Aug 29, 2008

Before and Afters

Well I know that I've been missing a long time but I have been busy. We are busy now with two works here in Croatia. We are still attending the first work on Sunday evenings and Wednesdays and then on Sunday mornings and Thursday we are at the new work. It's a little hard getting used too but it's great to stay so busy. We have soul-winning on Tuesdays and Thursdays and most Saturdays so there is little time after all the business to blog. Okay so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

The other day I went out looking for skirts for Hannah, she's 11 and has totally grown out of all her skirts. It's so difficult to find skirts for her here in Croatia and the jean skirts on eBay are ridiculously priced. Anyhow, I found this skirt at a Chinese store and it's a ladies size small. I took it and revamped it a little to make it a size 10 girls long skirt, it turned out really good. It's amazing how easy it is to alter pieces, try it!

Oh yea and we have been working on the new building and the bathroom floor was in major need of a face lift, what do you think?? We did it ourselves and it turned out rather well.

You'll have to come to Croatia to see it up close, just let me know when you want to come and I'll schedule you. :0)

Sunday is Cowboy Day at the church in Cakovec. We have this every year as a big outreach to kids. It's sort of a 1 day massive vacation Bible school. We will have skits, preaching, food, horses and a clown (me). We are praying that lots of kids will come to know Jesus as their Saviour and maybe some parents too. Please pray that the weather stays good and that we are packed and the Holy Spirit meets with us.

Have a great weekend and Lord's Day!!

Aug 23, 2008

German Strolling Festiva

Today the family and I headed to Varazdin to the Spancirfest to pass out tractsSpancirfest is actually the name of a German strolling festival, at least I was told. The men passed out tracts I took in some of the sights. Here are a few photos from the festival. Make sure to click on the pictures for a larger view. Each of the costumes is historical for Croatia. Our town costumes (below) are the long back trench coats with the maroon underneath, very handsome.


Terri, this is for you!

Grgur Ninski was 10th century bishop that strongly opposed the Pope and official circles of the Church and introduced the Croatian language in the religious services after the Great Assembly in 926. Until that time, services were held only in Latin, not being understandable to the majority of the population. Not only that this was important for Croatian language and culture but it also made the religion stronger within the Croatian nation.

The sculpture of Grgur Ninski is so popular that you’ll find smaller versions of it in squares in Nin and Varazdin as well. None of them is as monumental and big in scale as the original from Split.

The bronze on Grgur’s toe is worn down since the local legend says it that you have to touch his toe each time you pass by if you want good luck and if you want your wishes to come true.











I took a video of the end of the welcoming ceremony and I was excited to get a close up of most of the costumes. Sorry for the little flippity-flop in the beginning, I forgot you can't do videos like photos.



Oh yea, no one was saved but over 1000 tracts were handed out. Pray that God will use this tracts and that at least one soul will be saved.

Aug 21, 2008

Hey We're Famous!

Well at least in our little town we are. The other day in the town paper and article was written that gave us a bit of publicity, good or bad. Apparently as the article says, it's impossible to walk through the city park without having people jump out and tell you about the kingdom of God. This woman went on to talk about the pamphlets or tracts these lurking predators are handing out and how it was impossible to walk through our park without meeting one of these undercover agents for the Kingdom of God.

Within the same issue we had a member, long standing, come to us with this article in hand to tell us how wrong this practice of evangelizing the strolling public is. His argument is that obviously this isn't right and even embarrassing when people are reporting it in the local paper.

And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. It looks pretty clear in Luke 14:23, Go, even into the hedges to compel them to come in.

Anyhow, we're glad that we were reported in the paper, we're even sadly glad that our friend has decided to separate himself from his overly zealous church family because the means that the Devil is mad and so God must be very pleased with the whole situation.

Sorry for the rant!

Aug 19, 2008

YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN TEXAS IN AUGUST WHEN.

1. The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground

2. The trees are whistling for the dogs

3. The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance

4. Hot water now comes out of both taps

5. You can make sun tea instantly

6. You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron

7. The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly

8. You discover that in August it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car

9. You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window

10. You actually burn your hand opening the car door

11. You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m

12. Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, 'What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death

13. You realize that asphalt has a liquid state

14. The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper

15. Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs

16. The cows are giving evaporated milk

Ah, what a place to call home.. .
God Bless The Lone Star State of Texas................

Aug 13, 2008

Market Finds

For months I have heard about a large market in a near by town and have wanted to go see what they had. So Monday the family and I headed to Koprivnica to check out the market. The drive there was so slow, construction all the way made for a very slow hour. I did see some pretty houses with lovely flowers. Croatians love their flowers and 9 out of 10 homes are adorned with these beautiful window/balcony boxes.


The market itself wasn't overly impressive. It was basically just a huge amount or cars park here and there, really no order whatsoever. There were alot of venders with new Chinese stuff, who wants to look at that stuff anyhow? I was looking for the used, old stuff.
I did manage to find this transfer plate, I like the red and white. I actually seen this same plate here in our town but they wanted more for it and so I passed it up.
I was happy to find it in Koprivnica for 5 kuna less than I had seen it for. I think I paid $2 for it.
And then I spotted this cute little ceramic leaf. It's not super old but it's not new either. I like it, don't know what I'm going to do with it but I'm sure it'll find a place on a wall somewhere. Oh yea, after I clean off the sticky paper. :0)
We had a good time, drank some really yummy cappuccino in town and had a nice time.

Aug 6, 2008

Victors Baptist Church

Well we had our first service at the Victors Baptist Church on Sunday morning and God was very good to allow us to have 20 in attendance. It was about 90 degrees inside our little building but that didn't hinder us from having a good first service.

We had 9 people come from Cakovec and 11 from Varazdin so we were really glad about it. We won't have our official opening day until the middle of September because we are waiting on a shipment of chairs from the states. At the moment we are having to borrow chairs from the church in Cakovec twice a week so we will have some place to sit. It's a bit of a hassle to have to do this but it's what we have and we're thankful.

Our storefront isn't the most lovely but with the new sign in place it feels much more like home. We still have quite a bit of work inside and doing it as our finances allow. The building itself only fits about 32 people so hopefully we'll be outgrowing it soon. We have paid a full year in advance (actually our homechurch in Arlington, TX paid most of it and two dear brothers there paid another $1000) so we are paid up for a year and after that we're hoping we'll have to more for lack of space.
Please pray for Victors Baptist Church in Croatia and that Jesus will be lifted up, men and women would be saved, and Varazdin would be turned to Christ.

We are also in desperate need of some sort of heating for this building since winter will be coming soon and the building doesn't have gas. We'll need to purchase some type of heater for this 50 sq. meter building before our winter hits. Winter in Croatia is long and very cold, often dropping down to -15.

One more thing; pray for our missionary partners the Holcomb family who are currently on deputation. Pray that they will raise their support quickly, be safe while traveling and win folks to Jesus Christ along the way.

Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Aug 1, 2008

Hodgepodge!

That's about what this post is, a hodgepodge of subjects. I know it's been a while since I posted, life is so hectic lately. Actually it's not so hectic but it seems like it is. Does that make any sense?

The first service of the new church is tomorrow. We have been there for the last several days getting things ready. Yesterday the church sign arrived, it's not huge but it'll do pretty well. I'll try to get a picture tomorrow and also of the pulpit and inside.

It's been a pretty nice summer lately, but today was a scorcher. The other night when it was nicer the kids took advantage of the nice weather and camped out in the yard. I snuke (is that a word) outside and tried to scare them, they were suppose to be asleep but they weren't. Up for a little late night reading.
Oh I have to share this, Joshua has really got into the open market around here. The other day he found this medal at the market and was overjoyed. It is a German medal for the first and second world wars. This one is the Hindenburg combatants medal. We looked it up and even found the maker. It's his new pride and joy.
Oh I forgot to share this with you the other day. Remember my last post about Joshua's birthday and the old car show in the center of town. I forgot about this picture. They had two American army jeeps and they were the most looked at at the show. I checked to see if they were the real thing and they were, the speed was in miles and not kilometers. I guess and American military jeep would be pretty interesting, these were.

Oh I took this picture just because, I loved the flowers, how pretty!
I found this great tutorial over at painted fish studio for a necklace rack. My necklaces were the biggest mess in my jewelry box so I thought this would be fun. With the necklaces and braclets on it it almost looks artistic, I like it!
Oh I have to tell you this: The national pastor has a Chrysler minivan and the back brakes are out so he was looking into fixing them. Since it's a Chrysler (American) the parts cost a little more than other makes. Anyhow, here the back brake shoes cost $315 yea that's three hundred fifteen dollars, and Johnny called AutoZone in Texas and guess how much the same brakes were, ok are you ready for this....$11.95!!! That's like a difference of $303!!! Can you believe that? With shipping it was still a savings of about $270. Anyhow, I thought that was really interesting so you needed to know it.

Well that's just a little something from life lately. Like I said, life seems a little crowded lately, sorry for being gone so much lately.

Have a wonderful Lord's Day tomorrow!!!