First shoebox

Dear brothers, sisters, friends,
Only a few sentences I would like to inform you, encourage you and thank you in relation to the shoe box gifts, because I believe that some of you have packed at least one of them.
The first day we went for the first time in Novi Pazar in a specialist hospital where children were peering in the window waiting for us. Smiles on their faces, the hospitality, the warmth of the heart, they are indicators of how each child was glad to have visited them.
The other day we were in Kraljevo in a special school, where they were prepared for us a nice program, even the children from a nearby village took part playing in folk dance, we all really enjoyed the atmosphere of Christmas.
In the end we visited an association with not-so-nice name, “Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Persons with Kosovo and Metohija” was indeed a real privilege in this way to show Christian love to the families. What makes us most happy is that they were happy, open to dialogue and the most that we share about 40 new Testament and many other references, praise the Lord!

And just for the end to mention that we are able to implement all this with brother Phil and

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Alan and sisters Michelle and Valerie from the UK.

To all of you who are part of our team, thank you very much for your support and prayers.
We wish you peace and love of

God Mission K

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Milenkovic family news. Sofia Lena has arrived! News from Memphis

Dear friends, brothers and sisters, our faithful prayer supporters,

We are happy that we can greet you with some wonderful news. Yesterday, on Nov 22, 2012, Jaroslava gave birth to our third daughter, who weighs 2850 g and is 50 cm long. Her name is Sofia Lena.

Yesterday, here in America, it was Thanksgiving. It is a big holiday with a lot of feasting. We spent it with a wonderful family of our friend Richard Hall. As the name of the holidays says, it is a day when people give thanks for all the wellbeing that they’ve had during the year. As Christians, even in the greatest storms of life, we always have reason to be thankful and no life circumstances can take that away from us. What contributed to mine and Sara’s joy was this wonderful news that we got the fifth member of the Milenkovic family. We are thankful to God that everything went well, and that He gave us another precious gift.Image

It’s been almost two weeks since Sara and I arrived here to Memphis. I have to say that everything is far above what we had expected. Sara has a fantastic care here. The doctors and all the staff, the quality of care, accommodation, the conditions of life etc. are truly extraordinary. This is a place of miracles. Children from all over the world come here for treatment. There is a huge campus with hospital buildings, which looks like a big village. Everybody says “hello” to each other, everything is in peace and in great, even cheerful atmosphere, even though all of us who are here with our children are going through the most difficult times of our lives. We could say that Sara’s at the best place possible in the world.

The days behind us have been pretty tiring because Sara was going through many diagnostic procedures and preparations for the further therapy. A few days ago her radiotherapy started and it is going to last the next 6 weeks. The good news is that there is no cancer in the bones and the spine, which often happens with this type of tumor. After this therapy and a few weeks break, she will undergo the chemotherapy which will last 4-5 months. Sara’s been handling all this really well and she’s really happy to have such good care here. One of our fears was how she was going to emotionally handle going so far away from home. But she is so thankful to be here and is saying that we’re at the best place possible. She trusts the people around her even though she often doesn’t understand them.Image

Sara has started school that she has here in the hospital. For now, she only has individual classes of English language, before she starts attending other subjects as well. We have been put us into a beautiful building, where all the families with the children who are treated in the hospital are accommodated. We have a comfortable apartment here.

We have such wonderful friends here in Memphis who are wholeheartedly open to help us and serve us while we are here. We are thankful for them from the bottom of our hearts. Life with them here, far away from home, will be much easier.

Thank you all from across the world and Serbia who are praying for us and helping us, our family back home and the ministry of the Bible school. Thank you for being with us and for the fact that we can see the wonderful and mighty hand of God in all this. Please keep praying for us, for Sara and her recovery. We do not know the future and it’s not in our hands. Even though we are often scared of thinking about what might be out there and what all may happen, we trust the Lord and pray that He would give us strength and faith in Him, day after day and that is it. Today’s lifestyle somehow teaches us to live and behave as independent people who can do anything, but in circumstances such as this one we learn that we are actually not the gods of our lives, but that we always need the One who loves us immensely and who gave us to live our lives, who gave us our families and everything, and upon whom everything depends. Such is our God.

May the peace of the Lord dwell in your and our hearts as we begin or continue to trust Him.

We love you.

Yours,

Sladjan, Jaroslava, Sara, Jana and Lena

 

Internet cafe open in Ruma!

Internet cafe in Ruma

After many weeks of hard work we resorated part of our church building in Ruma in order to open an internet cafe. As mentioned in our previous letters, church is situated near the three high schools, and we decided to start Internet cafe project in order to reach out to the youth in our city. This project gives us opportunity to testify to the young people about Jesus Christ and as a young, recently established church, we see evangelisation as one of our highest priorities.

 

 

 

The opening of the Internet cafe gave us a great opportunity to offer to the young people a lot more than a cup of coffee and use of computers. Currently, two married couples from our church work in the cafe. Hopefully, as Christians, we will be an example of Chirst love to the highschoolers.
In a pleasant atmosphere where many kind of coffe, tea, hot chocolate and different non alcoholic drinks are served, we will hold presentations and lectures to high school students about the different education possibilities after the high school but also lectures about Christianity.
This is pioneering work in our contry and we are both encouraged by the way our God is leading us and at the same time challenged by the newness of the project.
We would appreciate your prayers for God’s guidance on how to approach to the young people, to bring more young people, and provide all we need for a work of this cafe. Our prayer is that in the future ther will be many who will testify that they heard the good news of Jesus in our cafe.
 
   We wish you every blessing
        Best Regards
                                              
                                  Drago and Jaroslava Pejic

Sara’s update 3/11/12

3/11/12

Dear friends, prayer supporters, brothers and sisters,

It’s been a while, but we’re writing to let you know about our daughter Sara’s situation.

We are thankful to God that Sara’s been recovering well after the surgery and a long time spent in the hospital. Other than the occasional vomiting and tiredness, mostly everything is fine. Sara and I are now back home after a full month and we are finally all together as a family. We find the usual things, that we’ve had all this years, so precious now: lying on the bed all together, talking, laughing, enjoying every moment… Thank God for these moments, for which we only now can see how meaningful they are.

Unfortunately, this all is not the end. The tumor which has been removed is malignant, which means that we need to continue with the further radiation and chemotherapy. We have a great battle in front of us, with an uncertain outcome for us, but not for God. We trust God who has been leading us in these tough moments. He knows and is in control of everything.

We prayed that God would open the door of the St. Jude hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, and that Sara’s treatment would continue there. Although the chances were not great, we have just received the news that she’s been admitted. Praise God for this news! Let us pray that God would keep leading our steps about visa and all the practical steps which are necessary to take so that we could go there as soon as possible.
We also contacted another hospital, in Munich, Germany, which is doing a different kind of treatment and we’re waiting t see what they think.

Please pray for our further steps. It is hard, because it seems that Jaroslava, whose 9th month of pregnancy has started today, will give birth to our third daughter without Sara and me around. It’s going to  be hard to be separated, especially in these moments when we all should be together. The best thing would be if we could all go and be with Sara and each other, but that’s not possible for now.

Thank you for continually praying for us. Please keep having us in your prayers and encourage others to do it too. Pray for Sara’s doctors and her further treatment and curing, and above all, pray that God’s will would be done in everything.

We have to say that every email of yours, every letter and encouragement that we’ve received are such a precious gift for us. Even though we couldn’t answer to them, we read those precious words that you wrote withe joyful hearts and often with tears in our eyes. Thank you so much for it.

We love you and thank God that we can go through all this with you, our friends, brothers and sisters, as with a big family.

May God bless you.

Yours,

Sladjan and Jaroslava, Elizabeta Sara and  Aleksandra Jana Milenkovic

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