Welcome

Sunday
Nov192006

A Typical Sunday with a Few Requests

We leave in about an hour to worship at our church in Zagreb. We love our church and are so thankful for the body of Christ in Zagreb and the surrounding area.

The boys had a TCK (Third Culture Kid, formerly known as MK) spend the night last night. They seemed to have a good time complete with a McDonald’s dinner paid for by dad. Bret’s basketball team got blown out again yesterday afternoon. Bret got to play for about a quarter and a half and did great. Ryan is still tired after the play his school did 10 days ago. Several very late nights and lots of practices after school and on weekends left him behind on sleep. He has done his best to catch up and seems to be returning to his normal energetic self.

Please, remember the following in the days to come:

That we could be an encouragement to other believers here. Good things are happening. The enemy is active. It is too easy to focus on the negative. Ask that we could help turn hearts to great things going on.

Ask that we could encourage and help our team. We have a team Thanksgiving planned for Thursday. Sixteen of us, kids included, will be meeting and we want to build one another up in the Lord.

Don’t forget to pray for our seminar on Tuesday night. We will be leading the Baptist Church in Petrinja on the Colossians 3 teaching of “putting off the old” and “putting on the new.” Many of you might also know this as the Principle of Displacement.

Wednesday
Nov152006

We Have Contact

The visit to T-com yesterday was both very entertaining and somewhat successful.  Instead of arranging new service through the competitor and then going to T-com, I decided to go to T-com and talk about my service needs while simultaneously calling the competition and discussing with them whether or not they could beat T-com to the punch.

It was two conversations at once.  I would be on the cell phone (T-mobile by the way) for a few seconds and then talk to the T-com guy for a minute.  Back and forth it went and it was really funny, to me anyway, and to most of the workers at T-com and the other customers.

The best part was that the T-com customer service representative had to call for help and he spent as much time on hold as you or I would.  So, he got to listen to me arranging for Iskon to come out to the house and install a phone line and ADSL service.  The problem was they could not guarantee service until Friday.  I tried to give them my business and eventually ordered the service with the agreement that I could cancel if T-com could restore service before they got there.  I left with the T-com promise that they would be right out.  Right, and the check is in the mail.

I walked to my car, drove five minutes home, and the T-com repair van was waiting for me.  I had been assured that my phone line or ISDN box was broken.  An hour later the repairmen confirmed that it was T-com's central station.  So, we went another 18 hours without service but they got it  restored this morning!

I called Iskon and cancelled.

Now, before you say, "That doesn't sound very Christian," please understand that I was very respectful and polite every step of the way.  Normally, people here would either simply accept the inevitable or they would blow a gasket.  I was  very open with what I was doing and why but also did not feel guilty about asking for service.

I have gotten to know three of the workers at our local T-com over the past two years.  They have helped me solve several unusual administrative problems and I have to pay my phone bill there every month.  They were all off work with the conclusion of my business yesterday.  They were in great spirits and thanked me for ending their day on such a fun case.  They asked me for coffee.  I couldn't go yesterday, T-com was waiting for me, so tomorrow I will meet them at the end of the workday for a cup of coffee.  Please pray for that conversation and those relationships.

 

Wednesday
Nov152006

Communications and Business

Written on Tuesday morning but not posted until today for obvious reasons:

 
I called T-com (this is the main phone service provider in Croatia) yesterday afternoon to discuss their slow customer response time. We have a business ISDN line, guaranteed quick service, and absolutely no phone or internet.

Apparently, there is a lack of cultural understanding on my part about what constitutes guaranteed quick service. And, I do have lots of those cultural misunderstandings. So, pray that we can patiently wait and be accepting of the fact that this situation is not changing so fast that we won’t be able to adjust.

As an American, I feel compelled to seek another alternative. So, this morning I will go to T-com’s competitor, explain the situation, and see if they can’t install a phone line and ADSL service before T-com can repair the phone and install ADSL. If nothing else, it will put me in contact with a few more people and should be entertaining to watch the concept of business competition dawn upon a couple of minds.

Wednesday
Nov152006

Report on the Weekend

Written on Monday but not posted due to problems described below:

When it rains, it pours. Last week, our email server was down for the vast majority of the time. From what I saw yesterday at the internet café and on a colleague’s computer this morning, the service is apparently toasted again. Right now it does not matter, because our ISDN service in our home and office is “gotovo.” It is finished, kaput, trashed, and all those other descriptive words. 

While I can’t send email, receive email, make phone calls or connect to the internet, I still write. You will probably get a bunch of these posted at once, though I will try to spread them out.

Praise the Lord with us for the great worship service Radiceva Baptist Church had on Sunday. I went to the first service which is all in Croatian. I expected a full house of around 200. The members had to bring in all the chairs from the other rooms in the building and still there were 60 people standing in the hallway through the service. Pastorally speaking, we had 300 on Sunday (in reality that means 250). The quality and impact of the worship, praying, and preaching were even better than the attendance. Something is happening. I don’t know what but it was a great day.

Following the worship service, I came back to Velika Gorica for Bret’s basketball game against Croatia’s number one team in the 1991 -1992 age group. This team also has one of Europe’s top ranked NBA prospects. That is a ranking by NBA scouts. Believe me when I say that my junior high basketball team did not look anything like they did. My high school team did not like anything like they did.

This team had six kids 195 cm tall or more. For the metrically challenged, that means six kids 6 feet 4 inches or taller. The #1 ranked prospect was a little fella’ at just 6’ 8” (there were two others at least as tall) and weighing about 220 lbs. He could move, dribble, rebound (22 rebounds), block shots (7 blocked shots), pass (he had 11 assists in the game); he made incredible post moves and hit two threes (43 points and his coach pulled him toward the middle of the third quarter). I promise that he could take most college centers to the hole and eat their lunch. Our boys did great to only get beat 100 – 70. It was the best game we have played all year and the second lowest margin of victory for this other team.

Tomorrow night Elise and I begin the first of three seminars with Petrinja Baptist Church. We are speaking for a few minutes on Philippians 3:10 and teaching on how to read the Bible in such a way that it can change your life. Read, picture, ponder, and pray is the way Jerry and Marilyn Fine teach this in their discipleship book, "One on One with God." If you have never been exposed to this way of helping others catch a life of discipleship, you should visit their web-site and get their book.

We will then break up into men’s and women’s small groups and practice what we are teaching. Last, we will leave them with an assignment that involves practicing this every day, plus reaching out to one neighbor through an act of kindness during the week.

Pray for our Croatian to be far above our normal abilities. Pray that we can model good small group principles. Pray that we can laugh at our language mistakes and still communicate with clarity. Pray that we can encourage and help this church. Pray especially for Miroslav and Vaso, the two deacons, and for Bozidar, a member who will be helping us with some translation.

Saturday
Nov112006

Links That Help Us Think

Another evangelical leader has fallen. The following link might help you pray for this man, his family, his church, and your own heart. You certainly won’t feel morally superior after reading it.  http://www.challies.com/archives/002181.php

 

Another blogger questions the current emphasis on leadership, vision, and their relationship to the kingdom of God. He quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer to get us thinking.  "God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself…"  You can read the whole quote and this man’s commentary at http://kennicon.squarespace.com/.

 

Christianity Today has a blog written by the editors.  It is a great resource for devotional and challenging thought;  truthfully, all the CT web-sites are great resources. This link has more on the evangelical world and how to think about leadership and moral failure as well as a poem worth your time.  You can find it here. http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/11/the_poet_of_ur_1.html#more