Lessons from a Baby

The last time we posted, Julie was 39 weeks pregnant with our second child. Saturday, we celebrated ONE MONTH with our precious new baby daughter! Eva Joy is a delightful presence in our home and our lives...and she sparks much thought about life, eternity and our mission to Canada.

First, since the Christmas season is upon us, we marvel anew at the thought that God took upon Himself our human likeness and came, not as a man, like the first Adam, but as a newborn baby: helpless, vulnerable and dependent. When we look at our sweet baby, we wonder how the shepherds, Simeon, Anna and others must have thought as they gazed upon the infant Jesus, and how Mary and Joseph felt as they cared for Him day and night in those early months.

Second, as we prepared for her arrival, and now care for our tiny daughter, the LORD has brought to mind how much is involved in the new birth of lives into His Son. As much work and joy as we found during labor and at her birth, and what we now invest in caring for Eva, we anticipate the time the LORD will allow us to witness new births of others spiritually and pouring the Word of God into their hearts in Edmonton.

Third, our daughter's name means "bringer of glad tidings [of] joy". That is our desire for her life as she grows, but it is of course our desire as well. We want to live lives that bring the Gospel to others, sharing the truths of God's Word that have set us free and brought us to this place in our lives where we are now, as He is sending us to Canada. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" (Romans 10:15).

It's amazing how much the LORD can use even a newborn baby to raise our thoughts to Him and things above. Whatever is going on in our lives, He is so faithful to speak into our lives and encourage us and excite us about the things of His kingdom!

Christopher Columbus, Canada, and us

A few weeks ago, maybe you got a day off work or your children were home from school in observance of Columbus Day. Or maybe you knew it was Columbus Day because of store ads offering special deals for the holiday. If you're like me, and like many other people, you probably didn't notice anything different. I even forgot it was Columbus Day, because I was thinking about another holiday that falls on the exact same day.

What is it, you ask? Thanksgiving Day! Canada's Thanksgiving is always in October, the second Monday, just like the American Columbus Day. Upon further thought (late at night when sleep was elusive), it struck me that Columbus and Canada and Thanksgiving really are all tied together--at least in my mind.

History review

Christopher Columbus was a man with an adventurous spirit.

Being from Europe, he was interested in seeking a way to the East Indies by

travelling west across the Atlantic, rather than south around the tip of Africa. A bold notion in their day, when many believed the world was flat and that he would sail right off the end of the earth! He had the vision, but he didn't have the means to fulfill it on his own. So, being resourceful, the Italian presented his "mission" to the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Lo, and behold, they agreed to finance it, Columbus set sail with his famous three ships, hit land and is credited for discovering the American continent. And here we are today because Columbus followed up on his "crazy" idea. People walking on this American soil as descendants of the Europeans that followed after. A good reason to be personally thankful, right?

History preview?

We also have a couple of adventurous spirits. We're not trying to discover a new route somewhere (Jesus is the only Way there is to the Father), but we know there are many who don't know that, all around the world, and many, many of them are right here in North America, Canada especially and Edmonton in particular (more than 100,000 at the very least). We have been petitioning the King of kings with this mission, which He first put in our hearts, and we are seeking Him to raise up those who will join as senders to help us on our way. By His grace, a group of believers in Edmonton, Canada will be able to say, "And here we are today, walking with Jesus, because those of those two who dared to come here, where many people think it's irrelevant or unnecessary to do mission work". People walking in truth and the assurance of His salvation. A very good reason to be thankful, indeed.

So often, Paul the apostle wrote to the churches he either planted or had connection to, and some of the first words off the tip of his pen were "We give thanks to God always for you all" or something very similar, and his resulting joy at their faith in the Lord and belief in the Gospel when it came to them. (see Col. 1:3-8, 1 Thess. 1:3-10, 1 Cor. 1:4 and others).

More than discovering a new land or the "new world" of the 1400-1500's, people coming into God's kingdom every day, from any land, and every land on earth, is a major reason to have a Day of Thanksgiving. Not just for how God has blessed us, but how He desires to bless the world with His love and make us a blessing to them until the whole world hears of His offer of salvation. We're trusting Him to send us where He's called us, to Canada. Any other adventurous spirits out there?

A weekend in Alberta, part 2 of 2

What a fruitful weekend! Dejan arrived back in the U.S. Monday evening, and the only bad news from the whole trip was that he lost his phone just prior to leaving...but even that has been found and is on it's way back. The LORD truly graced the entire trip. Even though we had no idea what kind of schedule he would have before he left, the LORD faithfully filled the days with divine appointments and blessing. Here's a re-cap with a couple of photos from Sunday.

Re-Cap

Thursday: arrive late and get to host apartment

Friday: a bit of time at the church (Rocky Mtn. Calvary Chapel) and lunch with the brother who edits the radio ministry programming of their pastor, Glenn Nudd. Afternoon and evening time preparing for Sunday's message and rest.

Saturday: drive out to ranch-type property donated to the church for fence-painting, landscaping work, etc. Fellowship with Pastor Glenn. More fellowship with our contact from Edmonton (answered prayer) who drove 3 hours specifically to meet with Dejan and also to help with the project.

Sunday Morning: outreach concert with Dennis Agajanian, both services. Dejan shared about 20 minutes each service. Three responses in the first service and 7 in the second--thank You, Lord Jesus, for saving souls!

Sunday P.M.: Barbecue/picnic for the worship ministry team at the overseer's home, meet for coffee with the church's only resident American to talk about visas, ministry in Canada, etc. then dinner at their home and more fellowship.

Monday: Opportunity to see the place we will live when we first arrive in Canada, in Calgary (where we will live for a few months before settling in Edmonton). Time to run a few quick errands and pack up to head home.

The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!"

To give a bit more detail about Sunday morning, the concert fell on the same weekend as a Franklin Graham event in Calgary at which Dennis was playing. (The event will be in Edmonton this Saturday, Aug.28--learn more). The church youth were involved in that event Saturday and Sunday was the church's extension of the outreach through the concert. Both services were well-attended, the second near full. Dejan presented the Gospel and gave the response into the hands of the hearers. The call came when Dennis came up to close the service/concert and people responded. It was a true working together of the planters (people in the congregation who invited and brought others), waterers (Dennis and Dejan) and the LORD who gave the increase (1 Cor. 3). Though it is untypical for Canadians to give an "altar call" or to respond to one in a typical church service, it was an untypical event. What a blessing to witness hearts softening to receive salvation!

Thanks

Thanks to all of you who covered Dejan and this outreach and the weekend in prayer! It is a great encouragement to have further contact with the saints in Calgary and Edmonton as we anticipate our move there. We have long been convinced that this is God's call upon our lives at this time, but it is encouraging to have the moral support of the church in Calgary and to have had the open door to minister with and among them.

Please Pray

-for the discipleship of those who responded to the Gospel

-for our continued faith & patience as we wait on the Lord to raise our support

-for continued preparation of our hearts for the work in Edmonton

-for blessing of our fellowship and partnering with the church in Calgary, as they are working to help us logistically to get onto the Canadian mission field

Thanks be to God for all He has done and continues to do!!

A weekend in Alberta, part 1 of 2

Dejan is currently in Canada!

He flew to Calgary yesterday (Thursday, Aug. 19) and is staying over until next Monday. Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel in Calgary is having an outreach concert during their Sunday services with Dennis Agajanian. Dejan will be speaking for about 20 minutes near the end of the concert at each service to present the Gospel to the unsaved family and guests of people in the fellowship there. What a blessed open door!

Today he is at the church building and will be going to lunch with the brother who edits the church's radio program. He will also try to get in touch with our contact in Edmonton whom we met in February during our visit, to see if they can meet sometime this weekend to fellowship and pray together.

Tomorrow, Dejan will be joining many of the staff as they do some landscaping work at the piece of land that the church owns. He will also prepare for Sunday morning.

We find this opportunity for Dejan to travel to Alberta a great encouragement. While we are raising support for our move it is a welcome foretaste of things to come!

If you will, PLEASE PRAY with us these next few days:

-for guidance, anointing and sensitivity to the Spirit

-for the drawing of souls to both services (by invitation of friends or curiosity)

-the Gospel to go out with power and to save, open, hearing hearts

-good fellowship with the saints in Calgary

-the ability to meet with people in Edmonton

July 2010 Update

Some progress as we are waiting to move...

-Dejan had his appointment for biometrics July 6th, so we are now clear to leave the U.S. once the finances are in order;

-Dejan also had a chance to share the vision for Edmonton and his work in translation at Calvary Chapel Flathead Valley while we were there visiting. Pastor John Michaels--a great missions enthusiast--also led in prayer for us with the pastor and elders at the church. He was around when the church-planter to Calgary, Glen Nudd (now the pastor), was sent out 17 years ago.

Some prayer requests...

-The LORD to raise up the rest of the financial partners/supporters for us that He is calling. $4000 per month is nothing to Him who owns "the cattle on a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10). Church sponsors as well as individuals.

-Continued preparation of our hearts and minds for the work ahead. The LORD has provided many tools that we are using to prepare ourselves--we are prayerfully reading, studying and learning.

-Physical, mental and spiritual health.

-Patience while we wait: Sara is often quoted as saying "I want to go to Edmonton," to which our reply is simply, "We will go, honey, as soon as the LORD opens the way." This is difficult for a two year-old to grasp sometimes.

-For the people of Edmonton.

Thanks for your continued interest and prayers for us!

So we're moving to Canada already...just not in June

God promised the children of Israel that they would enter and possess a land flowing with milk and honey when He brought them out of Egypt. It was an exciting vision that instilled the confidence in them to follow Moses.

However, we know the LORD didn't lead them to their new land by the shortest or quickest route. That route they were not prepared for, as it led right through Philistine territory. Instead, He led them across the Red Sea and into a wilderness. There, He formed them into a family of people, a nation, and gave them a common identity in His law and in worship.

On that route, He allowed them to be tested multiple times before leading them forward to the border of His promised location for them. He went before them in the pillar of cloud and fire, and when He moved, the nation moved with Him. (Yes, they failed the tests, grumbled and then refused to go in, but that's beside our point here).

In a similar way, we know that God has spoken to us about going to Canada, and the vision He shared with us has given us the confidence to step out and follow Him in that direction.

However, things haven't gone as quickly as we would have thought was best, but we trust that His route is the one we need. So we are in a sort of wilderness time, in that, we are on our way, having set in motion many things for leaving our town and this country.

Here, God is testing us and leading us, forming us into a closer family. At present, that pillar of His presence hasn't yet moved north, so we are waiting, living, working and worshiping Him until He does.

So to keep you updated, aside from daily life, here's what we're doing as time is marching on (twiddling our thumbs didn't make the list):

-Julie finished teaching her Kindermusik classes and childbirth classes at the beginning of the month, so she is closing things off for those businesses.

-We are moving along in packing at a leisurely, but thorough pace. The Canadian government requires itemization of all the things we're importing when we come. They have handy forms, but it's a process.

-We are waiting for a response from the U.S. government on a permit Dejan needs before we leave, as well as an appointment time from them for his fingerprints.

-Our 5th wedding anniversary was last week--so we took an evening to celebrate God's faithfulness to us this far and 1,825 days of marriage.

-We are continuing to meet with our pastor and prayer team.

-There are other, minor things we do daily, but we won't bore you with the details.

We are grateful for any and all of your prayers for us during this time, and for the mission ahead!

Trip to Edmonton!

It's been over a month since we've been back from Canada!! Our experience in Edmonton and visiting the church in Calgary was very encouraging, productive and confirming.

There was a list of things we were hoping to accomplish, and with the exception of looking into local Kindermusik studios, the Lord made it possible for us to do them all. Thank you for your prayers! We truly noticed that God's hand was upon us, guiding our decisions, plans, and even our detours!

A great answer to prayer that made our 5 1/2 days more productive and smooth than they would've been otherwise was the rental of a car, which the Lord graced us with through a brother in Christ. Edmonton is HUGE, and it was cold, so without a car, we would've been much slower on public transport and less able to see as much of the city as freely as we did--and we only saw maybe 30% of it at that!

A second blessing, which we didn't even pray about, was a GPS. We thought we'd use our little tourist map to get around, but our host offered us her GPS to use during our stay, and that helped us get pretty much everywhere with no troubles. Especially when we went to Calgary, we would never have found the church after a 3-hour drive and been on time for the service without it!

We met with the contact given to us by the assistant pastor in Calgary, a man named Scott and his wife Lindsey. They are a young couple who have been praying for a Calvary Chapel type of church to be planted in Edmonton for the last 2 years. Scott used to live in Calgary and went to the Calvary Chapel there; their church in Edmonton "self-destructed", according to Scott's own words, and many couples were left church-less and disillusioned. They were encouraged and surprised to learn that we are hoping to come to Edmonton during 2010.

One of our great desires was to get in touch with the Serbian community on our visit, and the Lord used the rental car and the GPS to make that happen! We needed groceries and the GPS led us to the closest supermarket. Inside Julie noticed a worker with the name tag "Dejan", so she waited to meet him and later called in our Dejan. The young Dejan told us about the Serbian culture center, when to go, etc. We spent Friday evening there getting acquainted - they have weekly Serbian language lessons for young children and a folk dance club to teach traditional dances to the youth, as well as basketball in fall/winter and soccer in spring/summer for the men. The parents mill about and the children not in class play freely. Sara enjoyed watching the dancing and being led around by several of the little girls.


On Sunday, we visited Calvary - a long 3-hour drive (each way) to go to church but well worth the time! We enjoyed the service and were welcomed by many of the people in the fellowship. After service, the assistant pastor and his wife took us to lunch, and we enjoyed getting acquainted with them a bit and hearing their insight into Canadians, as well as their church-planting and pastoring experience.

Overall, we were very encouraged by the Lord and felt quite comfortable being in Edmonton, even though it is a very large metropolis. We are praying in more knowlageable ways now for the city and are seeking the Lord for His continued guidance in our preparation and His timing for our move. Thanks again for all your prayers and for your interest in what God is doing up north!

Blessings to you in His Name!!

Why...

Why We're Going to Canada

UPDATE: January 2010

Thanks for your prayers!! Quite a bit has come together for us in this last month regarding our hopes to head north. The LORD has directed our steps, even though it hasn't been in the ways we imagined. It's been better!

Missions Conference
So we didn't go to the missions conference in southern California last month (see previous post). But we did get a copy of the messages from the conference, and we're going to listen separately and discuss each session.

Contact
The LORD connected us with the assistant pastor from the Calvary Chapel in Calgary, which is some 185 miles south of Edmonton. Dejan had a very encouraging conversation with him, as did our pastor prior to Dejan's conversation. They are excited to hear of our desire to go to Edmonton and said they get calls about every 2 weeks from people asking if there are any Bible teaching churches in Edmonton that they can recommend. Apparently there is not a single one, sadly, but it is another encouragement to us from the LORD that we are headed in the right direction.

Visit
Not long after we learned about not going to the missions conference, the LORD gave us an idea. Why not use the funds we were going to put toward to conference toward a trip to Edmonton for several days? We presented the idea to our pastor who said he was thinking the same thing! We had enough frequent flyer miles to get tickets for the cost of taxes and fees and found a Bed & Breakfast which was very reasonable and fairly central, so we booked and Lord willing, we'll be going to Edmonton this month, February 17-22.

Our purpose is several fold:
1) pray over the city
2) explore and cover as much ground as possible though public transportation and/or driving
3) locate the various culture hubs (esp. the Serbian community)
4) see if any local Kindermusik studios plan to hire
5) find out more specific visa information and
6)meet with this assistant pastor from Calgary.
We look forward to this journey and all that will result from it.

Meetings
We have begun meeting with our pastor to hammer out the logistics and discuss all the other aspects of moving back out onto the mission field. Our rough target is late spring/early summer. Our first meeting was extremely fruitful and encouraging, and we anticipate many in the future.

Translation
Please check the side bar of our blog for where Dejan is at with translation. It's still going, but as it is a ministry without many "fireworks" for now, we thought it best to give more of a progress report in an easy to see place than to include it always in our updates. But please do keep it in prayer!!!

Prayer Needs
We ask your prayer for us for the following:

• God's will to be done in us and for us through our upcoming visit to Edmonton, Feb. 17-22
• provision for in-town transport and food during our stay
• wisdom and direction from the Holy Spirit in our planning meetings this month
• strength and unity in our marriage & family
• open doors from the LORD in every way
• translation progress (including Zlata, our proofreader)
• physical & spiritual health for us all
• whatever else is on your heart...

Personal

• Dejan's mom to receive salvation (we have noticed a renewed spiritual battle)
• continued preparation of our hearts for the work ahead, our times of prayer & study

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our update. Hopefully we'll have some photos and footage for our next post!

Blessings to you and peace in our LORD,
Dejan & Julie

With the "stuff"

For those (many) of you who are at the Missions Conference in Murrieta this week and are wondering where we are and why we aren't there, here's the scoop.

We really hoped to come and we're expecting to go ever since last year's conference, which the LORD used to bless us greatly. The only thing we knew we needed to wait for was provision to get there and be there. Once that came through it all seemed to be final and we began to look into going down. However, as we were planning our steps, the LORD was directing our path and that path didn't lead south to the conference.

Dejan was asked to stay back and help the other available pastor cover things at the church while our pastor is out of town this week. Dejan also runs the radio station from the church and is the only one who knows how to troubleshoot if something goes awry, so here we are. And though initially we were very disappointed to miss the conference, we know God is faithful and we will not lack what we think we'd be missing at the conference just because we're here with the "stuff".

If you're there, enjoy! We still love to connect with you by update, skype, facebook, and your updates.