Macedonia Update October 2023

Hi everyone, welcome to our latest update from Macedonia.

Kisela Voda

One of our purposes for being in Macedonia is to support the mission of the local church. The aim of this is to help get mission going by helping people discern what God is calling them to do, providing training and time and then releasing people into leadership, where they can take on the development and growth of the work.

We are delighted that this September, Vladko has fully taken on the leadership of the ministry to the Kisela Voda drug clinic. Ian will continue to support the work. Vladko already has ideas about things he would like to do, one of which is to increase the team size. This has been a challenge for us over the years and previous attempts by both Vladko and Ian have not been as successful as we had hoped. Currently we are blessed to have another missionary from Germany join us until the end of the year, however we still need a longer term solution.

Kids Feed Those in Need

Kristen, Josiah and Ian have re-started the food distribution to street beggars now that the weather is a little cooler. From September we have attempted to expand this work by inviting more of the friends of the children to join in and also to invite them to our apartment afterwards for a children’s bible study and a meal. Due to a change in the school timetables this year it has been difficult to arrange for others to join us for the food distribution but some have come for the Bible study. We are currently working on an alternative way to serve and bless those in need, and allow friends to join in but will continue with food distribution to people for now.

A few months ago, we met a man begging for money for a medical operation. We were able to bless him with food to take home for his family and he talked a little about his faith and allowed us to pray with him. The following day our friend Scott was in the centre with a friend, they saw him and prayed with him also. We didn’t see him again for a long time but now he has moved to beg outside our local supermarket! Ian recognised him and has begun to develop a relationship with him where he spends time with him and they read the bible and pray together. This is a wonderful development from a work begun by our children and it is great to see God working through it.

In the Community

Our community Bible study is growing – sadly not in numbers at the moment but certainly in depth and it has been really encouraging to see this. During the summer all four of us have been able to get to know new people and develop new relationships in our local community.

We often write about our local community and ‘meeting in the park’ so we thought a picture might help:

In the picture you can see how the park area in the middle is surrounded by a number of apartment buildings. Each of those buildings contains between 30 and 100 apartments, including ours, so there are a lot of people who converge on the park!

Prayer

Thank you for praying for us, please would you pray about the following.

• Please give thanks for a really positive summer, and for how the Bible study is developing.
• Please pray for Vladko as he leads the Kisela Voda mission, and for an increase in team members.
• For wisdom on how to proceed with the future of the food distribution so that more people can be involved.

Thank you for reading,

Ian, Katie, Kristen and Josiah.