This past month, my team and I were placed with a church in Sombor, Serbia! That’s a town of about 47,000 people, and it was beautiful! It snowed a couple of times while we were there, which was really refreshing after the heat and humidity we went through in Southeast Asia.
Serbians mostly follow Eastern Orthodoxy, and many don’t accept Protestants as legitimate and some even believe they are part of a cult. This makes evangelism and outreach a little tricky.
Our job there was to build friendships and relationships with locals, and show them that Protestants are just normal people that love Jesus. We spent tons of time in town meeting people and getting to know them better, and put on some events at the church that they could come to. For example, my teammate, Sam, hosted an event where she taught people how to take great pictures with just a smartphone.
We also were able to go to a refugee camp outside the town on Fridays! We spent our time there doing crafts with the women, playing soccer with the men, and playing with the kids. I definitely wish we could have done more for them, but at least we could bring smiles to their faces and joy to their hearts for a little while.
Every night, we hosted the friends that we met in town and some people that go to the church for a game night! We would spend a couple of hours playing card games and ping pong, and a new game that I learned called Jungle Speed. Our hosts’ daughters, Anastazia and Viktorija, were pretty amazing at it, and often the game turned quite aggressive! If you’ve never heard of Jungle Speed (like I hadn’t), look it up– it’s for sure a new favorite!
We were able to bring some new people into the church and introduce them to our ministry hosts, who will hopefully be able to continue to build a friendship with them and have some awesome conversations about God. It was also great to be able to encourage Zoli and Tanja and their girls, because ministry in that area has been very slow-going and difficult.
If you could please keep them in your prayers and pray also for the people of Sombor, that would be amazing!
On another note, thanks to the generosity of my supporters, family and friends, I am now FULLY FUNDED!! Thank you so much for your donations and prayers!!
On yet another, less important note, my teammates and I were lucky enough to travel to Budapest, Hungary, for an adventure day! Here are some pics from there– enjoy!
