This month I have been growing in my understanding of how weak I am, how much I need God in everything I do, and how much I must depend upon Him. At the same time, it is a great blessing to see how God is growing our congregation by His grace. We have many reasons to thank God for all that He has done, especially that He has kept us together as a church and given us the opportunity to continue His work here in Malisheva—sharing the gospel, working among the people, and always finding a way to share the gospel. I am blessed and thankful to God and to all the people who support us for the work we do here in Malisheve.
During December, we moved the location of our church meetings to a new building and it has been a great blessing for our members. The new place has better conditions and much more space than our previous meeting place. It is located on the new first floor of the building and is more accessible to the people. The old place was quite a challenge for our church because it had only one room and it would get very crowded, especially during our children’s programs. Also, the previous building did not have insulation and would be too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Through all this, God saw our need. After we prayed for over a year for a new place, a church in the U.S. sent funds for the rent and the other expenses that we needed to fix the new place.
During the transition to our new location, I had the opportunity to share the gospel with an old man named Haxhi. While fellow member Isak and I were fixing lights and making the new place ready, Haxhi came by and asked us what we were opening. When I explained to him that the place was for a church, he became very interested and I was able to share the gospel with him—why Jesus came to earth and what we believe. To my surprise, he wanted to know the difference between Christians and Catholics. I explained to him what Christians and Catholics believe and how they are very different. Pray that God will open Haxhi’s heart and that I will have more opportunities for witnessing to him.
Sadly, since my last report, my uncle’s wife died as an unbeliever. Here in Kosovo, people visit the house for three days after the burial and the members of the family are required to stay in the house to greet them. To honor my uncle and to have an opportunity to witness, I stayed in his house for two days. A fellow member of our church whose name is Albert accompanied me in order to help. God gave us many opportunities to share the gospel with many of our relatives that we have not seen in a long time. During that time we had a special opportunity to share the gospel with two men (B… and G….) who listened intently. Pray for these two men and the others that God might open their minds and change their hearts. As a special note, there were also two Imams at the funeral that came to give their condolences. They both continued to interrupt and contradict us while we were sharing the gospel. Please pray for them.
As a final note, in December, we were very active with our children’s program and we had many solid opportunities to share the gospel with them—this is the main reason why we celebrate Christmas. About 130-140 children attended and heard the gospel. Also, ten parents came with their children and that provided us with a great opportunity to preach the gospel to them. We feel blessed that God gave us such a privilege. We had some new people that joined us at our special Christmas Service that had never been to our church and we feel blessed that they decided to join us and hear the reason why Jesus was born. We also had a church from another village that joined us for Christmas. We are very thankful for all these people who came to celebrate such an important event with us.
- Please pray that God will save many people from Malisheva and that God’s church will grow.
- Please pray that we will deeply obey God and that we will know Him better every day.
- Please pray that God will bring more people to work here in the Church.
- Pray for my wife Tina and me to be a good example here and that God will use us for His glory.
- Pray for God’s glory to reign here in our lives and in this city.
- Pray that God will use us in a greater way in this year.
