24-7 Macedonia 2003

hello, i wanted to write the last blogger entry so i have waited until about 20 mins before we have to be back to meet the others........smackdown on Marcus news, well im concemplating whether to make my attack when i get back to the flat but feel i should go lightly on him because of his leg, your prayers for him are most likely going to be needed along with a get well soon card, erm, the trip has been so good and God has moved so amazingly but im not going to write the stuff down yet because have not enough time, but we had our little de-brief session in cossa nostra today (much to Jim's delight and design) that was very fun and we all got really encouraged from it. hope to come back again at some point and see what else God does here....please keep praying for Macedonia and the Macedonians.....God bless, toodles
samos

- i got a new tattoo, and everybody has the proof that alpin is THE BEST TATTOO ARTIST in macedonia!! everybody is just amazed- the tattooartist in ohrid, alpins freinds and mostly me!!! this was just a wonderful testimony to the guy here in ohrid. he heard the rumours that alpin is the best, he heard the rumors, that alpin stopped making tattoos, because "he is praying now in a weird sect". now he said, that alpin is " a very nice guy" and he never "saw anybody in macedonia making such good tattoos"... it took 5 hours of doing it and a very nice freindship between alpin and this guy was established.

- we asked if 500 denar is to much for a tip. here is the answer: "No, if the waitress is called Vesna."

- sam is licking on trees and eats white paper

- fiona actually eat most of the chocolade, not natatscha

- niels don't like to go to bed before 3 a.m. since days

- deborah looks typical "english red" after two weeks on the beach

- jim is sitting right next to me, so I can't write anything about him.

- you see we had a lovely time here, lot of fun, tons of good talks. this is a wonderful foundation for next year. maybe we can hang out here with DJs and lots of empowered guys like YOU!!! Come On! JOIN US!!!

The bags are packed, the flat is tidied and we are pretty much ready to roll out of here at 19h.

The BBQ on the beach last night was rad. We probably had 15 or so people we'd invited turn up, so there was about 40 of us down there. We had a really good time just jammin' with the guitars and jambe, eating and chatting. It was a good way to wrap things up. Thanks Belgrade team for the idea! It was really exciting just to see that people have appreciated hanging out with us. One of the younger guys was taking the mick and handing us flyers and New Testaments. That was quite funny. Hopefully some of these people will stay in touch with the Skopje guys.

All we have to do today is find a nice cafe for the afternoon and do a debrief, then get on a bus to Skopje. The guys flying to England will leave for the airport at 03.00 tommorrow, and Markus and Niels get to sleep and get up at a sensible time.

Here are some random memories from the team:

-Pushing Natasha off the pedalo and cruising off many times, then watching her fail miserably to get any of us back. She made herself feel better in the end by pushing in 16 year old Sam who was perched on the edge!

-Sitting in a party with everyone busy chatting or dancing and watching a guy pick up a bible he found lying around and read it for 5 minutes. (you had to be there)

-Walking to the tatoo place with Alpin and Markus: this old bloke comes out of his house and starts walking just infront of us and cracks off the hugest fart.

-Sam repeatedly threatening to lay the smack down on Markus' candy a***.

-Jim's ministry to those in the waitress profession. (Natasha found out yesterday her name is Vesna)

-Markus' Jazz worship.

-Fiona's Mary poppins bag.

-Deborah's Ralph.

-Niels goat skin.

-Sarah's ability to leave most of her packing to us four days after she left.

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us. We really appreciate it!

love,

Sam, Deborah, Fiona, Sarah, Niels, Natasha, Markus, me

well the trip is pretty close to finishing now, the bus tickets have been bought and we're all gearing up to pack our bags (and my humungous suitcase) and fly home. GOD IS SO NOT YET DONE HERE IN OHRID THO. Debs and i spent another day in the prayer room as everyone else spent the day at the beach and Gods heart burns so strong for the people of this town, and the guys who visit it as a holiday destination. Markus the visionary has spurred the core leadership guys on and plans are afoot to build on the fantastic foundation that we have established in this place. its so exciting, and the overall vision to plant a church in Ohrid still burns strong in people's hearts. prayer is key but cant wait to see/hear what God's gonna do. tonight we're bbq-ing on the beach with pretty much all of the close friends weve made which should be great, it so cool how God has just drawn people to us and they're all up for hanging out with us ALL the time !!! looking back i cant believe we've only been here 2 weeks, just makes me wonder how much more impact 2 months would have......... or 2 years !?!?!? xxx

Well there is so much to catch up on. Let me start with the tatoo. I went with Markus yesterday evening to the tatoo guys place where I sat for 7 and a half hours watching Alpin tatoo Markus' leg. I have to say it was one of the memories that will stay with me for a long time. Alpin is a very very good tatoo artist and Markus' tat looks absolutely fantastic. It is colour with a crown of thorns at the bottom, a gold crown above with the name of Jesus inscribed in Arabic script with fire bursting out the top of it. The colours are the best I've ever seen on a tatoo. Markus is well chuffed and Alpin is very proud. The best bit about the whole thing is just the relationship that is growing betwwen Alpin and this guy. When Alpin went out of the room in the evening this guy started telling us how he had heard a lot of rumours about Alpin when he was tatooing. First that he was good, then that he went bad getting into drugs and stuff, then that he went even worse by joining a cult and starting to pray to God! It was so cool that he got the chance to meet Alpin and see the results of being in a dodgy cult. They get on so well and this guy was really proud to have Alpin tatooing in his studio. He was watching him the whole time and taking photos and stuff, and this guy is one of the best artists in Macedonia!!! When Alpin had finished he said "I didn't think anything that good would ever be done in Macedonia." This guys actually has no tats 'cause he can never decide what he wants, but he now wants Alpin to do his first one for him! Alpin has already had a chance to share his testimony with this guy and so he knows where he's coming from. Hopefully the friendship will continue.

During the day yesterday we hung out with everyoe we wanted to and got invited to a party in the evening which the girls went to.

Today we have mostly been chillin' at the beach with some of the same guys and we have planned a BBQ on the beach for tonight and invited all the people we've been chatting to over the past two weeks. What I find so exciting is that around 25 people have said they'll come!!! With our lot that will be over 50 people. We are really hoping that some of these friendships will continue when the Macedonian guys go back to Skopje.

We have also been talking about some provisional plans for next year, and we've been discussing options such as getting a bar for the season and bringing some DJ's over, getting a flat longer term here, and developing prayer room presence in the city perhaps with a room in a bar or by getting a shop for the season. These are just random thoughts and pipe dreams at the moment, but if you've been following this blog and think you might fancy a bit of that, then click the email link above and right and drop us a line with "Macedonia 2004: Bigger, Longer, Uncut" in the subject line.

i now know the chords D-E AND B...its very exciting and they compl;iment each other wonderfully...me and sam are having 'a lot of fun' enriching our rendition of '10 in the bed' (previously only with 2 chords) and sam's "shout" is improving every day. The Lord is beginning to move...there were ( i believe) fewer speedo's on the beach today......please continue to pray 4 our healing and deliverance in the world generally from this evil.
Had another lovely day and afternoon....hanging ouyt with people. Went earlier to the house of some teenagers we met, just hung out 4 a bit then got some guitars ouyt and had a worship, dont know what they made of that but i really felt Gods presence. Marcus is having his tattoo's as we speak (well we dont really do we...nevertheless), and Vesna's friendship with one of the teenagers next door is great, Eleanor is beautiful and we are really praying she would continue to look to Vesna as a role model \back in Skopje...give her life to the Lord and be a catalyst for her contemporaries....
anyway
yawn
am off to bed
ciao

hey,
niels mal wieder....hmmmm...had a phat day...so mit bootsausflug und so......is schon nen nettes oertchen hier.....gleich noch ein bisschen basketball zocken und later to the park to meet some guys......time is running....but lets see what"s coming in the last days......God has more!.......c a

- jim was already faster than me, he wrote what we did.
- we met guys from campus crusade and from other missionorganisations as well
- so this is an invitation: we like to see here a church get started!! we need you for this. ohrid is like an eastern europe ibiza in some ways. the church here has loads of possibilities to reach the kids here. they like to here more about God. it is totally helpful for them to be here and serve them, encourage them, ... Com' On! Join us next year!!! We can change a lot here with your help! There is a hervest! God needs workers!!! Jump out of the bed and run the race together with us!!!!

hello,
um not too much to write i dont think, had a cool day off today and so chilled out on a boat and went swimming in a freezing cold lake.......yum, but was very cool......literally.......erm, yeah anyways, yesterday spent the day in the prayer room just praying for the guys we met and for the team and for God to move and so on.....and in the evening we went to erm....strugar (thats how you say it at least) and yeah it was a nice place and i got chatting to a cool guy and eventually said do you believe in God to which he was like yes definetely, so i was like wow so your a Christian, but he was a muslim, fortunatley he assured me he did not hate me which was good cos we were chatting by a river!?! erm, had a nice pancake for desert....chocolate and banana...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, and hung out with some crazy americans who loved speaking in English accents, was all fun, God is still moving and it is becoming more evedent that we are here to encorage the macedonians and get contacts for them, to plant the seeds for them......going out to play b'ball tonight, should be groovy, thanks for prayers, Marcus needs alot of prayer at the moment because im going to lay the smackdown on him later on in the week, he is delirious to the fact that im clearly a heavy weight champion.....any whoo, toodles
samos

It's a beautiful day!!! Our day off was brilliant. We went on a boat to this beautiful place just before the Albanian border. We swam and ate nice food, then came back on the boat this evening. This really is such a beautiful place. It was so nice just sitting on top of this boat (kind of the same principal as trains in India) soaking up the rays and the tranquillity. Yes!!!

Come back Sarah Blossoms, we miss you xxx

- tired but happy
- sometimes things I expected didn't happen, but other stuff did!
- had a great talk with a tattooartist from ohrid again. it's like a developing freindship between alpin and him. alpin was one of the best macedonian tattooartists before he became a christian. this guy and alpin chatted about the reasons why alpin gave up his old live. was really nice! this tattooartist is really lovely!!! pray for him.
- we totally realize that we are in our team in some way like a catalyst. actually a lot of stop happens when we're around withe macedonian guys: they fell totally encouraged, blessed, people start to talk with us, the macedonians can pray for them etc etc but actually we don't doing a lot. This confuses us, because we see God is using us, but it's totally HIM, not our taliking, preaching, ...
- we found nutella in a shop!!! and had a very good breakfest.
- natascha is mocking that we boys are eating to fat.

Today we prayed for a bit then went to a place 10 k away from Ochrid called Struga. We went there to hang out with a bunch of guys from the states, Germany, and Norway doing mission teams. Tomorrow is our day off but we are getting up early to go on a boat trip to a really nice beach. We are also inviting all the people we have met to hang out for the day. I heard this evening thought that campus crusade have randomly arranged to take all their guys over on the same boat (of all the days to choose!), so there's going to be like 6 bazillion teenagers on a mission rammed onto this boat with hopefully a couple of people we want to hang out with. Sounds..............interesting.

i think everyone found today pretty challenging but as you get through the tough bits god is always faithful and i think the success of tonight is soo proving that. Markus really challenged me with his catalyst metaphor - we may not always feel like we are being used directly at the fore-front of what god is doing each day, but through chatting with some of the Macedonians throughout the week its so clear and amazing how God has used us to encourage and motivate them, most of the time without us even being aware of it !!! no more waffle from me, we're all rushing back to the party which is still going strong. fiona x

So things have gone a bit loopy here this evening. We felt that from now on we needed to move into the next phase of the mission and stop going out trying to meet loads more people and just focus on the few contacts that God has given us. The macedonian guys tried to get hold of there contacts this afternoon but to no avail. In the meantime we all said goodbye to Sarah Blossoms who left today as she had to get back to work. We are all sad to see her go.

Markus, Natsha and I stayed back to pray on the prayer balcony while the others went into town. We prayed for all the people who the team had met (we have their names written down) and asked God to bring us together again and deepen the relationships. The guys met no-one in town. Hmmm.

So this evening we were all sitting around playing cards and we decided to go over to the girls flat to be sociable and see what the plan was for the evening. Markus and Alpin went off to meet up with the Tatoo guy again and we went over the road. All of a sudden people started appearing all over the place. I waved to one of the guys in the flat next door to the girls and they quickly got invited over. Then SOnja turned up with three guys we were supposed to play basketball with (we couldn't find a ball), then Sasha came with his cousin, then Anita turned up with four more guys and all of a sudden we had a pretty phat party going. It was so incredible how easily the Macedonian guys just slipped into conversations about their faith in amongst us just talking about football and the like (no one spoke very good english). God was really at work. Vesna got chatting to the 16 year old girl from the next door flat and ended up mentoring her through some self image issues and talking to her about how she has found acceptance in christ. Sonia went next door for half an hour and was quizzed about her prayer life as a protestant. When they asked if she could pray anywhere, she asked them if they wanted her to pray for them and they said yes. So she stuck a hand on a couple of the blokes and asked that God would meet with them and then she left. A couple of minutes later they one of them came banging on the door saying his friend was shaking all over and asking what was going on. Sonja just explained that it was the Holy Spirit coming on him, and she had to reassure the guy that it would stop eventually.

Elsewhere Markus and Alpin were getting on great with the tatoo guy. He evidently holds Alpin in high regard (Alpin used to be one of the best tatoo artists in Macedonia) and Alpin had the chance again tonight to share more of his testimony. The guy was shocked to hear that lpin had destroyed his tatoo machine. Markus was dead chuffed though because the guy had quoted him a lot of money for a new tatoo he wants and Markus had prayed that he would be willing to lower the price. Tonight the guy offered to let Alpin tatoo Markus with his equipment for free!

Meanwhile back at the girls flat people are still turning up. God is really answering our prayers. For saying that this is the first time these guys have actually done stuff here in Ochrid things are getting pretty wild!

Things are going really well on the whole here in Ochrid, but there are some tough battles that we are fighting as a team. I think that many of us have been struggling to grasp all of the things that God has been doing here over the last week or so. This is mainly due to the fact that prayer and relationships have so few concrete results, and it is often easy to underestimate or undervalue what is being achieved. I have really been so encouraged with the way that the team has gone so far. Many of the Macedonian guys have now come to us and said how great it has been to have the 24-7 team here. I was prayer walking in town the other day with Mimi, and when we got back she told me that she was so encouraged. She told me that they had been coming to Ochrid for a few years and that before it had been like a church camp, and that this was the first year that anyone had gone out and talked to people. Many of the oters are saying similar things. We are meeting so many people here and there are a few key people that are starting to meet with us more regularly. The people in the flat next door to the girls have been over to their flat and showed real interest in our prayer balcony. This evening as we all sat around chilling, playing the guitar and mucking around one of the girls from the flat came over with Vesna to look over the prayer balcony. Vesna showed her around and talked to her about the meanings behind some of the art work etc. It was wicked. We spent the day on the beach with some cousins of one of the macednian guys and some friends we met here, and we have arranged to hang out with them loads more. Lots of the Macedonian guys have phone numbers and email addresses of other people they have got chatting to while we've been here, and who want to keep in touch. And alongside all of this we've been praying, and i reckon that is the most important bit. So all in all i think things are going really well to date.

The darker side of all this is that we are having to fight some very real spiritual battles. We first noticed something wasn't quite right when all of the Macedonian girls had a sleepless night and were extremely fearful as they lay in bed. Some said that they felt an evil presence in the room. Some of us went over and prayed for them and their flat the night before last and all of them got a great night sleep. Last night, however, the same thing happened. Alek´s girlfriend Ana also said that she had a dream in whch something came and told her that all the seed sown by the team would be ineffective. The same night Niels and Markus didn't sleep either. I don´t want to hype this, i just think it shows that we are doing something right and we really need to press in and keep going with what God has given us to do here. We do however want to have dreams from God and see these minor annoyances swept away, so please do pray for us.

Tonight we are all taking the night of to get some rest and have some fun as it is Sarah's last night.

boys when will you learn?? little lies make baby jesus cry and little speedo's make girls cry IT JUST ISN"T NICE. Well, guess where ive been again today...had another great day at the beach, didn't talk to anyone really, gave out fliers and flooded the place with prayer and prophecy, felt that was more important. A few of us were getting discouraged because we felt that we weren't getting anywhere...but today we realised that our team is 50% Macedonians and they are having some amazing conversatiopns and getting great contacts which will carry on (we hope). At the end of the day we are only here for a few more days but they are the ones in a position to continue this work and we are here to lift them up and enable them to do God's stuff by covering them in prayer and encouraging them. Alec said this is the (4th???) time they have come here as a church to try to reach people and this is the 1st time they have really made any headway and prevented it from becoming a 'church camp'. That we have been a part of that is fantastic.
Last night we had an amazing worship time in town, the day had been quite hard going but in the evening the square is flooded, and Alec, Sam redman and Alpin's worship drew a big crowd, a few people had good chats and we gave out loads of fliers (then got told off for it...apparently we should talk to people cus we just gave them permission to leave by giving them fliers staraight away- but pray God will have mercy and grace through out mistakes too). Tonight we are just about to head into town to have a night off, sarah is leaving tomorrow which is gutting...she is a doll and we will miss her sooooooo much, anyhows we are going out for a nice meal then planning to hit the town with our dancing shoes!!!!!
ahhh, this internet cafe is sooo super, they have great music, am listenign to REM at the mo...mmmmmmmmm.
anyhows, keep rocking for the rock
deb
ps.....for those of u who know Pampers- Alec- the macedonian leader was talking about the bible yesterday and said "you should read it, its a good book"!!!

- talked with the no. 20 of the czech "peace run". he already was 4 holidays in ohrid and is going now back to kosovo. he is a KFOR soldier there. he likes us 2 pray 4 him. his name is rudolf, his friends are called peter and michael. pray 4 protection in this war.

- ELVIS was leading us in 2 worship tribal dance last night (ok, it was just a cd with his gospel songs, but it was a lot of fun!)

- we bought a lot of new chocolade. we need this next 2 your prayers. sometimes things are disappointing. for example when people don't like to talk with you, or you like to see, that they lerna to know about jesus, but they don't like it (does this make sense?)

- albin, bojan and me chatted 2 hours yesterday with the main tatooartist in the area. he was so nice! he offered albin to tatoo his whole back for free! which is worth 7000$!! so maybe albin (one of the elders of a macedonian church) will wear the whole gospel as a picture on his back!

- maybe u think this is strange, but we have a lot of very deep conversations with tatooed guys here. well, they wear their heart on their skin, so you can talk very easily about their beliefs.

last night was great, after the delicious chinese meal on the balcony, we had a spontaneous session of tribal dancing to Elvis and praying !!!! after that we hit the town, some guys met up with people they'd spoken to in the day but we disappeared earli-ish completely exhausted and ready for bed! woke up with a big grin on my face this morning to the chilled sound of Sam playing his guitar, it was beautiful and really just reminded me so much that there's so no greater place to be than in God's will, exactly where he wants you to be. ive spent the day in the town today. it was pretty tough, but we had a couple of chats and spent some time hiking up the crazily steep little roads in the 'old town', behind the facade of clubs bars and young people, there's a whole community, just keeping themselves to themselves, who actually live in this touristy place and god really laid on my heart to reach these people of the real Ohrid - not sure quite how yet tho!!! After a chat or two in cafes we stopped off to see the 'worship group' by the lake shore. they were swarming with young people, mostly Albanian i think but it was great to see relationships developing, and Niels seemed in his element speaking to some pretty young girls who spoke German !!! We've just stopped off at the local supermarket to stock up on vital food resources - chocolate with hazlenuts, choclate with strawberry cream, milk chocolate, tropical cream chocolate, dark coffee and cream chocolate, chocolate with rice puffs........
fiona x

hmmm, today....
well, we were the batty team ..(i.e sat our batties, not the other thing) today, prayer walked around Ohrid, and then hang about in some cafe's which i think Jim is going to tell you about. Me and Fi were wondering about ways to get talking to people, theres a guy doing henna tattoo's on the street and selling jewellery so we thought maybe we could get a tattoo and try to talk to him, flipped through his little book of designs really quickly but didn't like any of them and couldn't think of anything i wanted on the spur of the moment...anyhows- gave him a leaflet about JC (sex, drugs, rock n roll don't work kinda thing) and he put it on the middle of his jewellery stand, which is fab.
Walking back from town we passed the worship guys who were surrounded by a load of teenagers, which is really encouraging, prayed with Anna and Fi for a street artist (who had drawn Anna) and was struggling because he had no money, so that was a great opportunity.
Again, nothing hugely visible but several good chats, and gave loadsa flyers out so trusting God is using that...God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform....who am i to suppose i could understand what he is doing through us.

Today was quite hard for us here in town. We wandered about a bit praying and giving out some funky flyers the Macedonian guys had prepared. We found some soldiers from the Czech Republik who are with KFOR in Kosovo to chat to over lunch, and shared a little bit about what we are doing here and offered to pray for them. It was encouraging to hook up with the music team in town who had a little gang of Albanians who they'd been hanging out and jammin with all day.

Good Evening all!
im sure u will be glad to know my go-faster stripe of sunburn is coming on crackingly, went tot the beach today with a much smaller team, felt loads harder to make any real contact with people- i recon because we didn't have as much prayer cover- yesterday we had a sub-team continually praying 4 2 whop were making contact, and one relaxing, today we only had 2 sub-teams. Still the lord is good and i guess we may never know what seeds have been sown in some people lives. We did get some serious mockage off 3 lads but we prayed 4 them....then ran away and cried:(
Chinese was fab tonight....if u dont mention the part where me and Fi managed to knock over a bottle of wine...oops, anyhows, off into town now to catch up with some people the Macedonians have met...
see you later alligators

hello,
um i think this will be short but well,.....i have no excuses for it
today we again split into teams and so we had a team hanging out on the beach, we started with the cool idea of a prayer pedal boat which was fun and so we had a cool hour of prayer over the beach praying for the people and the beach and area in general, felt a real peace over the beach and the waters, was rather funky.
what else.....yeah we then split into smaller teams of boys and girls, me being on the boys team and so we went out and one team went and chatted to people about our Lord God and saviour and the other team rested but we managed to speak to the people next to us, well rather Neils was........and so we got talking to some girls, telling them what we were doing here and generally scaring them with our dodgy macedonian......we gave out some flyers but personnaly i felt the attitude on the beach was fairly 'i dont care' so i felt like it was a wee bit unprodcutive if i am allowd to say that??? but still it shows us where we need to improve, i got the impression ipersonnaly need to pull my finger out now, dunno bout my other lovely team mates?
What did i learn about myself today?? um, well the above, and i found out during a team time of soul searching that i felt rather like a slightly unrippned elderberry.....waiting for God to ripen me a bit.....so that was all fun.......had a smashing chinese made by our macedonian friends, was well nice, i felt we should cook something for them another night but then thought it would probably compliment them more if we didn't do that.........um, going ot tonight, not actually sure where but am loaded with leaflets about JC so hoping and praying for some action today, thats about all i'm going to write i think, i came out in a jumper tonight and im really hot...prayer requests, still that God will move more in the mission, thankful for what he has done though, and yeah for energy and health in the team, some people arn't feeling supercalofragilisticexpialidocious so yeah, thankyou, God bless......samos

....the chinese food was wicked man....full and happy now......

Liebes Teamtagebuch,
hier kommt nun auch mal ein Eintrag von mir.....is mal zur Abwechslung was in deutsch.....also nun sind wir ja schon einige Zeit hier und so langsam laufen die Maschinen warm...nachdem die ersten Tage eher etwas orientierungsmaessig waren, geht es seit gestern nun etwas fetter zur Sache......verschiedene Teams mit verschiedenen Einsatzorten und so weiter....das ist gut! Und herausfordernd! So easy find ich das nämlich nicht Leute einfach über Glauben und so anzusnacken....aber mit Gottes fetter Hilfe werd ick da noch besser reinkommen.....anyway sind wir ohne ihn ja ziemlich aufgeschmissen...hey les da grad son fettes Buch über Smith Wigglesworth – der war schon ziemlich krass drauf – Lord let me become krass!!!yeah (ihr seht es geht auch ein bisschen in englisch, aber ein bissel strengt das manchmal schon an.....).....ja was kann ick denn noch so erzählen....also gestern war ich im Gebetsraum und heut war ich mit nem Fünferteam am beach.....hab sogar mit Leuten gesprochen....aber nicht so fett über Glauben und so.....das sollte noch besser werden – und es wird!!!...ja und grad bereitet Alpin in der Küche nettes Essen für uns vor – so Chinesisch – bin mal gespannt....also so essensmäßig sind wir sowieso ganz gut hier versorgt.....Grundnahrungsmittel ist Pizza und Fastfood – fast wie zu hause – allerdings sind die Teile hier schon ganz gut......bloss an den Pommes müssen die lieben Mazedonier noch etwas arbeiten...hmmm...aber beim Thema Mazedonier – wir sind hier ja mit ner ganzen Gruppe von Skopje zusammen und ick find das is echt nen gutes Zusammensein – mag die gerne.....hey und ham hier auch zwei fette Songs gesungen die ich noch nicht kannte...werd versuchen die mit in die Heimat zu bringen......jau und vorgestern ham wir Romeo und Julia getroffen – da war so balletmäßig ne Sache – also Sam et moi hatten unseren Spaß – vielleicht sollten wir zum Ballet gehen......ja liebes Tagebuch so sieht das hier also aus.....bestimmt könnte ich noch ein paar Sachen mehr schreiben, zum Beispiel über unsere Angeltour bei der so an die 20 fingerlange Fischchen dran glauben mussten oder von dem längsten Hot Dog meines Lebens, aber ich will hier nicht alles verewigen....es muss ja auch noch was zum erzählen für hinterher bleiben ne......auf jeden bin ich gespannt wie das hier noch so weitergehen wird......ma schaun was Gott so macht.....Er ist mit uns und er hat gute Pläne....... ja liebes Tagebuch soweit so gut....die nächsten Texte werden bestimmt etwas kürzer, aber das ist ja auch sozusagen mein Einstiegstext ne.....
nun fehlt also nur noch der Absender – halt der Zweite Deutsche ne......in heimischen Gefilden nennt man mich auch.......... Niels

Markus kicked us off today witht the best worship sesh yet. Jazz worship......nice. This included such numbers as "Joshua fought the battle at Jericho", and most of us really got into it.

It was great to see all the Macedonian girls well rested this morning. They had a rough night the night before last. None of them could sleep and they all felt a dodgy presence in the flat. We prayed over the place and for them last night and got it sorted. Then some of the guys from the flat next door came over. I am really excited about the people we are meeting from the flats around us. Some of the girls from the flat next door to the Macedonian girls want to come and pray on the prayer balcony! Rock on! Or 'Jazz on' even.

We went out in teams again today. The guys at the beach got into some good conversations. Alek and the music team jammed with one of the best drummers in Macedonia in town and got to chat to him a bit. They exchanged numbers and agreed to meet up again. Then some of the girls from the team met up with a couple of drug adicts and went for coffee with them. These guys were really open to the gospel and the girls came back buzzin. Markus and Alpin made contact with the tatoo artist in town and hope to meet him later tonight. I was on the prayer team today and we prayer walked the town centre and continued praying on the prayer balcony. There is a really great collection of art appearing all over the place. There is a lot of creative talent on the team.

Tonight we are all eating together (23 odd people). Alpin is being a star and cooking chinese for everyone. YES!

- got sunburned on the prayer pedalboat
- wrestled with jim on the prayer balcony: I WOOOOOON! (- no way!!! I did! - Jim)
- go to visit jim now in the hospital :0)
- natasha ate all the chocolate
- will meet one of the ohrid tatoo guys tomorrow!! maybe i'll get JESUS on my arm
- miss my lovely andrea

hey,
um, well had a smashing day today!got up pretty late cos i think we are all pretty cream crackered!but when we did get up we went for our regular worship and stuff, was fun, and then someone had the ingenius idea of splitting into smaller teams and doing different things.......sweet........so yeah we got into teams of erm...can't remember but i went for the worship one, we basically set off to town about 5 of us with 2 guitars and a thing that looks like a bongo......nice........and so we sat down while some other guys went to look for a place to worship in the shade somewhere.......tactical.........anyway, we sat down next to some guys who started talking to us, and one of them was an orthodox and believed there was more to Christianity and was interested to find out, so we gave him a Bible and chatted to him and the other guy was like, i dont believe in God, so we gave him a leaflet about 'something more to life' and he was like, well i do a little bit i think, maybe, perhaps, he was a bit unsure so we gave him a bible and said to read it and give us a call, so wew are waiting for that (your prayers would be super).
So we trotted on to the lake where we bagan to worship and well some girls next to us started asking questions so one of the people not playing started to talk to them, 10 minutes later they grabbed some bells and cool shakey things and started to worship........groovy........and yeah the other guy not worshipping on an instrument had busied himself by talking to a couple who had been starring at us for a while, he talked for 45 mins, telling them his testimony of how he was healed, and about the gospel and stuff, was cool, we reached others by simply giving out leaflets and letting them play on the instruments, so that was so cool, God really moved in that, and we had some really cool worship aswell.........bargin..........so we went back to the prayer balcony and prayed for a wee bit and had a shower and personnaly just reflected on what God had done for us, he is so great but we pray for bigger, better things.......we are going out around the town tonight and so i look cool :) and so we hope that God will move there aswell, we are really witnessing the power of prayer when we compare the time before we had a prayer balconi to now, does that make sense??? hope so............confusing.............but yes, i spose i should sign off, prayer requests would be, for energy, very long days and short nights at the mo, and for God to really move more and more and to fill us more and more with a deeper passion and hunger (thats one to write down) thankyou all, God bless
samos

hello!!!!!!!!!!
i hope you are all enjoying the heatwave in england and being more sensible that me with your suntan lotion- i look like a little piggy on a spitroast :(
had a fab day on the beach, jim found another 'beautiful' waitress ;) who needed the Lord, and me and one of the macedonians met 2 guys who want to meet up and hang out from Ohrid, and 2 guys who manage one of the clubs in town who asked us to go down and see them- Marcus pointed out this would b a super duper chance to make a contact and possibly get an opening to bring some dj's with us next year (as well as this year....see what i did there?????d.j?????????????errrrrrrrrrrrrrr...anyway), marcus also decided that getting a tattoo is the way forwards, and also met another guy from a different club...jimothy probably did something too, im sure he will tell you. All the other guys who went to other places have apparently had groovy days too- some worshipped in town, some sat on their batty's in cafe's and some stayed on the PRAYER BALCONY (how cool are we???) and prayer walked our neighbourhood, im sure they will tell you about it. Well am going to go and nurse my tummy and pity myself, and hopefully met those guys later and see what the big JC has instore
well keep rocking for the rock
ciao bambini's
debo

hey, today was fantastico !! and its still not over. Was rudely awoken by the boys complaining of missing toiletries! (we had hidden their mouth wash and shower gel in the freezer, in revenge for throwing my pillow out of the third floor window last night) unfortunately they discovered our amazing hiding place far too quickly! our morning meeting with the going-for-it Macedonians was great as usual, and Natasha shared her words of wisdom. These guys are well into their worship and it is soo encouraging and fun to worship with them. It was the first day of the 'new plan'. four groups of people focussing on different methods of evangelism and areas of the town. I joined the 'beach team' headed up by James-Edward and Markus-balconi-Laegal. it rocked, the beach we are focussing on is packed full of young people, lined with bars blaring out music and ripe for the pickin! After splitting into pairs we worked really structuredly on hour shifts alternating between evangelism on the beach front and in bars, praying on the prayer pedalo (!) and relaxing. At the end of the day the stories told, friendships founded and word of god sown into that place and people's hearts was awesome. God is so good, and i thnk everyone would say God really used us in that place today. yey.

Had a wicked day today. We shifted up a few gears and split into four teams. Our team hit the beach again to chat to some people and pray. It was a really good time and all of us got into conversations with different people on the beach. Markus and I learned how to play backgammon and Markus got the phone number of a tatoo artist here in Ochrid. He is going to go check out his place tommorrow with Alpin an investigate getting another tat. We also met the managers of a couple of the biggest clubs in town, and we're heading out tonight to chat to them. The prayer pedalo was cruising around the bay dispatching annointing while all this was going on.

More from the rest of the guys...

had a funny day off. we're sleeping till nearly 12pm, drunk to much coffee and just enjoying this cool area!

Today is our first day off since beginning the training at Holmstead Manor on 4th July. We have just been sitting in cafes and swimming in the lake. Nice! Tonight we will probably have a chat about what to do next week. Please pray that God would show us how to step up a few gears and really press into what we are here to do.

Today was all about stepping up the pace a bit and getting going on the things that God has been putting on our hearts over the past couple of days. We launched the prayer balcony today with lots of people choosing to stay behind and press into God, while a smaller group of us hit the beach. We really saw the fruits of this as we got into good conversations right from the start. When we arrived at the beach one of the Macedonians bumped into some friends from Skopje and Markus and Jim spent the next 2 hours chatting to them.

Meanwhile back at the prayer balcony we decided to proclaim over Ochrid who God was and felt that God was asking us to prayer his potential over the city and for the city to begin to stand in God's inheritance for it. There was a release of artistic creativity and prophetic proclaimation over the city and our ministry here.

Still there are a lot of open questions - how to reach the inhabitants of Ochrid not just the tourists (who mostly come from Skopje), how to lay foundation for the upcoming church, and is 35% too much for a tip??!!!!!! (Answers please to Jim).

Today we met THE main guy from the Macedonian underground punk rock scene who was in charge of organising the festival which didn't happen. Markus connected with this guy when he was trying to arrange for his band to play at this festival. Markus & he got connected through one of those divine appointment things. In the same week Markus arranged the rights for the 24-7 sampler with the boss from his band's label (a non-Christian independent label). This guy was asking for contacts with guys from the European underground scene from the same label. This guy is involved in a lot of social and cultural activities (orphanage stuff, concerts, magazines etc) and we really feel that God wants to use him for some eternal purpose. Ask for more details it is really exciting!

Had a wicked day today. After a quality time of prayer and worship in the morning with the Macedonian guys we hit the beach! We all went this time as we are still on a bit of an orientation program on our second day here and we're just getting to know some places and get a feel for the sort of things we can do. We had a great time and got to chat to a few guys chillin on the beach about who we are and what we're doing here. It is also great hanging out with the guys from the church in Skopje and encouraging them.

Last night we got to see Ohrid in it's full holiday resort glory as we hit the clubs and bars. This place is so different from what we imagined it to be. It is more like the Ibiza or Aiya Napa of the balkans than anything else! We went to a party thrown by the Campus Crusade guys we'd hoped to connect with then moved on to get a feel for the other clubs and bars in the town.

Tonight as I write we have a team heading for a concert to pray and chat with people gathered there, and another group heading to a concerto in the newly discovered Amphitheatre.

Tommorrow we hope to get the prayer balcony well and truly up and running and start the prayer. We will leave a couple of people behind to pray for the day then head off to another beach to try and meet some folk.

We've arrived here safely and things are going really good. We spent most of our first two days travelling, but we have had a good chance to chat with all the Macedonian guys, and we have sorted out a lot of things to do with the program which is really good.

We are now in Ohrid in the South of the country where we are going to be for the whole of our time here. Ohrid is one of the oldest towns in Europe, and it is the place where Christianity started in the Balkans. It is also the main holiday resort for Macedonians.

We will be spending our time encouraging the guys from the church in Skopje who travelled down with us, hanging out at the beaches and parties and trying to connect with some key people that we hope God will put in our path. Our aim is to share with a few people and try to leave a group of people here who want to start their journey with God and connect them with Christians in the area.

It is really amazing because there seem to be quite a few mission teams in this area at the moment. We met some guys from Campus crusade here today and we might go to party with them later tonight. We also know of other groups in the town nearby. Tommy Nauman will be with them for a week or so.

Please pray:

That we would be able to encourage the guys from the church in Skopje.

That we would connect with the right people to share Jesus with.

For protection over the team.