Planting Seeds

We love living in Prilep and it's a love that we can only attribute to the Lord because we can't truly love at all without His Spirit living in us.  Even though we enjoy living here, many things I may never fully understand or appreciate like I should.  I am a city girl at heart and there are days where living in a village-like farming town of 70,000 (I know that number is not that small) is hard for me.  The slower pace of life feels like a blessing on most days though.

There are…. no drive-throughs, no options of activities for children younger than 6, and no one-stop shopping.

So, we….cook from scratch, take long walks, and visit with lots of people, shop at an open market and smaller grocery stores.

Overall, the way of life here is refreshing and really great for ministry.  Many of you know that we run an outreach center in the center of town called Izgrev (Sunrise).  Currently we are holding ESL classes, Parenting groups, Kid's English Story Hours, and Basics of Christianity Seminars in the outreach center.  Outside of Izgrev we have 2 home group Bible Studies that make up the Church (about 20 of us who are believers) and another 10 or so who come regularly. We also have a women's Bible study that meets weekly as well as one-on-one discipleship with others throughout the week.  God is truly working and we are so blessed to be here being used by Him.

We are always looking for different ways to reach out here and in these past 6 years we've tried a lot of things.  We've done playground projects, Operation Christmas Child Boxes, wheelchair distribution, cooking classes, and ballet classes, just to name a few.

Last year Jeff felt led to partner with the pastor of our mother church in Skopje and Baptist Global Relief on a project for distributing vegetable seeds to villages across the country.  Jeff did the legwork and we began passing out some of the seed packets last weekend to two villages that are close to Prilep.  We carried bags filled with tomato, carrot, cucumber and pepper seeds, along with a tract about the parable of the sower, and a new Testament.   It was such a great experience and one that we pray daily will bare fruit.  Please pray with us about all the things we are doing to get the Gospel out into Prilep and the surrounding villages.  Pray that we would rely only on the strength that the Lord gives and we would always examine ourselves to be sure that we are following what God would have us to do here.

Here are some pictures of the seed project…

                                       The youth helped put the packets together.