“GREATER TH>N”. This year the topic was on the “Lost Son”. Camps dove deep into the Word
every night, as we pleaded with God to till, soften, and to show that He is
GREATER TH>N (fill in the blank). Tonight in the city square, kids are performing songs full of the gospel message. Their parents will come to listen, passer-byes
and anyone else God has planned to hear! So keep praying for these youth and
the people to hear the words and be moved by God.
This is the next generation. This summer Slovenia has held 9 camps with many youth
attending from ages 11-18. Many committed their lives to Jesus this summer and
will now be connected to a Youth Group in their local Church. We truly believe that through them, they will change and
transform Slovenia and more.
Of the 2 million people in Slovenia, there are estimated only about 1,200 evangelical believers! We have had a burden
for the Gospel to reach Slovenia for a long time now, but living here… it is
even more intense. To know that everywhere you go and look, or whoever you talk
to, most likely DO NOT know that what Jesus has done means they can have a
personal relationship with Him!
We are
aching to get involved with ministry full time. It pulls and aches even harder
when you hear how AWESOME summer went and see so many fired up young people. But
we know that Josiah Venture is truly wise, with long term in mind, when they
request one full year on the field focused mostly on learning the language.
Shawn, being the one employed, must put in at least 35 hours a week of language
learning and 10 hours of ministry.
The Slovene language is
not an easy language to learn. But we pray that God would help us all learn quickly
the way Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego did.
We are finished with our
one-month intense language class at the University of Ljubljana. It definitely
got our language wheels turning and gave us a good foundation to build on.
As we were in School, we had a wonderful sitter for our kids
and she taught them Slovene as well.
As we write this together,
we could probably write a book here, but we’ll focus on the main points.
We want you to know that
we are doing well, but also want to be honest with you. It has been more of a
shock than we ever thought it would be. We have learned that Slovenia is 3rd
highest in the world for suicides and have heard of 4 in the last month just in
Kocevje! We hope to see more lives saved by Christ, than lives lost by the
demon of suicide/darkness.
Kocevje is a very dark
place! It is darker spiritually than we were anticipating. We were warned
before we moved here, but no one could possibly prepare us for this darkness.
You can actually feel the weight of it! Two months ago, in the middle of the
day, a man was axed to death at a gas station in Kocevje.
Our church is small with
about 50+ people. The pastor and his wife are very strong in the Lord. They have a
big vision to see southern Slovenia come to know Jesus as their personal Savior
and so do we! After learning their strengths and weaknesses compared with ours,
there is no doubt that God matched us up to work together with them.
We value worship music and sermons
in our own language so much more now that we can’t understand most of these
songs or sermons here.
We are thirsty to hear God in our own “heart” language… and this
has helped us see the importance all the more to learn and speak Slovenia’s
heart language.
Sermons and worship songs just are
not the same in another language!
.....
The next step is about
to begin. We are
sending three little missionaries out into the public school system. Zack is
going into 2nd grade, Nathan 1st, and Corban
Kindergarten. School starts September 3rd.
God called our whole
family to serve here. We are a team, and we desire to work together. We trust that God is going
to use our children in many ways to reach these people.
Pray for them. Would you pray with us that they
reflect Christ well in their school. Here they go!
Our neighbor girl who is 12 years old, jumped off the
dock and lost her inner tube. Christena wasn’t aware that she couldn’t swim
until she saw her sinking.
Christena was able to bring her to shore and asked why she
didn’t say she couldn’t swim. Laughing, she said, “I thought I could swim.”
God gave Christena a picture through
that situation.
The people here are
drowning (going to
hell). They think they can swim (thinking they are going to heaven). They have
an idea of how to swim, but don’t KNOW how (they have ideas of who God is and
agree with the Gospel in mind but not heart. They don’t know Jesus).
They need someone to teach them the TRUTH about
the Rescuer… they need JESUS, the only one who can SAVE!
“These all with one mind were
continually devoting themselves to prayer…” Acts 1:14
We hope you are encouraged with all God is doing here and
motivated to pray.
Please pray that we can get Internet soon so we can
keep better in touch J
God bless you,
Shawn, Christena, Zack,
Nathan, Corban, and Alisha
