Tired but giving our all

This has been an eventful week!
This is long but I have so much to say! Summarized in 6 points for stories and prayer:

English classes lead to deeper friendships!
Our team encourages each other and continues to serve boldly through tiredness!
Students are having spiritual conversations every night!
I’ve reconnected with more old friends!
Ode to David
Walking has been hard and my headache still unceasing
(read below for details on each of these points)

Pray for:
• Please pray for students to keep coming to class and engaging in conversation.
• Pray for good, non-awkward conversations with new and old friends.
• Please pray with us for all our students to encounter God in a real way in the next 2 weeks and that they would come to camp with us.
• Pray for camp July 26-30, that 10 students from each city would come. We have a list of 15 students we would love to come from Zenica, pray they would.
• Continue to pray for good communication and energy on our team. Pray for Jenni, Scott, Chris, Charlene, Sean and myself.
• Praise the Lord with me that we live so close to the city! Please keep praying for healing for my spinal cord, strength for my leg, and decreased cerebral spinal fluid pressure to be free from my headaches.


English classes lead to deeper friendships!
I love teaching! English is not my subject so I’m very thankful this is a conversational class! We have a lot of fun in class and are also able to have deep conversations about life. Last week we talked about family, friends, country and life experiences. For life experiences they drew time lines and shared them with their table group and I heard how the war affected my friend E and how the death of S’s father in 2001 through her into a pit of bad stuff. S thinks that her boyfriend will make everything better, I pray she’ll let Jesus make her well and healed. I’m blessed for these English classes because without them we might not get to know each other so well so quickly.

Our team encourages each other and continues to serve boldly through tiredness!
We are very tired and need prayer for more energy because we’ve spent so much time with our new friends! Friday was a very hard day for me. We had bowling in the morning, coffee to follow, people over for lunch, a staff meeting, class, and a party at our house until after midnight. It was non-stop and non-stop with people. I was very drained by the end of the night and was glad for the weekend to come (though it didn’t slow down much). When I asked the team to pray for me to continue engaging with students and have energy to be around people they also said Friday was a hard day for them, but you never would have known. At the party they were smiling and laughing and talking with their friends. They are great! We haven’t had much conflict, I think because they are so self-aware. We had a small conversation last night about a girl in our class and how one on our team was interacting with her differently than would be acceptable in this culture and that was hard to hear for that one but ended up being a good conversation. They are so teachable and such a blessing to me. Continue to pray for good communication and energy.

Students are having spiritual conversations every night!
Sean and I had a great conversation with two girls from our class E and M. It started in a café called Manuel. There was a Michael Jackson song on and I mentioned he had died. Then E went off about how strange he was but how she thought he was a believer. Sean jumped in and asked if she was a believer in anything. She shared about being atheist, then choosing Islam and hoping that her good out weighs the bad and the Muhammad will stand on her side on judgment day. Sean shared the Gospel and invited her to study the Bible with us. I shared my testimony and how God spoke to me through His Word and through reading and prayer I realized how important Jesus is.
Jenni and Charlene have spiritual conversations every night, sometimes with people they just met! Last night my old friend Sanela brought a friend with her and that girl talked with Jenni for a few hours about God as we walked around the city!
Scott and Chris have been spending their time with very devoted Muslims. Scott has had really great conversations with a girl who is covered! She even teaches at the mosque. We’re praying for her to have a dream that would direct her to Jesus because in Islam dreams are very important. Please pray with us for all our students to encounter God in a real way in the next 2 weeks and that they would come to camp with us.


I’ve reconnected with more old friends!
I saw Sanela and Dzenana last night! They are dear friends and I pray they will spend time with us and grow closer to God! I am awaiting the return of Amela and Senad, they went on vacation and I miss them. Pray for good, non-awkward conversations when they come back.

Ode to David
David is a missionary from Czech and serves in Northern Bosnia in a city called Banja Luka. He would like to have an InterVarsity team come to his city next year so he stayed with us for 10 days to see what it would be like. It was great to have a Bosnian speaker with us and he blessed us with his car as well! He would play games with us, eat meals with us and attend church with us. He is so much fun and we will miss him. He left us Monday afternoon. We will see him again at the Evangelistic camp on the 26th-30th. Pray for him and his ministry.


Walking has been hard and my headache still unceasing
I praise the Lord daily that we live so close to the city! It only takes 10 minutes to walk to the center of the city and 15 minutes to the classroom! From the classroom to the center of the city is 15-20 minutes (depending on how tired my leg is). Thank you God! My right leg has gotten to the point that I can only walk about 7 minutes before getting tired and weak. Then I can go about another 10 before I need to stop and rest. It’s really hard at the end of the day to walk home, even on flat land. I’m afraid of little bumps in the sidewalk and walking up our little hill at the end is very strenuous and takes much effort.
I still have my headache each day but some how I feel like it hasn’t been as bad as it could be. I just asked my students and they said I have a bad headache at least once a day, some times three times a day. It doesn’t often last for long though, I think. I guess I just try not to think about it. But I guess I do sometimes think to myself, “Can I afford to stay home today because my head hurts?” Then the team prays and it feels better by the time I have to leave.
Please keep praying for healing for my spinal cord, strength for my leg, and decreased cerebral spinal fluid pressure to be free from my headaches.