Croatia

Sorry, I had this text written in German but forgot to translate it into english :(
Well I'm back in Europe for almost 3 months. I returned on the February 22nd to Switzerland. 4h later the Missions Team from CLBI (Bible school in Canada) that I led to Croatia arrived in Switzerland as well. On February 23rd our training started for the trip to Croatia.
The team that went down to Croatia was made up by 11 members that originated from 7 different countries / nationalities.
After one week of training in Switzerland we left for Croatia on March 1st. During the three weeks in Croatia we visited three different cities. We started our journey in Cakovec were we played with the kids from the gypsy villages and we were able to share some stories and songs with them. For me personally it was rather hard but also encouraging to see and hear that the missionaries are already working for 14 years

with the kids but see little fruit. In all this time "only" one family became christian. For me that shows dedication and perseverance. It was hard to see that our sisters and brothers in Christ are serving for 14 years to the people of Croatia but sadly don't see a lot of change. But at the same time those missionaries are a huge encouragement to me and I believe to many others as well. This because they are showing what it means to persevere and suffer for Christ. They were demotivated but who can blame them, but they didn't give up and exactly their perseverance is what encourages me.
The second stop we did in Split, where we mainly worked with Campus Crusade and with Reto Center (Drug and Alcohol Rehab). Something we learned here is probably that it isn't easy to talk about your faith with the Croatians. We got challenged a few times during the street evangelism that we did. But what gave me hope was that we encountered young people at the university that are seeking and looking for something better and bigger in their lives.

The third and last stop of the trip in Croatia was in Knin. It is a small city that was battleground during the civil war and till today is shaped by it. I notices fast that there was a spiritual darkness over the city. We had the privilege to work together with the only evangelical church in town. This little church is already in Knin for 15 year and they "only" have 14 church members / goers. They were already thinking about closing the church. But during our time with them we had the chance to evangelize for 4 days on the main square. We danced, sang, shared stories and distributed Bibles and other books and we had the chance to talk to different people. The Missionaries and the church didn't think that what we are doing will be well received and that we will receive a good feedback from the people. But to their surprise a lot of people stopped by and talked to us and took some books with them. This led to the decision to not close the church. The following Sunday two new people joined the service that no one of the church new before and 4 others that the church was already in touch but they never made the step into the church. Something that I just got know at the end of our stay in Knin was that two of the church members took a week of work just to be with us. One of them joined us with his kids on the square and the other spoiled us with different goodies that he made himself just for us. Both of them were a great blessing to us.
I was able to learn a lot out of this trip, not only from the culture and from the Christians in Croatia but also in my leadership position I was able to learn more and grow more. I'm God thankful for this experience and for the testimony that our brothers and sisters in Croatia are. Myself and them as well are really thankful if we keep them in our prayers. The life of a Christian might not be directly connected to persecution but the cold harts doesn't make life for a Christian easy.

Now I'm back in Switzerland and I'm working temporarily in a fabric that makes industrial floor cleaning machines. I'm thankful to God for this opportunity that he gave me.