Pictures and Parents

Brian said he would post pictures today and here it is midnight (here) and no pictures. So in order to help my husband keep his word, I am posting some pictures. I think he intended pictures about Easter, but he will have to do those later. There are more exciting things going on right now. Brian's parents are here. They have almost been here a week and we are having a blast. They love this place but not as much as they love their granddaughter. Brian's dad has taken a couple hundred pictures already and mom is finding her way as "grandma."

Easter in Ohrid

This year, the Orthodox Easter was a whole month after the Catholic Easter which means we just had Easter two weeks ago! I wanted to share a couple of pictures with you guys from the Easter service, and to tell you about some things that I "learned" the weekend of Easter.

One thing that I really like about Macedonia is how they celebrate Easter. On Thursday/Friday, they die eggs red to symbolize the blood that Christ spilled on the cross. On Saturday night at midnight, they crack the eggs to celebrate his resurrection and that he is no longer in the grave. As great a symbol as that is, there are some who don't even know it, and some other traditions added onto it ... just like everything in Orthodoxy. For example: When you boil and die the eggs, you always keep one for the house until next year and simply because you set it aside for your house it never spoils whereas the other ones would. The following year on Easter you either bury it in the ground where you are farming to receive good crops for the year or you throw it in the lake if you are a fisherman for good fishing. "Obviously" God blesses the egg the year it sits in your house and will give you health and success. Interesting.

Praying that truth reigns in this city.

Saturday and Sunday

Well, I am having a tough time keeping up with my days. It's been what, 3 weeks now??? So I have decided to combine the last two days so you get a glimpse of our weekends before May. ;0)

Saturdays, once again, are much like the previous 3 days. We try and meet with people for coffee either at their home or ours or if the company is younger, we meet at a coffee house. I try and take care of things around the house, and Brian always spends some part of the day studying for Sunday morning church.

Sundays always start off with Brian finishing up his studies for the approaching Bible study and I get myself and Kate ready while also throwing in a load of laundry. Sundays are cheap electricity day so I do laundry all day on Sundays. Yea. We practice music, as Brian is also the music director and head off to church. We are meeting at K and M's apartment right now. Everyone arrives with a great welcome from K and M. This is where is gets pretty crazy. Since church is in a living room, the only cultural thing to do is to have food, something salty and sweet, and coffee or cold drinks. M and K always do such a great job of having the food already out on the coffee table and offering coffee (yes, there's always coffee) and drinks to all who enter. Once everyone has their drink of choice in front of them, we start. (Does this sound like church as you know it???) Someone leads us in prayer and Brian, or sometimes K, leads us in a time of worship in music. Its always fun to sing familiar songs that have been translated into Macedonian. That is the highlight of my Sunday. After we finish singing, K takes the children into her bedroom for what we call children's church. She is doing a great job with them--reading with them through the Macedonian children's Bible and having them draw pictures of what they learn. She has also taught them some songs. Very fun. Brian leads a semi-open discussion through a passage of scripture. That normally lasts for at least an hour depending on how many questions people have, and then we wrap it up. Where are Kate and I during this time??? Well, we are normally up and down, in and out of the room. Kate never seems to cooperate during church, and I am the official nursery worker. :0)
We had a big group this day.

K and the kids, Ana, Filip and Angela


Brian and I like to go to lunch afterward, but there is no rush--there's no Sunday crowd at any of the restaurants ;0). We then spend the afternoon in a semi-state of relaxation--me doing laundry and Brian trying to get some random work done. Sundays nights bring on more coffee and more conversation with people. Yeah. We have a great job!

We hope you have enjoyed your glimpse into our lives. It's not so different from yours, right?!

We've Been Tagged... Twice

And so I guess we will fill it out. We are normally those people who never do stuff like this. But, here goes...

4 Jobs I have had in my life:
(Mandy)
1. Tour Guide at Reed Gold Mine
2. Office Assistant at Helzburg Diamonds
3. Respite care worker for mentally and physically handicapped and autistic children
4. Teacher at Ruby Reid Child Development Center
(Brian)
1. Manager of Golf Carts at Wake Forest Country Club
2. YMCA Counselor
3. Nortel Network Switch Information Operator
4. Design Engineer at Troxler Electronic Labs

4 Movies I’ve Watched More Than Once:
(Mandy)
1. While You Were Sleeping
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Hitch
4. The Patriot
(Brian)
1. Tombstone
2, Hero
3. Count of Monte Cristo
4. Army of Darkness

4 Places I’ve Lived:
(Mandy)
1. Siloam, NC
2. Locust, NC
3. Wake Forest, NC
4. Macedonia
(Brian)
1. New Jersey
2. Connecticut
3. North Carolina
4. Macedonia

4 TV Show I Watch/Watched

1. The Cosby Show
2. Andy Griffeth Show (only on DVD now)
3. Judging Amy
4. Law and Order SVU
(Brian)
1. Thundercats (when I was a kid)
2. Simpsons (HS and college)
3. Firefly (you should own it!)
4.

4 Places I have Been:
(Mandy)
1. NY, NY
2. Prague, Czech Republic
3. Greece
4. Bulgaria
(Brian)
1. Todd, North Carolina
2. Danville, Virgina
3. Trumbull, Connecticut
4. Kozel, Macedonia

4 People who email me regularly
(Mandy)
1. my mom
2. Amanda
3. Amy
4. Sarah
(Brian)
1. Kyle (because he has to)
2. Ed (because he has to)
3. Tami (because she has to)
4. Evelyn (because she has to)

4 of my favorite foods
(Mandy)
1. Cheeseburgers
2. Atlantis chocolate
3. Mexican
4. My dad's BBQ chicken
(Brian)
1. Hamburgers
2. Hamburgers
3. Chicken Filet Biscuit Combo at Bojangles
4. Hamburgers

4 Places I Would Like to Visit
(Mandy)
1. Germany
2. London
3. Kenya
4. Italy
(Brian)
1. China
2. Japan
3. Germany
4. England

Things I am Looking Forward to in the Coming Year
(Mandy)
1. The Davises coming to visit for three weeks!!!
2. AGM
3. seeing some of my family in the fall
4. Kate's first birthday
(Brian)
1. My parents coming
2. Seeing new believers in Ohrid
3. Seeing a new church
4. Watching Kate learn to talk and walk

Thursday

Sorry I am not posting this until Saturday. Things never really seem to go exactly as planned.

This Thursday turned out to be pazar (market) day. I like to go at the beginning of the week, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. So, I finally made it to the pazar Thursday afternoon when Brian got back from making some visits. He had some work to do at home on the computer and so I left Kate with him and headed out the door. I always love going to the open market. The fruits and veggies are always so fresh and good and the smells of the vendors' homemade cheese (like feta), honey, olives and flowers fill the market this time of year. I love it!!! Plus the vendors are so very nice, and I love talking with them. I loaded up on what looks like the last little bit of carrots for the season, cucumbers, oranges, and kiwi. This time of year spinach is coming out and is very affordable. I normally buy that with some lettuce, but Brian had just received two HUGE bags full of both while visiting some of our friends earlier in the morning. They were out planting and harvesting in their garden, and so he was sent home with some green goodies.

I took some pictures on my walk to the pazar.
The road.

St. Clement--the patron saint of this city

Small altar set up in city center.

The Pazar


On my 10 minute walk there, I passed 4 beautiful church buildings and a mosque and yet the people couldn't be less interested in spiritual things.

Thursday nights, Brian leads a Bible discussion at the coffee house. This discussion is geared mostly toward seekers. Although we have not had too many come yet, it is a great outreach that Brian enjoys. I try to use my free evenings to have ladies over for coffee or to go see the neighbors. This Thursday, I went next door to see Nade and her daughter Fane. We had a great time. I was able to share a little about the meaning of Easter using their own traditions to share the Gospel with them. They were so open to all I had to say. But the subject was interrupted by the news--the NATO summit. This led into an hour long discussion (them talking, me listening, learning and respecting) of the history of their country.

And that was Thursday! :0)

Wednesday

Wednesday are much like Tuesdays. Brian attempts to get out among the people. and I do my first and main job, be a mom to Kate, which entails a lot! Brian and I always try to eat lunch together and rarely see one another after lunch due to the fact that he is out visiting people and working at the coffee house. This particular Wednesday, I spent most of my free time--time while Kate was sleeping--studying for my Bible study time with the ladies. It normally takes me a good 2 hours to study because I have to study in English and then make sure I know how to say everything I need to say in Macedonian. The ladies and I met for discipleship in the evening. We did a quick review of the Gospel and then we worked our way through Ephesians 4:17-24 and 5:1-2 (check it out. it is a great passage). Every time we meet I see more and more growth in the ladies. Awesome.

Brian had to feed Kate last night, so I could catch my taxi to the coffee house. Rushing is no fun! But Kate had fun with dad. (Yeah. Yeah. I know. A high chair would be better than feeding her on the couch. We're shopping around for one.)

About two hours later, Brian met me at the coffee house with Kate in tow. I grabbed Kate and headed back home.

Tuesday

Well, you know how I warned you that days were subject to change. Yesterday was a prime example of that! Brian got up and out the door to go check the status of our visas. While he was gone, I prepared to throw a load of laundry in the washer and while doing so, I realized that we had no water. This happens quite frequently here, and it always is a lesson in learning to be content in any situation (Phil. 4:11). No water means no laundry, no cooking, and the worst of all, no shower. So, the many plans I had for me and Kate outside of the house this Tuesday morning, just couldn't happen, mainly because no one would want to be around me due to the stink. So, I tried to be diligent to get things done around the house, things that didn't involve water, of course. That didn't leave much to do. So Kate and I listened to a cd of a sermon and played with finger puppets. Yea!

Brian was out visiting contacts-having coffee and conversation with some of the people we know. He does this at least once a day. Once the water came on, at 3:30, I hit the shower.

We spent the evening hanging out with people, sharing life.

Monday

So what does our life look like over here? For the next week, I am going to give you a little glimpse. Hope you enjoy.
PS--All days are subject to change at a moment's notice. So learn how to be flexible with us.

Monday
Monday's are normally our day off. We take the day to be together as a family, get stuff done around the house, and spend extra time with the Lord. We always wake up and make biscuits and eggs. Yum! We enjoy the morning, doing little to nothing except getting ready to go out for a walk if the weather permits. We go to coffee which is the thing to do here, and we have really grown to love it. Depending on how well Kate is cooperating we normally stay at coffee for at least an hour, people watch, talk and just enjoy being together with no responsibilities. We walk a little, come home, read or watch some European tv, and always enjoy hamburgers for dinner. Monday evenings are normally movie night, that is, if we can find a good one to watch.

Here we are at coffee. The weather was gorgeous, and we had a very enjoyable time.


This particular Monday we had to cut our "off" day short. Brian was needed at the coffee house.

Smithfield's BBQ Anyone???

Macedonians know nothing of yummy BBQ (pork, that is). I finally found a recipe that sounded good, and oh boy was it?! Thanks to some imported Texas Pete (thanks mom and dad), we were able to enjoy some delicious sandwiches the other night. Sad day, we finished off all of the leftovers for lunch today. But this is definitely something I am going to have to do when I am craving Smithfield's again. Maybe next time I will try hushpuppies and brunswick stew with it. Yum.

Yes!!!

"Yes, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace from this spring;
That He who lives to be my King
Once died to be my Savior"
--Lyrics from the song "My Savior, My God"
--Aaron Shust



"Oh bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard, who keeps our soul among the living, and does not allow our feet to be moved." Psalm 66:8-9

Turkish Coffee or Instant Coffee

Turkish coffee takes a while to make. You need time to let the coffee boil together with the water, then when you put it in the cup, it is imperative that you wait until the coffee grounds have settled to the bottom before you drink. Otherwise you will be chewing on coffee grounds, and take my word for it, that is no fun!!! But Turkish coffee is strong--like you would not believe. There is no way you can miss the coffee taste or dilute it with enough sugar to drown out the taste. I have tried and failed. :0)
Instant coffee, on the other hand, is easy to make, its quick (hence the name instant), and it is easily diluted. Without much work, I can turn a cup of instant coffee into an enjoyable drink for a cold day. Sugar, milk and yes, more sugar turns my coffee a lighter shade of brown.

Tonight, while working with D, we came to a point of decision. Confess. Believe. Become a child of God. I have no doubts that she understands it all and is even ready to make this, the most important decision of her life, and yet, she sat quiet again. That is ok. I believe that the Holy Spirit is working and she is being "discipled to conversion."

What does all of this have to do with coffee. Well, my dear, precious, honest friend compared D to Turkish coffee. The coffee and water are there, but they must boil together, and then once that happens you must wait a little while before you take a sip so you don't get grinds in your teeth. The point being: It takes time. But the final product is strong and engrossed in Christ, steeped in and infused with The Savior. There is no diluting the final product. There is no watering it down or drowning out the taste. Pray that as we wait patiently for non-believers to receive the Truth that we will remember always, that God is working in our midst. He brings about the final product, and it is oh so good!!!

Osmi Mart

The 8th of March is a big day in this country. All women, not just moms or gandmas, or aunts, ALL women are celebrated on this day. So we decided to join in the fun.
We bought a hundred carnations.

And on each carnation, we placed a tag on each of them with Proverbs 31:25-26, 30 "Strength and honor are her clothing; she shall rejoice in the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised." On the back side of this verse was an invite to all women to come to the coffee house to receive free muffins that we had spent the previous day making. We handed out all of our flowers to women we knew (the cashiers at the grocery store, boutique workers, neighbors) and women we didn't know at all. From the hundred carnations we handed out, we had about 12-15 women come in the coffee house. That may not sound like a lot, but we have regular flow of men through the coffee house and rarely any women. So, this was huge. They were all treated to muffins and coffee! Praise the Lord for the awesome turn out. Pray that we will see fruit from our labor for the glory of God.

The Bitola Bandits

On February 15th we had two fellow believes from Bitola come and play at the coffeehouse. Karen (who is in charge of music) made a lot of flyers and passed them around town. We of course had the usuals, but we were also able to attracts others as well. We try to do things like this often to help give people more opportunities to learn about the coffeehouse and give us more opportunities to meet new people.
Here is Alex and Petar playing:

Jump in the Lake Day

We were able to celebrate possibly the biggest day in Ohrid on Saturday. January 19th is when they celebrate John the Baptist. For the celebration, just about everyone in town makes their way to center and on the way to center they stop off and light some candles at church and pick up a cup of warm Rakija (60% alcoholic homemade drink). When you get to center you get unlimited refills of rakija and wait for the "throwing" to begin. At about 10:30 a high priest makes his way on to a boat and begins a John the Baptist liturgy. The climax is when he blesses a wooden cross and throws into the lake to a crowd of young and old waiting to receive the blessing of being the one who catches the cross. After the cross hits the water, the lake becomes blessed for the day. The person who catches the cross gets a TV and a large sum of money. For the rest of the day, the cross-catcher and his friends go door to door, shop to shop, coffeehouse to coffeehouse collecting money from the people. Needless to say, he makes a good amount of money that day ... no wonder he thinks he is blessed!!.


(Below is an action shot of the priest throwing the cross. The cross is in front of the lady in the pink jacket on top.)


Then after all the excitement dies down, people spend the rest of the day jumping in the blessed lake which is supposed to help them health the rest of the year. And you can also go to center to get blown on by this man below. He told me that is was "blessed smoke" and is was for health...just like jumping in the lake. Needless to say, I got blown because I was close, but he actually had a small line forming. It was sad.

The sad part was that people where buying these jars to store the lake's blessed water and they would use in the future. I asked two people what it was good for and just like the lake and the smoke, having it was good for "health."

Grand Opening of Ima Vreme

As you know, for a long time we have had a coffeehouse that we have been using as a center and hub of evangelism since last April. We realized very quickly that it would be great tool, but there is no way that Mandy and I could do our job and work at the coffeehouse. That is when we filled out a Journeymen request and that is when K and M came to work with us. They came at the end of October and until last week, they were in full-time language class. All of that language is now going to be put into practice as they start working 6 days at the coffeehouse. Last Friday we had our grand opening and it was a success. We had a group of college students (7) from the church in Skopje come down to help pass out flyers and play some music for us. We also had another missionary and good friend from another town come with his friends to help support us in the opening. We had a packed house as you can tell from the picture.

Unfortunately the flash really blows the lighting out of the water, because that half of the coffeehouse was lit by candles. Anyway, the coffeehouse really came out fantastic and God is going to use it greatly. Also, it was huge help to have some people who actually speak the language to get their hands dirty as well. Here is a picture of the group as they were singing and in the other picture you can see the rest of them dispersed among the crowd.

It is going to be a slow start, but we, as well as vistors, think it will pick-up as time goes on and word spread. Continue to pray for the coffeehouse, the girls, and that God would use it for His glory!!

Winter Wonderland

These pictures are from our trip to Vevchani, a nearby village, on New Years. There was tons of snow, and it kept coming down. This southern girl was happy she had a yankee to drive her back home. :0)

Brian and Kate climbed the hill. Our stroller rocks!

Some random Macedonians kids who were sledding and wanted us to take their pictures.

Kate sleeping on our beautiful walk in the winter wonderland. Warm and Cozy.

Merry Christmas!!!

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas as we celebrate together the birth of our Savior.

Convicting Broadcast

This is a message aimed at all the Christians who read our blog. I will be the first one to say that relational evangelism is most effective method for teaching people about God, the Bible, and the truth of salvation; I am not against door-to-door, but it is not something that I practice. I do believe that everyone needs a chance to hear the gospel and since we cannot meet everyone in the workplace, going door-to-door or spending a couple afternoons in the park handing out water and tracts might be the only way to reach some people. I personally have seen people realize they are separated from God and trust in Christ's work on the cross doing both door-to-door and afternoons in the park. I think one of the reason that I shy away from door-to-door is because it is offensive and often times we get rejected ... and who likes being offensive or rejected? However, I must remember that for all the rejections and offended people, there are those who invite us in. The reason I am telling you this is because I recently heard something on YouTube which showed me that the impersonal and sometime harsh approach of handing out a tract, is sometimes the thing that makes people think. I have realized that I need to balance out my relational with some simple tract distribution. (If you are reading this and don't know what a tract is, here is an example). So I am starting to keep a tract in my pocket for the store owners or people that I will probably only see once or very rarely because who knows if anyone else will take the time to be their friend and share the gospel. The tract has the contact information of the coffeehouse if anyone is interested in talking more. So if you have 8 minutes and 48 seconds, listen to this broadcast by a British pastor on YouTube.

NOTE: For the life of me, I cannot figure out the title or the links that go with this broadcast. The guy speaking is clearly a Baptist and talks about Baptists, but the link is Catholic. Maybe you can figure it out.

A Fantastic Two Weeks

I was intending to write a post last week, but never got around to it, but I wanted everyone to know about the great two weeks we have had at the coffeehouse.
First of all, I was sitting in the coffeehouse with a few regulars and our neighbor came into greet everyone. Just before he left he looked at the new Christian books we just got in and I used the opportunity to strike up a spiritual conversation. He told me he had some questions about “our religion.” In discussing the difference between the Orthodox and “Protestants”, he said “You guys make Jesus the center and base of your religion, this is something we don’t have by us [the Orthodox]” He correctly quoted several previous gospel presentations we had and said that “you do everything through Him, and we … well, don’t.” After asking him if I could show him one verse I showed him John 14:6 to which he gave a hardy and deep thinking “Hmm.” I then turned to show him John 3:16. After reading John 3:16, he really didn’t say much, but he did say “that other one, John 14:6, better proves your point.” And I reminded him that Jesus said it and these are some of the verses we use to make Jesus the center and base of our faith. He looked at me deep in thought and said, “Well if it is in the Bible, and even Jesus said it, it must be true … hmm. I’ll come back and we can talk about it some more.” So a simple question and lots of prior evangelism allowed Vlatko to realized the Gospel on his own.
Second of all, we were able to have a believer from another town named Marin come and spend time at the coffeehouse. Until New Year, we are only open 3 nights a week and we have developed a pretty good crowd or regulars. All three nights Marin was there for at least 2 hours (2 nights he was there for 3 hours.) While he was there, we ended up having Bible Studies every night and our regulars were able to hear about what the Bible said from someone else besides myself. Not only that, they heard it from someone perfectly fluent in Macedonian :). He also told me that just about everyday he had told at least one shop owner about our coffeehouse and how to be saved and that he hoped some of them would come by. This was all very encouraging for us because it was good to have a Macedonian confirm to our friends what we have been teaching.
Praise God for how He is working in Ohrid and allowing us to participate in His work.

Thanksgiving Fun

Thursday evening was a a lot of fun. We had 12 people in all. We had a good time. Brian was able to share a little bit about what Thanksgiving is and he also shared some scripture about being thankful to the One who gives us all good gifts. We then went around the room and everyone told something they were thankful for. It was a good time.
Our turkey wasn't as pretty this year, but it tasted good.

Here is the whole crowd.

M and K with their new friend.