Concluding Prayer and Worship Services

Thursday, March 18, 2010

We took a little break this morning from the busyness we’ve experienced all week. We got caught up on blogging and emailing and such. Then, we had an enjoyable lunch with some of the students and David Lively here at the school. Then, we did some laundry in the afternoon that stretched into every spare moment. Both the school’s washer and dryer take an incredibly long time. We had hoped to have time for an afternoon nap before getting ready for the evening prayer and worship service. But, it crept up on us too quickly along with the preparation work for the service, so we never managed to fit in a nap.

Jelena picked Jennifer and us up, as usual. It was good to see everyone back at the church. Anita and I discussed some changes we wanted to make from the previous night’s service to train the church on other ways of structuring a prayer service. We wanted to have a little more structure to tonight’s service than yesterday. We worked out a good plan that touched on several topics in a progressive manner.

Anita and Bosnian worship team leading in West Mostar meeting

The people were very responsive and the Spirit was clearly present. We structured much of the service around inviting people up to the microphone to pray, read scripture and sing. We focused the topics around Revelation 5 and Isaiah 6. Whereas yesterday’s service was more focused on the Father, tonight was on Jesus. We listed on the overhead projector 12 attributes the inhabitants of heaven declare about Jesus in Revelation 5. We invited people to come to the microphone to make declarations about how Jesus has been faithful to them in any of these 12 areas/ways. There were other opportunities for people to come to the microphone. They were very responsive without having to be prompted repeatedly. It was great to see.

The pace and momentum of the service was high throughout the night. I played more of an active role leading out the prayer portion of the service, so Anita could stay focused on the worship aspect. This allowed us to keep the topics focused. We also asked the translators to stay at the microphones to not only translate what we said into Bosnian but to translate most of what everyone else said, prayed and read into English for us. We got lost a little last night, because the translators got so caught up in the service that they forgot to translate for us. They did a great job translating everything for us tonight.

The worship was incredible. Anita did a great job. Everyone was participating without having to be pushed. The worship went into several crescendos of high praise. It was very easy to stay focused in worship for me and usually I tend to be easily distracted by what’s going on (and changes that need to be made to the flow of the service and such). That’s a great testimony for me. She has such an unusual anointing on her worship!

Congregation at West Mostar church meeting

We ended on a sweet note as the Spirit was touching a lot of people tenderly. After Anita concluded with a final worship song, I spent some time speaking the Lord’s heart for the people to bring them encouragement and hope. I spoke a blessing over them as well. They were verbally responsive to what I shared and were clearly being touched at a heart-level. I could sense the Spirit on me, speaking the Lord’s heart through me. It is very affirming for me when that kind of thing happens.

We finished up and then the pastor wrapped things up. He asked for testimonies from his people about what this week had meant to them and done in their lives. The response was great. Some of the people shared such tender and remarkable testimonies of how God had met them and done incredible things in their lives. It was very touching.

West Mostar church preparing to pray for us

With this being our last night ministering to this church, the pastor invited us up to the front of the church. Then, he invited his members to come and pray for us. We were soon being surrounded by and hugged by some 30 or more people in a big circle. They prayed for us and blessed us so graciously. It was an awesome experience!

One of the Muslim believers we’ve ministered to on both of our previous 2 trips to Mostar came tonight. It was great to see her. Last year, she asked us to pray that she would get accepted into the university here. So, we did. She reported tonight that she got accepted and is preparing to start classes soon. We rejoiced with her. She said she would be coming over to the school tomorrow, so we hope to get to see her again tomorrow.

They invited us back on a few occasions. We discussed some specifics. It looks like the first half of October would be best for the people in Mostar. We might stay longer and go to the Northern part of the country after that. We discussed the possibility of doing some inner healing counseling next time. I suggested they get a copy of our teaching CDs and manual from David Lively at the school in preparation. If we do those sessions, we would have to bring a much larger team next time to support one-on-one counseling sessions.

We also discussed the churches need for a Website. So, I volunteered to set it up for them on my server. I made a list of the things I need to do and to help educate them on in upcoming weeks and months. I’ll have to check into getting a Bosnian language pack installed on my server. I also need to help them pick out and register an appropriate domain name.

We had a good time of fellowship after the church service. Karmelo is in the process of setting up a beekeeping business. He’s been buying the equipment and getting everything ready. We had a lot of questions to ask him about bee pollen and other related topics. We had such a great time relating with all of their precious people. Karmelo and I had a good time of one-on-one prayer yesterday, and so I encouraged him about an issue he had shared for the Lord to give him wisdom. He asked me several times this week how I was doing, and I could see his compassion and tender heart.

They dropped us off at the school, and we said our goodbyes and exchanged hugs. They are such a great couple. I really hope we can come back in October and get more time with them, their leadership team and the rest of their church. They are such wonderful people.

Last night dinner at Porto Pizza

We dropped off our things at the school and decided to walk down the street to Porto Pizza for a late dinner. We didn’t find many people around the school when we returned. Becky had gone out with some of our Bosnian friends a couple of hours before. When we arrived at the restaurant, Becky, Dejana and Remi were there. Although they had been there for an hour and a half, they were just getting their food. So, we ordered too and ended up eating with them.

Afterwards, Anita and I ordered one of our favorite desserts here in Bosnia Herzegovina. It is a nice pancake desert with a crepe rolled in fruit spread or honey, walnuts and whipped cream. I’m sure it’s packed with calories but it’s really good. We hadn’t had one since getting in Bosnia for this trip and so we splurged and each got one. They were really good, as always, especially at this particular restaurant.

We had a great time of conversation with them all. It was good to hear an update about their church in Breza as we have ministered there several times. We were sad not to visit there this trip. We also caught Becky up on the evening activities and some of the plans for the Fall that we discussed with Karmelo and Ivon. The walk back to the school is entirely up hill – much like San Francisco. So, we burnt off many of our calories on the trip back. Dejana discussed some important decisions she and Remi are facing in upcoming months. We are praying for breakthrough and God’s bountiful provision for them.

We put our laundry in for another dryer cycle and consulted with some of the students and Bosnians here in the building on how to get the washing machine to spin dry correctly. I’m catching up on the day’s activities here on the blog and then will get a shower before heading to bed a little after midnight. Tomorrow is a more restful day as we wrap up everything and get some more time over dinner with missionaries, David and Sabrina Lively, who run the school here in Mostar. Then we’ll start packing up some of our things in preparation for our trip to Sarajevo early Saturday morning.

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