PRAYER REQUESTS

As we have emerged from our settling in period and the holidays, and as we wrote to you of our initial steps in doing outreach, we have faced some delays. Four of the five of us have gone through a virus which kept us nearly housebound with fever, aches, coughing and the like. Dejan remained well, by God's grace, but the pace was definitely slower around here these last 10 days or so.

 We are so thankful for and dependent on the prayers of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Here are the current specifics that we are asking the Lord for.

We would like to go to pass out tracts this weekend at the next winter festival (for the curious, it's called Ice on Whyte, an ice sculpting-based event).

• Health and strength, full recovery for all the girls with no relapses so we can all go
• Boldness to share the Gospel, how to approach people
• Prepared/open hearts of those we meet

We finally made it to the Serbian Cultural Center when they were open! (They were closed several consecutive Fridays due to the holidays here in Canada and then Orthodox holidays in January.)

• Getting to know people (we are sort of an exception since we have a "mixed" marriage of Serbian and American and therefore don't speak Serbian at home. Doesn't the Bible call us a "peculiar people"?)
• Wisdom in sharing with them

We are slowly getting to know some people in our neighborhood. Our handyman is a Jehovah's Witness pastor. The Jewish Community Centre is located here. Our immediate neighbors are--so far--hard to come by. 

• Open doors to our community, in the Lord's timing of course, to connect with people
• Open hearts to the Gospel

Thanks!!

Winter Warm-Up

Edmonton's population is about 1 million, and thousands upon thousands of them are apart from Christ. So, the big question we've been tossing around our house is, How do we find all these people and start talking to them...in January? We can't go out street witnessing, in the traditional sense of the term. It's just plain too cold to stop even to chat (-15˚C today with heavy frost), much less have a conversation of any length outside. 

While we have been trying to put our fingers on the winter pulse of the city, here's where things have gotten so far.

• Edmonton has 3 winter events in January-February, two of which are free. They are designed to get people out and about together in the city during winter to rub elbows with each other in a relaxed setting. 
• Our aim: go to these festivals with tracts and hand them out as we pass through and see what happens. Since they have warm-up spots, the kiddos can avoid frost-bite and stay interested while we do the work of evangelism. 

• Edmonton is divided into over 200 neighborhoods. 
• Our aim: go to 1-3 neighborhoods several times per week to walk them and pray, starting with those closest to us and fanning outward.

We began this part last week in a sense, as we went to a park looking towards downtown to pray for the city in general and the government, for the Lord to open doors to the city. It was a major blessing.

Of course, when Julie takes the girls out sledding on nice days (anywhere around freezing feels downright warm) we are trying to meet people from our area. So far, we've been the only ones at the park except for a resident hare, but we will be joining our community league in order to be involved in what happens in our corner of the city. We have also begun what will be weekly visits to the Serbian culture center, where they offer enrolled Serbian language lessons for children, during which time we hope to get to know others there.

Pray for us concerning these things. We have that promise from the Bible that "those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution", and spiritual warfare is very obvious when we are getting ready to do anything related to any of the reasons we are here. (Funny, getting groceries or going to the bank is relatively easy but getting out the door to go pray is another story.)

Bottom line: we're blessed to be here and have our hearts and eyes wide open to opportunities around us, to shine the light of Jesus in this dark world right where the Lord has called us. As our preschooler put it so well, "When we came to Canada we're like the foot in the body of Christ because we came to tell other people about Jesus." Well said. 

Till next time...