women were touched by this drama for many have found themselves in it, for it shows the harsh reality of the way Roma people live.
Interesting thing is that people, even though they don’t attend the church, know our work (for example, they know that they should be silent, some close their eyes as songs were sang, etc.). It shows that with hard work, but also with personal example a lot can be accomplished and that the saying, “Preach the gospel always, use words only when you need” has a sense.

Since we established good relationship with many people in the village, after the meeting was over, some have invited us to their home for coffee and to get warm, but we were so cold that we wanted to go back, so we refused their invitation and promised that we would come next time for sure.
When this was over, those 3.000 dinars were enough for the traveling expenses for two cars. This is great testimony for us and for young people who were with us and we were very encouraged by this. At the same time, people in the village developed more positive picture about us and our church. All evangelistic meetings we do with lots of love and faith and we believe, when the fullness of time comes, God will give an answer to all this.
We believe that there are many challenges ahead, but we want to move on. Pray for us. We want to see many more coming to Christ in this village.