Our Ministry Center is Open!!!

We've had a great start for our ministry center. Last Thursday we had our grand opening that doubled as registration for English conversation classes. Teammates from Ohrid and Skopje came to play guitar, and Nikola, a very close friend whom Kyle discipled in Skopje, came to play the bongo.

We were thrilled with the turn-out! I think we had at least thirty people come, and seventeen signed up for English classes.

Thank you so much to Indian Springs Baptist Church near Little Rock, and for all you individuals (you know who you are!), for all you did helping get the ministry center up and running -- and for helping to keep it running!! We have English classes scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday nights and Kyle hopes to offer a Bible study there too soon. Our bookshelves are supplied with Christian literature like Bibles, Purpose Driven Life, Peace with God, Jesus Our Destiny – all in Macedonian and available for free -- and also many books in English that may be borrowed.

On Thursday I was talking with Magdalena and Maria, two students who were in our classes at the local university last semester. Magdalena asked me about the book, Peace with God (Billy Graham), that we had given the students on the last day of class. She and her husband hadn't been able to come but Maria had told her about it and she wanted to know if she could still get one. As we walked over to the shelves to get one, Maria followed us and eagerly commented, “I'm already on page 336!”



We continued talking and I mentioned an old copy of Marriage Partnership magazine (thanks to you, JLK WMU group at UBC, Baton Rouge!!) that I was reading at my house and Magdalena was very interested in reading about marriage from a biblical perspective. I promised to bring it up to the center for her to read. I think we'll try to keep a supply of some Christian magazines for light reading at the center; they should provide easy ways to get into some spiritual conversations.

Please pray for our English classes. We have a lot of fun in them, but fun is not the reason for them! Please pray that they will be a means to our goal of reaching the people of Prilep for their salvation and for Jesus' glory! I am so excited thinking of the possibilities – God has already proven so faithful by bringing out the number of people he did just for the opening! (I'm ashamed to say I was not expecting so many!)

Last night we had our first classes. We had ten students there all together; I had four students in my class: Gabriel, Monika, Ace (pronounced Aht-se) and Johan (pr: Yo-hahn). There are still others who have signed up but weren't able to come last night – there are two in particular that I know will come, they just couldn't last night. Please pray for Jeff and Amy and Kyle and me as we spend time with our new friends. Pray for opportunities and for boldness! Pray for open hearts!

Jeff & Amy will be gone to Prague for training for three weeks in February so Kyle and I will be trying to balance all the classes. Pray for Jeff & Amy, that the training will be fruitful, and for Kyle and me, that our efforts at the center AND at home will be fruitful as well!!!