Update & Prayer request

Hello from Edmonton!

It has been a few months since the last update, but we are doing pretty well, praise God. Here is a summary of what is going on with the church and our family.

Mid-week
Dejan started teaching a mid-week Bible study through the Minor Prophets in early May that will run through the summer months. We are blessed that we are able to use our meeting space for this purpose. Though Canada is stereotyped as being cold, our summers are quite hot at times (up into the low 90’s), and the downstairs hall where we meet is cooled. It is also good to do a bit of surveying in the Old Testament as Sundays we are consistently working our way through the New Testament.

Children’s Church
The children’s church has stayed at a consistent size throughout the schoolyear, with most Sundays having attendance between eight and thirteen children ages 3-11. When our baby was born earlier this spring, we had a new children’s ministry servant join Julie in teaching , as well as a couple of people on rotation to be a class assistant. This has been a great blessing in many ways for both adults and children.

Baptism
Over the winter we had a baptism, with a couple of people making that oublic declaration of their faith, and it was strengthening for the whole church, even for the children’s church, as our oldest had a special experience with the Lord and made that choice. Several kids had questions afterward, and it opened up good discussion between them and Dejan as the pastor as well as between us in the children’s church. We are thrilled that our Sara is growing in her faith.

Ministries
Both the men’s and ladies’ Bible Studies are going well. The men meet twice a month and have a discussion on their study topic, while the ladies have met over the year once per month for a time of teaching regarding issues specific to women. We ladies will be taking a break for the summer before resuming in the fall with a new study.  Please pray for these groups, that we will both have wisdom in leading discussion, fielding questions and ministering to the men and women who attend.

Outreach next week
A team will be coming up from Calvary Chapel Pocatello next week, May 30-June 4. They will be helping out in the church as well as doing outreach/evangelism in the city. Please cover their visit here in prayer, as logistically, physically and spiritually we desire their success and safety. The team is comprised of a family with young ones and several youth and young adults.

Family update
As far as our family is concerned, we are healthy and overall well. We will be celebrating 13 years of marriage next month, and it always amazes us how fast the years seem to be passing. We desire to continue to grow as a couple, especially as things with the church and our children have a big demand on our attentions and energies. Prayers always appreciated there. Our children are growing and learning (sometimes by their mistakes). We will be finishing our school year late next month and look forward to a summer break. Our little guy is growing and healthy so far, with the exception of a potential tongue tie. We will know more about that next week, so that is also a matter for prayer.

Special Prayer Request: accident
One other matter for prayers is that this morning we were in a minor accident on our way to an appointment. We were waiting for a parking garage door to raise when a delivery truck slowly backed into our rear passenger door and crunched it, with all of us inside. We were totally trapped as far as being able to escape the collision, but apart from shaken nerves and a logistical and glass mess, none of us were injured, praise God. There was lots of help from bystanders and a shop manager who witnessed the event, and we were well taken care of getting all the young ones away from the scene. Thankfully their appointments provided an activity to transition them mentally to something different while Dejan sorted out all the phone calls.

So our car has gone to the shop. We appreciate your prayers for the insurance and repair process, as well as replacing all of our car seats (which is Canadian law, as we were informed by the adjuster, even though the impact was so low speed - almost at a crawl). Please also pray for Sara as it was right at her door and all the glass fell onto her, as it of course unnerved her quite a bit. Praise God the delivery driver stopped at the sound of our blaring horn, so that the car body did not crush onto her.

We always pray when we go out in the car for safety and no accidents, so we have to trust that the Lord has a plan in the midst of this situation. We continue to cover your prayers generally for our health and safety while we live here in this very busy city.

Send us a note if you can. We’d love to hear from you!

By God’s grace,
Dejan and Julie <><

Prayer Request

Hello from the Frozen North!

We have had such a cold, icy winter this year; it has been beautiful to look out the window, but with wind chills of up to -40 degrees, we haven't been outside too much.

Our heart-felt thanks are due to all of you who follow along with our updates and pray for us regularly, as well as those who are continuing to support us financially as we serve here. All together we are a team!! We couldn't be here without the back-up from our senders and prayer warriors.

Currently, we are experiencing some financial strain. We received our January support about 10 days early (it was still December), and then went 50 days before receiving the following month's support, almost 3 weeks longer than usual. That was quite a long stretch, and we have not yet recovered from it, as our February support was 50% less than we have seen fairly consistently since our move here.

Will you please pray for us regarding the LORD's provision? He is doing good things here, and the church is growing, but we still need to feed our growing family! The cost of living in Edmonton is astronomically high compared to Idaho and Montana (where most of our supporters reside), but even with the current exchange rate that favours the U.S. dollar, making things stretch that far is not working.

Thank you for standing with us in faith and for your continued love and encouragement through messages, cards and outreach teams, and of course, prayer.  We can do nothing apart from abiding in the LORD and trusting in Him.

In His love,
Dejan and Julie