Croatia Fall Trip - Monday November 4

Well the first real hiccup of the trip came today, but it really ended up being a blessing, as most hiccups are, as long as your perspective and how you look at it is not about self. We went to meet the hockey coach at his work in the morning, just so we could introduce ourselves before camp that night. To our surprise there was not going to be a camp that evening. They had to play a makeup game in Zagreb so they would be out of town so he asked if we could push the camp back a day. We assured him that it was no problem, even though we are disappointed. But actually after our initial disappointment, as we discussed on our car ride home we realized it was probably for the best. Moving the camp to Tuesday we would have more Storks to help with the camp and to interpret,  gave us a chance to check out the facility where we would have the camp, and gave Zack a better idea of the layout of the area so he could better plan the camp for the campers. We also found out that the coach would like to have his younger team come first for an hour and then his older teams. This allows us to see more kids and the chance to share the good news of Christ to more! Blessing in it all! What is the old saying, "There is a silver lining in every cloud." Well, we like to say on the HiS PRINT Mission team, "We make the plans and had God the pencil" because He owns them anyway and can erase anything we have written down at any time. Going with that attitude makes things a lot easier to swallow when they don't happen the way you planned them. Put another way, we try to allow God to provide the strength and we provide the flexibility! When we try and make God flexible and we provide the strength, we fail and become very disappointed.

We spent much of the day reading and messing around the house at Janko's. In the afternoon, Joe and I walked around the property with Janko and talked about our dreams for the house and our ministry desires for Croatia and Eastern Europe. He is very interested in making this house a hotel type of sleeping quarters with rooms to sleep and a large room to study and meet in. We are praying God would reveal his plan and purpose for this ministry and how it ties in here at Janko's home. He would love to have us buy it from him and make this into a place where we could house missionaries, short mission trips and conduct discipleship training and Bible studies.

A few of the other God points from Monday are:

• We had dinner at Neven and Mia's and were blessed when she prayed for the meal and company. Two years ago I would never have guessed Mia would have the desire to do this, let alone even think about and actually do it. The kids playing together with Ezekiel was priceless. They played very well together and Ezekiel must have felt like he was in Disney World with the toys he got to play with. He didn't want to leave and who could blame him since he has been with a house full of adults only!

• Joe and I had a long discussion with several members of the Storks and I shared the gospel to them again around the table in the evening when about 7 of them came over to chat. It was a great time of fellowship and not one of them seemed to be uninterested. Wonderful time of sharing Gods love and grace through his son Jesus. They had all heard it from us before but we  wanted to show them a little different way. All of them were glued in and not only hearing, but actually listening to the message. Joe and I look forward to having followup with individuals as the week progresses, asking them to answer some of the questions we posed that night. Our prayer is that Gods truth will be revealed in each heart.

All in all a it was a great day and we praise God we are able to be here to do that. Keep the hockey camp in your prayers and for good weather in order to have it. It will be outdoors and we have started to get some pretty hard rain. Also pray for more opportunities to share with the Storks and that their hearts would be willing! 

Have a wonderful God filled day!

David