7+3 @ Cell

Last night's cell was great. We had 7 people - three were not yet Christians, and another only recently became a Christian. We arrived at 8, started at 9, finished at after 3am! We had bread and wine together - for those still there at 2am and Irena, one of Zlatko's room-mates, listened to the gospel message again and was visibly touched - she was in tears several times. Her attitude towards God is changing for the better.

Winter, Spring, Summer Melee

Winter had been lingering around. It had lost its sense of purpose but since no-one had come to replace it, it had been drifting aimlessly around, blowing wind, occasionally throwing some snow around and generally being cold. Suddenly, with almost no warning, Summer decided to get in on the action and the temperatures shot up to at least 21C this week. However, Spring suddenly woke up and realised it has missed the invitation to the party and so it gate-crashed. It has been shoulder to shoulder with Summer, each one jostling for position. Suddenly blossoms appeared, and the trees sprouted leaves; meanwhile the temperatures rose and people have started to walk around it shorts.

In the meantime, paling into insignificance from the glory of the summer sun, Winter packed it's bags and started on it's a journey to another place - hardly anyone even noticed as it shuffled off, throwing the occasional breeze at Spring and Summer as they continued their squabble. Winter knew a rest was what it needed, so it could return again next year with renewed strength.

Student Cell

We started the student cell - it's been going for more than a month now.

• we are meeting in the room of Zlatko in a student hall of residence called Stiv.
• it's been good; we've been worshipping together, having teaching and studying the Sunday morning preach together.
• one time we went around the student dorm to meet people and share the gospel.
• one of the room mates of Zlatko was there in the cell group and she heard a lot of what we were talking about. There has been a change in her and she was asking questions about the Lord this week. Her name is Irena.
• one next door neighbour has become a Christian (through another group) and his room mate is also interested, so we are meeting with them
• another girl has joined the cell - she is from a different hall of residence and we are praying about/planning on starting another group in that hall in a timescale of about 9 months.

Skiing

I had been trying for about 5 weeks to go on a Saturday, but for one reason or another it didn't work out - e.g. one guy thought I'd left the country and went without me, another few weeks couldn't find someone to go with who had transport etc etc.

Finally on Friday night I said to a friend we should just go, so we went to bus station, took a bus to town nearest to ski resort, started walking and eventually managed to hitch a lift from a Greek couple who were going snowboarding. Had a great time there -skiing for 4 hours - and hitched a lift back down again. For the day it cost about £11 for transport, ski rental, lift pass and food!

Lesson - pray and then act!

Leadership Training

I was on a leadership training seminar (21st to 23rd March). It was very good. We covered things like vision, values, goals and strategy. Before I have not liked all this talk about "strategy" as it didn't seem spiritual, but now it makes sense - it talks in the Bible about planning as well as about trusting God.

Prov 21:5 - If you plan and work hard, you will have plenty; if you get in a hurry, you will end up poor.

Flat Mates

In the last six weeks I have had two flat-mates move in: Gjoko and Rinche.

Gjoko is Macedonian, a nice guy; we have a rule to only speak Macedonian in the flat, to give me practice.

Rinche is a little yellow canary.

Schedules

Phew a busy week. I changed my weekly schedule about a month ago - getting up earlier. This week we had a group from America doing evangelism amongst the students and we had a lot of opportunities to share the fantastic news about Jesus with people. Tiring though.

American from Greece

I had an American friend visiting who is doing mission work in Greece, and so as to not miss the opportunity we went to one of the halls of residence and the university and started up conversations with people. I find it easier to meet people if I don't just go off by myself, but going with someone else - and then we have opportunities to speak with people about God, my passion.