Moores in Macedonia: May 2021

Hi everyone.

We hope all is well with you, here is our latest update from Macedonia:

What’s in front of you?

For many of us around the world, this past 18 months has been a time where many things have stopped, and while some are re-starting, it is also creating space for new things to grow. Earlier this year we felt God call us to invest our time into ‘what is in front of us’. Every morning we read the bible and pray on a zoom meeting with a group of around 6 people regularly, with a few others joining in more infrequently. Some of them we have never met face to face as they joined in after the Covid restrictions began and due to being in a vulnerable position, have not felt able to gather in person yet. We felt God was telling us to invest more of our time into helping these faithful scripture readers be disciples who make disciples.

To begin with we have begun reading together a book called ‘The Masterplan of Evangelism’ by Robert Coleman, this book explains how Jesus invested in his disciples, having them walk with him, teaching them, demonstrating how to live, and releasing them to go into all the world. We are working through this book together and beginning to look at what God is asking us as a group to do over these coming months. The aim being for us as the missionaries to support and empower Christians here to fulfil the mission God is calling them to. We are excited and expectant as to what God might do in and through this group of willing disciples.

Dwell in the land

A significant scripture for us in this season is Psalm 37:3-7. In particular, verse 3:

‘Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.’

We are reminded that we are called here to live for Jesus, he is faithful to us, he has been so far and he will continue to be so. We need to trust in him and follow his leading, doing good in the land that we live in and are called to at this time. We trust and believe that he will build his kingdom and our role is to be as obedient as we can to the contribution he is asking us to make.

One aspect of our work that we are hoping will really grow this year is our investment in our local community, (the area in which we dwell) in the Novo Lisice area of Skopje. Regular readers may remember that last year we felt God telling us to increase our focus on reaching out into our local area, in addition to the work we do in other parts of the city and in other towns.

One thing we have begun to do (which we hope will be good!) is to have a Sunday lunch picnic on the park. Our aim is to have a mixture of people joining us for food, some who are from our church, others from the local community and to create a space where God can work through us, where we can live and feel like a family, where gospel conversations can take place and lives transformed. Jesus did a lot of ministry over meals so it seems like a good model to copy! Our hope is that over the summer we can build some momentum so that when the weather cools in October, and hopefully the covid restrictions are reduced, we can move these times indoors to our apartment and also the homes of others.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

Thank you for praying for us in this season, please would you keep the following in your prayers:

• Give thanks for God’s faithfulness over the past few months. There have been a number of issues that have cropped up, yet we have seen God be so good to us in them all.
• We are thankful for the way in which the evangelism in Stip is stepping up, with more opportunities. Please pray we will see breakthrough here soon.
• Please pray for the Sunday picnics, that they will be effective in their purpose of building family and community.
• Please pray for our ‘masterplan group’, that they would hear God about the next steps in their journey and we would be able to help them as they step out in faith.
• Please pray for our children, Kristen and Josiah, that they would grow in their faith and engagement with Jesus, and build for themselves strong friendships and relationships in our local community.

Thank you
Ian, Katie, Kristen and Josiah.