Rainbow over Cacak

Last night it poked the rain down. This morning, it was raining off and on. I looked out the window and saw this:

Rainbow

From my quiet-time this morning

This morning in my quiet time, I was reading in Ezekiel. I came across these two passages that God pointed out to me. Perhaps they will cause you to think also.

1st (први in Serbian): Ezekiel 33:7-10 :

7 So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
8 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
9 Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
10 Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live

I know this was God talking to Ezekiel, but it hit me. We (Christians–followers of Jesus, Saved…not simply those who go to church. REAL Christians) MUST share with those around us. if we don’t, it is our fault that those around us don’t hear.

2nd (други in Serbian) was Ezekiel 34:1-10 :

1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
3 Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.
4 The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.
5 And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.
6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.
7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
8 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock;
9 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

In this passage, we see God talking about leaders who don’t lead. Leaders who worry about their own comfort rather than reaching the lost. Leaders who just let those under them wallow while they–the leaders–are sitting comfortable.

Food

We need any ideas you have on how we can preserve food (fruits and vegies) with a minimal amount of muss and fuss. It can’t involve special equpment that we would have to have shipped over from the US. Any ideas?

What we are up against

SerbianQuickReference(missingIVokativ)

I was working on some homework today when I came across a new case that I needed to add to my quick reference sheet.  I made the changes and I needed a break so I decided to blog about it.

 Serbian uses cases to indicate different things like where you are, where you are going, with what, who you are talking to, etc….  In some ways this is cool (instead of having to add new words, you can simply “tweak” an existing word) but very hard (it is totally not like English).  Here are a few example:

cheese is сир.
pizza with cheese is пица са сиром.

Cacak is the name of a town. 
To say in Cacak (if you are describing where you are ) у Чачаку
To say in Cacak (if you are describing where something is) you use у Чачака

 Names of people even change too (unless your name is too foreign then it doesn’t.  How do you know if your name is too foreign?  Well, if you add the ending, it just doesn’t sound right.  Big help when you are learning the language).

Click here if you want to take a look at my quick reference card in a pdf format (This one is missing the vocative case),

[Update 07-22-2008 07:06:08] See this post for more information (and an updated chart)

Gaming

We had some friends over to our place last night for dinner (yep…I made kabsa…and they LOVED it). After dinner, we played some games and had a good time. We had a good opportunity to get to know these people better…we are thankful for the time.

We played:
2 rounds of kill dr. lucky (the same guy won both times). We played once on the original board and once on the unnamed mystery house expansion
1 round of Igor. I won this at the last minute (3 others were getting ready to get 10 points and win)

Oh, there were some American friends…but, we are going to start inviting Serbs to play (we just got a place we could play)

June 2008…Wow

June2008Activity

Well, I don’t even know where to begin, so I’ll start off by saying that you can take a look at all of the pictures we took last month in a calendar form (like to the right) by going to our Flickr Archive page.

 

 

 

 

I’m reading through the Bible right now. My original plan was to do it every 90 days; however, I have revised that a little. I think it will be more like twice per year (about 180 days). To track my progress, I started off simply using paper and guessing what to read (well, along with some math involved). However, I finally got my copy of Logos installed and licensed (thank you George for this gift at the West Virginia Evangelism Celebration) and saw it included a bible reading plan. I’m doing that right now, however, the next time, I would like to have it work chronologically. Does anyone know how to set Logos up to do a chronological reading plan.

In my readings, I came across Ps 61 where I read about David. In reading the passage, I had the impression he was feeling discouraged. While I wasn’t feeling particluarly discouraged then (and really not now either), the feeling comes and goes. At the time, I blogged this just in case anyone else out there was felling discouraged. But, in looking over the past month’s bloggs, I came across it and was again encouraged.

I know everyone likes humourous stories from people overseas so here is mine for this month. One thing I really liked in the US was a moca extra hot. Yes, I know…I don’t like paying $4 for a cup of coffee either, but I enjoyed my moca (or mocha?) once or twice a month. I hadn’t had one in a while (and the only place I have seen it on a menu is a coffee shop in Belgrade. BTW, I had one and it was good!). But, back to the story…I hadn’t had one in a while so I decided to make my own serb coffee moca. Let’s just say that I need to filter the coffee before I try it again.

We traveled to Greece to meet with other Americans working in our part of the world. This was a good time to get to meet others, see how God is working in their countries, and be encouraged by new friends from the US. Here is a picture out the back of the main building we were meeting in:

Mountain

I know that most of you have never seen Cacak (Чачак) and don’t have any idea what it looks like. I took some pictures one day and did a short post of my trip to the English Club. It is a good representation of a resedential area in town. Cacak is also a city of great contrasts. Rich and poor. Rural and city. Modern and past.

Here are some links I didn’t know how to really write about:
Lydia is getting so big
I have learned things about living in Serbia I wish I had known before now.
We found a Gloria Jean’s Coffee in the Athen’s Airport (I was sick and wanted sprite to settle my stomach so I paid 2 Euro 90 for one. If I had been feeling better, I would have gotten a moca)
A friend gave us a gift subscription to Answers Magazine and we got our first issue
We got our first package from the US
My passport got washed and we took a trip to the US (actually the US Embassy in Belgrade)
We had a great time while we were there meeting friends and their friends. We also were able to worship with them. I cannot explain how good God is: the sermon he gave the pastor spoke to my heart (well, I guess it was really the passage because I didn’t understand much of the sermon).
Want a tux bathmat
We signed up for bookmooch to try and get some more english books.