Dear Fellow-soldiers in God’s kingdom,
There is no justification for not writing a report of how things are going amongst us for such a long time. I hope that you will forgive me, especially those of you who help us from time to time or more regularly.
Prayers and Praise
A few months ago a young man called Marko started coming along to meetings. Marko had just left a RETO centre (Christian Centre for Rehabilitation from Addictive Drugs) and had expressed a desire to be a part of our fellowship in order to grow spiritually and remain off drugs to which he had been addicted for so many years.
Since Marko lives in Cetinje, his uncle would drive him every week by car and during the service his uncle would walk around the neighbourhood until the meeting finished. One week his uncle came to the service for the first time and said that he would continue coming, which was a great encouragement to us. We are praying that the whole family would be saved, including Marko’s aunt, who lives in Podgorica and who has attended our meetings several times.
Also, about a month ago, one more young man, Dejan (33), started to come to our meetings, and he too was returning from this same rehab organisation. He needs our prayers because Dejan’s wife with their child left him for various complex reasons.
Dejan is now working as a taxi driver, which is not the best solution for him because he has to work shifts which do not allow him to come to our services. He would like to find other work in order to be in the church with us, because he realises how important that is in order to survive in this world full of temptations.
Family and Children’s Outreach; Attacks
Our Samaritan’s Purse package distribution went well with great encouragement that God is working in people’s hearts. There were around 60 new families and several of them expressed great interest in remaining in contact with us for further activities that we will have in the future.
We handed out around 1,200 packages in this way and believe that the children’s and teenagers’ meetings will have new permanent members wanted to go forwards in their knowledge of spiritual things, because 107 signed up for the children’s meetings and 27 for the teenagers’ meetings.
This year we will have some new materials for teaching children in the form of 12 lessons entitled “The Greatest Journey”, which has been prepared by Samaritan’s Purse, so we are praying that as many children as possible from the 26 families who signed up for this course will also see it through to the end.
It is very possible that we will be faced with some good problems connected with our church premises. At the last children’s meeting there were more than 50 children, but our premises is not able to comfortably accommodate such a large number.
We are also seeing the zeal of our Enemy in attempting to restrict us in our joy and opportunities which help us in our ministry. In the last few weeks it happened that someone damaged our vehicles, the church minibus and the van, puncturing the water and oil cooling system, probably with a screwdriver. This happened four times over two weeks. We are praying that the person who did this would come to know God’s love and realise that what he/she did truly was in the service of the devil.
Sabbatical and Training
One item of news which we would like to share with you concerns our plans for the coming year. Marijana and I have been thinking and praying about a special time in the form of a year of rest and further training.
Since Marijana is very much involved in counselling young girls and women both in faith and in practical life choices, she realised her need for further training in this area.
I also saw that I need more teaching so that the fellowship can be proficiently led forward to a greater level of maturity and organisation, which requires a high quality of planning, discipleship, mentoring of and delegating to younger people who will take on leadership responsibilities and other ministries in the fellowship.
We believe that the Lord has put all the necessary things in place so that our absence would be covered for by other people who are willing to help. We are thankful to the Lord that the Popovs (Zelimir and Klara) have agreed to help while we are away, as have five brethren who have been in the fellowship for several years. They have all shown a high level of understanding and support for our plans, and have already started to take on various responsibilities to enable the fellowship and its existing ministries to function better. This is a great encouragement to us and we believe that we are on the way towards our goal of the fellowship functioning independent of us.
Our desire is to spend a year in several states of the USA and a month or two in Canada. We plan to leave Montenegro on March 6 and return early summer in 2014. We know that this now sounds like a long period, but given that we are ourselves witnesses of how quickly time passes, we believe that this time will be very constructive for the entire fellowship, as well as for us.
Thank you to all of you who offered us support and understanding when we shared this vision with you.
May the Lord bless you abundantly,
Vladimir and Marijana
