A Little Love Goes a Long Way

One of the biggest blessings about being a missionary is getting to do nice things for others. There is always an opportunity to do for others in Croatia. Croatia has a very large population of Roma (Gypsy) folks. Many of them live in little villages outside of town and struggle from day to day for the very basics in life. 

Christmas comes and goes each year and the vast majority of these children never receive anything for Christmas. While we know that Christmas is not about gifts but about our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the gifts are a way into their lives so we can introduce them to the real Gift of Christmas. 

This year we also reached out to many poor Croatian families and we were blessed to see two come to know the Lord. 

So many churches in the States stood with us and helped us do for these folks this Christmas. 

We say Thank You to all who participated and helped make this Christmas a special one for so many who have nothing. 

We all had a ball going through all the gifts and scarves that were made for our folks. We enjoyed a Wednesday night of preparing gifts for the following day.

On Sunday afternoon at our 4:00 kids meeting in Cakovec we gave out all the shoe boxes, gifts and scarves that you all made for them. So little made then so happy.

Then we headed out to one our Gypsy villages and handed out candy and scarves to the children. You find many things in these villages but orderliness isn't one of them. We started out good but soon lost control.

They were so happy to just get a scarf. 

Bro. Johnny and Bro. Sam in there custom made scarves that the Bingham family sent for them. 

Special thank to all who gave and sacrificed time and money to be a blessing to children, we love you all and thank you from the bottom of our hearts. 

Gypsy Christmas in Croatia and Stuff

We were so blessed to get to spend some time with our good friends, the Madonna Family in Sterling Heights, this past month. 

We love these folks and Mrs. Madonna is one of my all-time favorite preacher's wives. She's one of the sweetest ladies I know. 

Anyhow, Covenant Baptist Church in Sterling Heights participated in the Gypsy Christmas and loaded us down with filled shoe boxes.  

Many of our Gypsy children have never received a Christmas present before and the one we give out will be the only present they get for Christmas. It's my favorite time of the year. I love those children and I delight in seeing their smiles as they open the small gifts. 

  

Josh and Hannah were in charge of fitting them all in our little trailer. Luckily they all fit. 

We are looking forward to a wonderful Christmas this year. We're taking a container back filled with Bibles and other things. We're so happy to have some room in the container to bring some personal items and lots of stuff for our Gypsy Christmas project. 

We have a great group from Bible Baptist Church in Rendon, TX, who decided to knit scarves and hats for our Gypsies. They along with several other churches have knit, as of right now:

37 pairs of gloves

1 shawl

1 poncho

1 pair of socks

31 headbands or earmuffs

10 blankets

854 hats

1,560 scarves

They call their project, Wrap Croatia for Christ. Pretty awesome! I'm so glad that the ladies at Bible Baptist had the vision to make a difference for little children they have never seen. It gets very cold in Croatia and many times the Gypsy children aren't dressed warmly. I'm gonna have so much fun wrapping those little children for all the ladies who took the time to make a difference. 

On a side note, we're almost finished with our 3 month trip. I'm tickled because a week from Thursday we head back to Texas and guess who I get to see...CODY!!! I have never been away from our oldest son Cody for more than a few days and he has been in Texas at Bible college while we've been on the road. 

As we travel and people find out that our son is staying behind for Bible college I hear all sorts of reports. From, "oh no, it'll be the worst time of your life." to " I cried every day and I still cry after all these years." 

Very seldom do I meet a mother that is okay with her children being gone. I can understand for sure, I love my kids way too much but I'm a realist. I know for them to serve the Lord and do His will they have to eventually get out. I'm happy Cody is in Bible college and doing well, it's the Lord's will that boys become men and that's how it happens. 

Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I am doing so well without him but them I realize that it's probably God's grace being poured out more abundantly in my time of need. I'm okay with it, thank the LORD!

On a second side note (he he) we are getting ready to pack up and head home. We will be back in Texas around the 15th and then pack up our container on the 1st of Nov. and then we'll be flying home on November 29th. I'm so excited! I can't even tell you how I'm looking forward to going home. Not only going home but we get to see all of our Croatian church family and friends.  Anyhow, God sure is good to let us serve Him in Croatia, we're privileged. 

Gypsy meeting or what??

Praise the Lord! We had a wonderful meeting out in Trnovec on Sunday. We had at least 100 show up counting all the adults in the street listening. We had a great response and it looks like this will be an ongoing meeting. You never know how they are going to except you until the fact but praise the Lord they were very welcoming.

On a sad note, it was hard to tell our 30 kids who usually rode the vans to church they we could no longer come and get them. They were really sad and I wish there were some other possibility but sadly there isn't.

We're hoping this will turn into something lasting and we're praying that the work will be established enough to stand while we are gone of furlough in less than 3 months. We have great co-laborers here in Croatia and we know that they will do everything in their power to keep it going. Pray for the missionaries here that thy could quickly learn the language and be able to preach soon.

Since the Gypsies in Croatia mainly speak Romanian or some mixed version of Romanian, many of the people in the village including the young and old don't speak Croatian. So, Johnny preached in Croatian and Deon translated into Gypsy (Romanian) . Praise the Lord for Bro. Deon. This man is Gypsy and has lived a life of misery until he found Jesus. He was a cutter for many years and bears the scars up and down his body. He now has such a desire to serve the Lord and I can see maybe a possible Gypsy preacher in the future. He lives with his 8 children and wife in a 12x12 room. No running water or heat other than a cooking stove. They all sleep in that room and live on nearly nothing. Please pray for Bro. Deon, he could be the key to the future work with the Gypsies.

The meeting started out very orderly with children sitting on the tarp and people stand a ways off and by the time it was over, Johnny and Bro. Deon had about 3 feet of moving room up there.

We are considered a cult in Croatia and the Catholic church is sure busy spreading lies about us. The Gypsies have been told that we Baptists have very strange practices; eating hair and allowing our children to marry each other are just a couple of the wild ones. Anyhow, I'm doing my part to get to know they ladies. Maybe if we become friends they will be at least some voice on our side, to at least defend us on this crazy hair-eating rumor! :0)

Yea, giving out candy afterwards was a big goof! They went wild. It was impossible to keep them off of us and before it was over the decision to no give out candy was easily made.

We gave away a hawk-eye award to the best boy and girl. the bags were full of school supplies since school just started. They were more than excited!

Bro. Kevin Brown (new missionary in Croatia) and the Holcomb's son Matthew. 

Singing, Every Day With Jesus is Sweeter Than the Day Before

Bro. Scott blessing us with his talent.

Bro. Sam Ward, our co-laborer from our home church in Arlington. This man is amazing. Gave up job, home and family and came to Croatia to live. His desire is to live here the rest of his life. He was been responsible for more souls being saved than anyone. He is a soul-winning machine. If you want to invest in eternity through the winning of priceless souls, you would get huge dividends by supporting this man. 

Josip (in the middle) is the man that allowed us to use his yard. He is a saved man and was happy to let us use his property to spread the Gospel. 

They were all very eager to help. What's funny is that the boy on the left was a little monster. He was so mean to the other kids. It's normal in Gypsy society to have abusive relationships. The adults and very abusive to the chidlren and to each other. These children learn to scrap from the time they are very young. If you will notice in many of the photos the children have very angry looks on their faces. 

We played some games and had a good time before the preaching. 

Sang some songs.

Pray with us about this meeting. It never fails that as soon as we start something in a Gypsy village the Devil really goes to work. The first little church plant we started that was actually only in the Bible study phase ended rather violently when the man in whose home we were meeting was killed when his son shot him in the chest with a shotgun deliberately. 

These villages belong to Ol' Slew-foot and he's not going to give them over without a fight. Please pray!!

***Also let me ask you to pray for something else. We got a call today from Bro. Rich, the national pastor of the first church plant in Čakovec and he was at the hospital. He has been having a lot of problems with what seemed like his heart but today he started coughing up blood and he's not at the hospital. Please pray for him and his family. Pray for God's will in his life. Pray for healing within God's will. 

I really want to thank all of you who have an interest in the work here in Croaita. I know that we are far away and sometimes it seems like another planet altogether but you still pray and follow the work here and that means so much.