summer madness

no really, madness! This summer has been the busiest summer we have had over the last 10 years. It seems like every week something is going on and actually there is. We have had 3, week long festivals going on (we hit the festivals to pass out tracts) and then we also went to Rijeka, Zagreb and Osijek to tract. In a week we have a Renaissance festival coming up.

In between all the festivals and tracting we still have church.

Our Sunday line-up:
10:00 church in Varaždin
3:00 vans leave to pick up children for the kids meeting
4:00 meeting starts consisting of a teen class and an under 12 class
5:00 vans run to take children home and pick up adults and children who come with their parents
6:00 main service starts
8:00 vans run again to take people home
10:00 a death-like sleep over takes us.

Wednesday in Čakovec
6:00 vans run
7:00 church
8:30 vans run home

Thursday in Varaždin
4:00 mens soul-winning
6:00 vans run
7:00 church starts
8:30 vans run home

Saturday soul-winning in Varaždin

So here are so photos from the recent Špancirfest in Varaždin. After it was all over the final tract tally was 12,000. 12,000 tracts were placed into individual hands. 12,000 people had the opportunity to be saved. 

Johnny in his appointed place passing out tracts.





Bro. Alen was also there busy passing out tracts.


This was Bro. Sam's place, he was even on the Croatian News.








Bro. Scott was there too, busy.













Oh yea and Traci and I were there also. Here we are; there she is and I'm behind the camera.

It's been a great summer. I know it's not over but with the 65 degree weather today and the start of school soon I feel like we're watching summer slip away. 

I asked one of our Gypsy men when Summer would be over and he told me when all the corn in the fields was dry and golden then summer would be over. The corn is still green so we may have a little longer. 

BTW, we had 65 in the 4:00 kids meeting yesterday and the vans were running over. Pray for this ministry. In one village we took in 2 vans and still left about 50 kids and even some adults who also wanted to come to church. There just wasn't room. That's not a usual problem with bus ministries but it is with ours. Pray that God will show us what our next step is. We are out of room at church too. 

I guess if we have to have a problem, too many is better than not enough. 

Anyhoo, thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to keep blogging. I know the nature of the blog has changed but I'm still a normal gal trying to make a home and life on the mission field. 

Time flys and man am I busy!

The fact that it's already August and the middle of August at that amazes me. How did we mange to get here and where did 2010 go? Are you kidding me, we were celebrating Christmas yesterday and now our pool needs to be cleaned and taken down? 

This summer as flown by with the speed of light. We are been so busy, actually more busy than any other time in our ministry here in Croatia. It's amazing how fast time goes by when you’re going 27 / 7.

Wow, this year is winding down and so much has happened here. We have welcomed Bro. Scott Holcomb and his sweet family and our co-laborer Sam Ward from our home church. We have watched them settle in and begin to love Croatia as we do. 

The church in Varaždin has moved to a new location and is flourishing. We've had many saved out soul-winning and seen several visitors in the last few weeks. 

The church in Čakovec is growing and our children's ministry is CRAZY. We have 2 van routes going to two different villages right now and we have more kids coming and wanting to come than we have room for. Yesterday Traci and I headed out to our route in Trnovec and before we even made it in the village about 8 teens and boys flagged us down on the main road and jumped into our nine seater van that was already over legal capacity. Then we headed into the village and picked up several more until we have 16 in our 9 passenger van and we had to leave about 20 standing on the side of the road because we didn't have room. I was heartbroken but what could I do? I don't remember ever having this problem in America. We had people pushing each other out of the way to get into the van. It's was surely a once in a life time sight. Next week we're going to take the new van purchased for us by Bro. Canter and then Old Red (our old van that's on it's last leg) and fill them both up. We are so blessed to have friends of this ministry and Croatia who give so we can take people to meet Jesus. 

Funny story...Yesterday in the group of "teen" guys who got on the van there was one guy whole looked a bit older. I didn't ask until we made it to the church but then he told me he was 18, right at the limit for our kids meeting. Later on after Johnny led him to the Lord did I realize he was actually 27 years old and married with two kids. He lied so he could come to church and there he met Jesus. WOW!

For many years the church has been going to different cities in Croatia to pass out John and Romans and tracts. We usually manage a big trip every couple of months not counting the normal Saturday and Thursday ministry. For 7 years we have wanted to go to Osijek on the Eastern side of Croatia closest to Bosnia and Serbia but it's a long trip and with gas at $7 per gallon we never we able to make the trip until Saturday. 

We loaded up 27 members and headed out. It was an exhausting trip since we took the old roads and didn't pay the toll to take the highway. FYI, highway fees in Croatia are some of the most expensive in Europe. It would have costs us several hundred dollars in tolls to take the highways so we stuck to the back roads. It took us more than 4 hours to make it to Osijek. 

Our little group minus a few. No we're not all that short it's just that Bro. Sam is that tall!

Bro. Rich's little girl Rebeka, she's an angel.

Bro. Rich, our pastor in Čakovec, smiling as usual.

Bro. Sam Ward and Marija, a faithful Gypsy lady in our church.

Bro. Rajko and his sweet wife Olivera. They are new in the church but they have already been great blessings. They are going to be baptized soon and we're so happy to have them. They have some really great boys too. 

On the road!

Hannah girl posing with the big guy!

It was so hot out side. The kids stayed cool by visiting the fountain. 

Super love this photo, Traci took it.

After we finished in Osijek and managed about 5000 tracts and several hundred J&R we headed to Vukovar to see the homeland war memorial. Vukovar was the hardest hit city in all of Croatia during the war from 91 to 95. The Serbian army came in and pretty much slaughtered people. It is atrocious to think of the crimes done during that time. 

This huge water tower is pretty amazing. The police and a volunteers in Vukovar planted that Croatian flag on top and then they held Vukovar for 45 days against the Serbian army. 

It's said that hundreds of grenades and mortars pelted this tower trying to tumble that flag but they were unsuccessful. Incredible feeling to stand so close to what meant so much. 
The bullet holes on these buildings were crazy. 

Vukovar bears the scars of thousands of rounds of artillery. Hundreds of destroyed homes dot the landscape. It's daunting to think of the terror these people faced so suddenly. 
We all headed to the Homeland Memorial Museum that was located on an army base. It was awesome. 

They solider on duty actually opened the exhibits just for us.

Johnny made jokes about needing this armored vehicle for his bus route in the Gypsy village. 

Two sweeties. Goran on the left and Matej on the right.

After viewing one of the exhibits we took a little break before heading to the next one.

It was really amazing how close we could get to these machines. This is the ground to arm missile launcher and the kids were allowed in it to explore. Actually when Cody pushed a button there was a buzzing noise back by the guns. Scary but cool too.

Goran and Maggie were more interested in the tractor than anything else.

Bro. Rich's kids up on the tank. Actually you could actually go down in these tanks and on some of them you could actually move the gun barrel back and forth.

Cool view of the inside of one of the tanks. 

Kiddos waiting to get into another exhibit. 

They had an awesome collection of hand made guns, actually hand guns that shot shotgun shells. All the boys went wild.

We had a wonderful time in Osijek and Vukovar and more important is that two Muslim Gypsy men were saved. No longer praying for allah but now praying to Jehovah and more so to their Savior Jesus.  

So much more has happened this year that I would love to share with you but it's taken me well over an hour to post what I have so far. 

I will say though that this week we are going to Graz, Austria to pick up the Kevin Brown family. They are coming to Croatia as new missionaries. They'll be learning the language and working here in the church until they get ready to head out and conquer a city in Croatia for Christ. 

Friday starts Špancirfest in Varaždin and there will be soul-winners from our church our everyday. This German waling festival will bring a quarter to half a million people through our streets over this next week. It's a huge opportunity to get the Gospel into the hands of a great number or souls. 

Please pray for the members of the next week that many people will be saved and decided to live for Christ because He died for us. 

Soon we'll be moving house and preparing for furlough. We will be leaving the first week in December and we'll be gone a year. We're so excited to be able to leave the work in the capable hands of Bro. Rich, Bro. Scott and Bro. Sam. We know that things will continue in the same spirit it has and we'll be able to take furlough without worrying about the work here. 

When I started this blog it was all about being a homemaker and wife in Croatia. Now it's turned into a missions blog simply because I don't have anytime to do anything at home. We are so busy that sewing for anything but necessity is totally out. I haven't tried a new recipe in months and my home is not in it's best state ever.

I miss doing all the things that made my blog popular 500 posts ago. Since those days my readers have fallen away and or converted to face book. Not many people read my blog any more and I've contemplated trashing it more than once but I don't. It's a running diary of my life or at least the parts I have time to include. I have gone back to my first post many times and read through all the posts and I love it. I guess that is the reason I keep this blog, not for you but for me. 

Sorry to those of you who do read it, I know I haven't been too faithful but "real" life sometimes calls and the "virtual" one has to be put on hold. I hope some of you continue to read but I know life is busy for us all. I apologize for not making my rounds to you guys often enough. 

Until the next few seconds I have to spare,