Ending the Year With a Looser Grip and a Tighter Seatbelt

This past season we have had lots to be thankful for! Our Kid's English Clubs have come to a close, and between the two different classes we were teaching we had about 18 kids involved this semester! Zach and I have both loved spending time with these kids each week, seeing them learn and gain confidence in themselves as they begin to speak without fear of mistakes, and see the friendships growing between them. Some of the parents of the kids were involved with our Fall Let's Start Talking program as well, and have been getting more and more involved with the Church community. We're looking forward to next year because in the Spring time we will be able to make both of these English Clubs a weekly event, and spend more time with these kids and families!

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We are also thankful for all our American friends here who did so much to make our first ever Thanksgiving away from family extraordinary. There are now 11 Americans in the church here, and for Thanksgiving we all got together to have a "Croatian-American Family" Thanksgiving celebration. We ate good food, played lots of games, talked the whole evening, and prayed hard. We even caught a bit of the Thanksgiving day parade!

One of the most incredible, and unexpected things for us since being here is that we have never felt lonely, or as "the outsiders" in this new country and culture. Not only the Americans in our congregation here, but our Croatian brothers and sisters (and even random strangers) have gone above and beyond to make us feel welcome, loved, and part a family. Inside of our own culture, surrounded by our own blood relatives, and growing up in a strong Christian Christian culture, I never quite realized or appreciated what it is to have a spiritual family - to be able to travel anywhere in the world and find those you truly feel are your brothers and sisters. God knows how to give good gifts, even before we know how much we needed them.

On that note, we are also excited to share that we gained two more sisters here at Kušlanova, who were baptized into Christ 2 weeks back! It has been beautiful seeing their joy and enthusiasm grow more and more each week, and today at our morning worship we got to hear a beautiful prayer of love written by our new sister.

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Last week one of the couples in our church (Tom and Sandra Sibley) shared a story about two women on a plane: It was the first time flying for both of them. One of them was very excited to fly. She jumped on the plane, buckled her seatbelt, and eagerly waited for the plane to take off, her mind free of fear. The second woman bought her ticket in apprehension, forced herself onto the plane, almost refused to buckle her seatbelt because she was so hesitant to commit to sitting on her seat fully, and gripped the seat in front of her so tightly that her knuckles turned white from fear. When the plane took off, the first woman watched out the window, enjoying the view from a new perspective. The second was in panicked tears, constantly plagued by the threat of disaster. A few hours later, the plane landed and both women exited the plane. The first woman had peace because she had faith that the plane would be able to fly, that the technicians had done their jobs making sure the plane was safe, and that the pilots were well trained and capable. The second had enough faith in the plane that she did buy a ticket, and did get on the plane, but had no peace whatsoever. Question: Which of the women safely reached their destination? ... Both.

The first woman had much more faith than the second, but it wasn't the size of their faith that was important. Both safely reached their destination because the object of their faith was trustworthy.

In one of our last blogs we shared about how we had got together with the teens to make cookies to share with friends, and strangers too. Sometimes for me it's easy to say, "God can work through anything, big or small," but it's harder to know whether I really believe it in my heart. We wanted to do something to show love to those around us, and we did our best to trust God to take it from there. And He did. Conversations opened with some of those we shared with, and through simply baking cookies we saw that God spoke his love into their hearts. They understood it wasn't just about doing something "nice" for our friends, but about a love much more eternal, deeper, and genuine. (If you'd like to hear more about this, send us a message! I would love to share with you!)

I'm learning to lean more fully into God's power rather than my own, and we're praying for His words to speak into those lives that He already opened. The Lord has been teaching my heart to trust him more fully, relax my grip a little bit, and buckle my seatbelt a little tighter. Our God is powerful and trustworthy.