24-7 Macedonia 2006

More photos

Ohrid:
Skopje:
All the team in Ohrid:

Another hard day on the mission field.

posted by Will @ 12:26 AM 16 comments links to this post

baptism

heya guys this is to show that will is not censoring everything although the godfather is well n truely keeping us in line! We are having way too much fun for a mission n loving being here with the church. spent this morning by the side of the lake watching Dejan get baptised which was awesome, kinda wanted to have another go myself. we then took a boat over to what must be the busiest beach the world has ever seen n spent the next few hours jumping off pedlos into the lake! We're having amazing prayer times together just before dinner each night really focusing on praying for ohrid n the work the church is doing before we hit the streets to meet up with the guys we've got to know through the church.

jem x

posted by Will @ 11:43 PM 0 comments links to this post

News from the seaside

Things still going well here in Macedonia. The others are declining my offers of blog-writing, so you still just get to hear from me. It's been another couple of days of mostly hanging out on the beach in the day and around town in the evening. We've stepped up the praying a bit as well - with the slight language barrier that's still the thing we're best at - so we're praying all together with the Macedonians in the morning, then some of us in the prayer room in the afternoon, and as a team in the evening.

There have been some great stories from people having really good conversations - lots of people genuinely interested in God and the whole deal, and some good friendships being made. This morning one of the Macedonians was telling us about one of his experiences chatting to some guys he had known from before he was a christian. They laughed at him for believing in God, but one of them came up to him later to talk more, ended up being prayed for, vomiting, and suddenly feeling completely free from the drugs and alcohol he'd been involved with. Nice one!

We're praying that God continues to work through us here, that we can make some difference to this place spiritually and hopefully be a blessing to the Macedonians (who are all amazing by the way) while we're here.

posted by Will @ 11:44 PM 1 comments links to this post

Ohrid

Ohrid is beautiful. Here's a picture that I didn't take but that sums it up quite well - on a big lake, lots of beautiful old buildings, scenic churches, beaches, restaurants and cafes by the sea. It's hard not to feel like we're on holiday.

We're basically aiming to pray lots here and spend time hanging out with Macedonians that we meet. The vibe is really chilled out and friendly - yesterday we were hanging out in the evening around the centre of town and just chatting to people, everyone's really open to talk. A few of us went to coffee with some guys that we'd met earlier at the beach. Apparently it's quite normal for Macedonians to just go for coffee with someone they've met for 5 minutes on the beach. It's cool though - we're all having a really nice time, being well looked after and loving this place.

Today the activities started a bit more seriously - we had a short time of prayer and praise with the macedonians (about 15 of them here with us) in the morning, and there's a kind of prayer room that we'll use to pray for about 2 hours every afternoon.

posted by Will @ 2:12 PM 2 comments links to this post

Prayers for Macedonia

A country of 2 million people, gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1990 - the only country to leave without a war. Since then they've had a succession of governments, none of them particularly good at running the country. There's high unemployment and widespread dissatisfaction with the government. You can pray for this latest government, new this week, to be more successful and for some of the country's problems to begin to get sorted.

There seems to be an attitude among many people that they have to be out for themselves, because others won't look out for them. We prayed that God would break through this attitude, showing people that he cares and that with him they are able to look out for others like he does.

There's also tension between some of the people groups here, particularly between the Macedonians and the Albanians. Pray for freedom from fear on both sides, and that peaceful reconciliation could be made.

posted by Will @ 7:14 AM 1 comments links to this post

Skopje

Today was a day for seeing Skopje and getting the lowdown on what's going on with the guys here in Macedonia. Alek and Diane came over to talk about the stuff down at Ohrid - they're big on chatting to people, making friends and talking about Jesus as much as people are up for it, and less big on Bible bashing. It suits us - we're all up for making friends with Macedonians, who all seem really friendly.

This afternoon we had a tour of Skopje from Koska. It was hot and sunny when we left, then it started bucketing down and we all got soaked. Hid in a restaurant for a couple of hours, chatted to Koska, and then toured a few museums and saw the town. Skopje's a town with so much history - we were walking round statues and architecture from as early as the first century. This evening we headed down to the cafe that's run by the church - it's a really cool place to hang out and we had a lot of fun getting to know a load of the guys who'll be coming down to Ohrid with us this week.

posted by Will @ 11:50 PM 0 comments links to this post

Jamie Brayford

A post devoted to our newest friend, Jamie B, mainly because this is a funny photo of him wearing Jem's glasses. The rest of us all know each other to some degree through being at City Gates together, but only met Mr B this weekend at teams training. I'm sure he'll be fine with me telling you that he's pretty cool.

posted by Will @ 6:25 PM 1 comments links to this post

So we're here

We've arrived in Skopje safe and sound after a pretty knackering day of travelling. Our flight was due to leave Heathrow at 6am, so with a 4am checkin we figured we might as well catch the last tube from central London and kip on the floor in Heathrow. Amazingly, we all ended up on the same tube even though only 4 of us were expecting to travel together. Here's a picture of Jem, Kez, Rich and half of Marylyn on the tube. Her other half was also on the tube but didn't make it into the photo.

Flights were easy enough and we mostly caught up on sleep wherever and whenever we could. Alek met us in Skopje airport with a nice little sign just saying '24/7' so we knew we were in the right place. Right now we're settling in to the little apartment that's used as an office for the church here, and where we'll be sleeping for the next couple of nights. Apparently there's a dirty little kebab place just down the road which suits me just fine. Heading out in a bit to meet some more of the gang here and sample some Macedonian cuisine.

posted by Will @ 6:16 PM 0 comments links to this post