Vladimir Cizmanski, pastor of the Brethren Assembly in Montenegro, writes:
I can’t describe my impression that time is going so fast. My weeks feel like days. Whenever I speak with someone about the time they have same sense. Are our globe and watches turning faster? Technology is supposed to help us to do things in less time, but it looks it is not going that direction . . . .
To begin, I must say that our last teenage summer camp was so well organized that teenagers said they want to stay another week. They enjoyed it very much.
The Stoneworks team from Athens, Georgia was great, and there were about 20 teenage campers. All together there were 32 people.
This ministry is growing. We have to look for a new location since the old property can accommodate only around 25 people.
When September started, my wife and began preparations to go to Athens, Georgia where we visited with the church that sent the summer team.
It was an exciting time for us to spend 3 weeks with people that we got know in Montenegro through the camp ministry. Also it was very good to meet new people who we knew were great supporters of those who ministered in the camp.
We had only heard of St. James United Methodist Church but now we had opportunity to get a real feeling of the life at this church.
The warmth and acceptance that we experienced there was really refreshing. Marijana and I felt like we were in our own family.
We were also very happy to meet Mary Jean Preece, the Stoneworks Administrator. She, her husband and her parents took us to Stone Mountain.
This relaxing and refreshing time that was great gift for us. It was orchestrated by our Father to get us there at the perfect time of our lives. We needed it just at that time.
Now that we are back home, we face different challenges at the church. We need clear vision where we go and how to get there. I really want to develop the leadership at the church and I would appreciate very much your prayers regarding that. I started intensively to meet with two brothers to encourage them to get involved to take care of the flock as much as God is entrusting them.
Unfortunately, one other man said that he will not continue to come to church because he has struggles in life and it started to be very difficult for him to follow Jesus. Now he is back in his old style of worldly living and refusing any discussion about God. The only good thing in all of this is that he does want to stay in touch with us. Please pray for Momcilo because he also has (by the doctor’s diagnoses) psychological problems, but I believe there is also demonic power in his life.
Now face great task: distribution of shoe boxes at Christmastime! We will distribute about 20,000 shoe boxes this holiday. This is always a big project for us, as we distribute shoe boxes to people in need. We need your prayer for the good health, strength, good methods of sharing the Gospel, discipline, good weather, volunteers. . . .
We are planning to improve our Christmas program with puppets. This is is something completely new for us, and we have to practice a lot. We see good reactions from parents when they see our effort to do good things for them – they really appreciate that, but more importantly we have to realize that our God deserves for us to give Him our best for His glory.
