Team Bosnia- Day 8

Well, friends, it is late so this update may be on the short side. Here's a quick run down of what we did today...

We began our day by prayer walking around the center of the city. We walked through the main areas of city government and commerce. Overall, the team felt greater freedom to pray and sensed God's power at work in this city.

After prayer walking, we went and visited the Bosnian version of Celebrate Recovery- a ministry to drug addicts. This ministry has truly been an area of fruit for the local church. Though we have talked often about how few people are coming to Christ, this drug recovery group is seeing people come to Christ regularly. On such person was Tanya, who now works as the receptionist and also cleans at Izvor. Two years ago, she hit bottom and reached out to some former drug addicts she knew who had changed. They told her about Jesus and this program, and now her life has been radically changed. She is a thriving member of the Malta church. Please pray for her and her son, as they have both been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. Pray especially that her son would be healed as a powerful testimony to her family, who are still antagonistic towards her faith.

After visiting here and grabbing some quick lunch, we went up to the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies. The reason for this trip was actually the view across the valley. During the war from 1992-1995, the Olympic stadium became the city morgue. They had 10,000 bodies at one point and nowhere to put them. (This is only a fraction of the total deaths during the war) After the war, they used a pulley system to move the bodies into a massive cemetery- Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks all sharing the same field. To see this hillside of tombs is almost beyond words. We took some time to pray over this area.

Then, we went to a great fortress that overlooks the northeast end of the city. It's a great place to pray over the city. You'll see some shots from here if you are EHA this weekend.

We ended the day with some time of preparing for the one-year celebration open-house at Izvor. They have invited over 200 people to attend. Please be praying for this night- Saturday. It is a significant point of connection for the Alliance team and the Bosnian community. Pray that relationships will be deepened and that more and more people will be led to connect with what is happening at the center.

Pray for the team- it seems that energy is lagging a bit, and Jim and Lora have come down with a bit of a bug now as well. Ask God for strength to finish well!

Thanks for partnering with us. Each and every one of your prayers are valuable to us!

Nick