Fall 2019 Blog 7: HiS Provision Opens Opportunities I had just woken up in the middle of the night (Friday early morning) by the old man disease that has plagued me for the past several years. For those of you who can relate with me and need no explanation, you yourself miss those nights of uninterrupted sleep. For those who don’t understand, contact me separately and I’ll explain! Lol. But when I came back to bed, I had just received a note on WhatsApp from a brother back home in Texas, letting me know he loved me and was praying for us. I shot him off a note back and by the time I’d finished, I realized I had just written the next Blog. So I copied that message, removed the name to protect the innocent and added some pictures and more detail to bring HiS story to life and in color. Here is my text response: It was an amazing God-filled first full day in country. God brought so many people into our path. Those whom we had helped with equipment in the past and came to thank us, to new acquaintances that are asking for our help. God really has opened this huge door of opportunity through the giving of equipment! People expressing their need and having the opportunity to watch God fill that need through donations; then pack it up and ship those requests with the necessary equipment for them to successfully compete! When that happens, they always ask WHY! Beautiful calling card God has created these past 10 years through those 110,000 pounds of God-provided answers to dreams dreamed! I was so blessed and overwhelmed with the outpouring of gratitude from so many in this short time span we have been in country (less than 36 hours) and with no formal announcement that we were even coming! Only God could provide this and create these opportunities of sharing with one another.

Sisak Presidents of Ice Hockey

Curling Captain

Ice Hockey team

Then out of nowhere God brings Tamera, the President of the Handicap Association in Petrinja back into our lives. Long story that I would love to share, but definitely not enough time to do that here. I’ll just say, we met her back in the spring of 2016 and one of our HiS PRINT team, Kem Crawford has stayed in touch with her since. It just so happened that Tamera reached out to Kem the day before I was leaving to come here, asking for our help in opening doors here in Croatia. Kem reached out to me sharing her request and I told Kem to ask Tamera if she was willing to meet in person so that I could hear her heart. Tamera had no idea that I was coming to Croatia and in fact neither did Kem, till I told her. See the irony in this? A Croatian non faith-based, non-profit asking us, a faith-based ministry not from this country, for help with something they had been denied by those here in country. And to put the icing on the cake, the request happens to come the day before I was coming back to Croatia. That’s a mouth full and so confusing, but I hope you get the picture. Tamera was out of options after being denied her request, so she reached out to us to see if we could help and to actually do that face to face! You've got to be Godding me! Come on, only God could create this. God bumps in seeing the Godcidence in all this!

Tamara with me and Travis

Guess what? I had Lordan (our HiS PRINT Croatian team member) reach out to her after our devotional time on Thursday morning. She tells him that she was coming to Sisak for a meeting on Thursday evening, so we asked if we could meet. We invited her out to HiS HOUSE, which she immediately agreed to do.  We sat and listened to her passion and heart, but before we got started, I asked her if we could pray! She was moved by the gesture and agreed, although admitting she was not religious herself, which gave me the opportunity to share with her that we also are not religious, but we are only about a relationship. I explained that our relationship starts with Jesus and is the reason we are here; which is to develop relationships with others. From that opening prayer, the next couple of hours of sharing, to the closing prayer over and for her, the hands and feet of Jesus touched her heart! Keep praying for open doors for us to walk through and help her navigate her request. We are not sure how it will all work out, but I can assure you that a seed of faith was planted deeply into Tamera’s heart and she was moved deeply by the chance to meet and share with one another. We head to the house of the Catholic (not Muslim, we were misinformed) family (Beria) on Friday afternoon, the family of the young man who is in a coma 5 days after being hit by a city bus. Ivan is 18 and a long time HiS PRINT camper. When I found out about what happened I reached out to the coach of his team, from Zagreb, I told him I would be in country and if they needed anything to not hesitate to ask. Well God has opened this huge opportunity: We have been asked by the mom and dad to come to their house and then they would like for me to go to the hospital. Amazing God opportunity to show His love through compassion and genuine care! By the time you all get this our time with them will have come and gone, but if you wouldn’t mind lifting up a prayer for the seeds that were planted with this family to come to fruition, that would be greatly appreciated. We met with them on Friday from 2:00-5:00 Croatian time, (8:00-11:00am Texas time) That was some of what I wrote to my brother in response to his reaching out. I did add some more details here in this blog.  From what you read, you can see he got a lengthy short story in return. I finished my text by saying, God bless you brother and sorry for the lengthy response, but just felt God lead me to fill you in! Remember Jesus loves you and so do I! And that goes for each of you as well reading this blog!

Have a wonderful God filled day!  HE DID IT! David