Impressions

We were in Florida for a week and a half and my friend Erin’s wedding was this last Saturday and we came back home Sunday night to Colorado to put an end to our 2 month long trip! (This is us with Erol and Tanja – the national directors of Campus Crusade in Serbia. Please be in prayer for them as they continue to lead the ministry and their country. They are expecting their third child in October)

Our last week was a perfect wrap-up to our summer, although I feel Serbia will never be wrapped up in my life. Every summer I leave I look forward to the next opportunity I will have to go back. I always here people say they left their heart in another place and I can definitely after 3 summers know what that means. I have left a part of my heart in Serbia. What is so amazing about our God is that I can still be praying over that country and making a difference in the hearts of the people there because our God is not limited to the places we are at. It is incredible to think that my prayers will continue to shake that nation while I continue on in my busy life at school in the US.

While I didn’t interact specifically with a lot of Serbs this summer, the Lord used my outsider vision to grow a different part of my heart for that country and the people. He showed me the grand urgency and need that country has for change. It is so dark over there and they need the light of Jesus in each of their personal lives. It breaks my heart to hear each student share about their pains from the past when Serbia dealt with wars and how they are just expecting more hard times to come. I want that nation to experience a transformation, a revival. (This is a picture of my friend Jelena (Yel-en-a). I met her last summer and she was able to stay in contact with the STINT team last summer. She is an atheist and deep into philosophy but has a huge heart that she has allowed Crystal and me to share with her).

I continue to be amazed at how much God works in our personal lives no matter where we are at or if we are expecting Him to move in those ways. Adam and I experienced transformation in our marriage and our own personal walks with the Lord this summer. God revealed many new and encouraging things to us and began to remind us that He has an incredible path that He desires for us to take, it’s already laid out for us and His hand is open waiting for us to grasp it and follow after Him. What an amazing and truly loving God we serve!

(Adam)
With the wrap up to the summer and then being in Florida for our friends wedding and now finally being in Colorado it has been quite the adventure. This summer we took 8 planes, 4 buses, 3 trains, over a dozen trollies, and a handful of taxi rides all to get us back to home sweet home 6525 Delmonico Dr.

The final week in Serbia was more or less a wrap up with the students we met throughout the summer. As for me I met with the students I knew from last year one last time and then met with my bible study one last time. It doesn’t seem like a lot but it was very hard to leave this year. I don’t know when we will be back. So to say good bye to people that I have met was tough. Although I may have been an encouragement to them I was blessed much more.

When we got to Florida we stayed with Joel and his wife Tara who is 6 months pregnant. We had such a great time with them. This picture above is us eating lunch at the Firehouse fast food restaurant. We took it originally to send to our friend Casey Ross who will be a fire fighter very soon. So be praying that within the year he gets on full time.

We got into Florida Tuesday then on that Friday Andrea left to Jacksonville to go meet up with Erin who was getting married the following Saturday. I stayed back to hang out with Joel a little while which was a blessing because he asked me if I would speak at the youth group at his church. And this picture is a silly picture of the youth preaching to me while I was sitting listening to them. It’s strange but when preparing to speak a sermon of any scale or size I seem to learn so much more with the audience in mind almost as if they are preaching to me. I did a slide show of Serbia and gave a short message in regards to sharing your faith which came out of the bible study we did this summer in 2nd Timothy.

It has been a wild ride from the beginning of the summer to the end to the beginning of the fall. Andrea and I have been so blessed in every way. In our marriage, leadership skills, knowledge of God and life changing experiences. The greatest thing I learned from the summer was how to lead men that don’t wan to be led. I have also learned a great joy in our marriage and am so blessed to discover it…that Andrea loves the Lord so much that it reflects into the love she has for me. Even when she sees the worst of me, cause it’s easy to love the best sides of me. Marriage is so great, no matter how hard it gets sometimes, I am continuing to fall in deeper love with Andrea. We were shown so much this trip and are so blessed to have experienced it in the first year of our marriage.