"For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." We wish you a very blessed Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Love,

Doug and Jan

Katie and Nicholas, Ryan and Johanna

Even more "Typical" stuff

One of the cool things about living in central Europe is the plethora of old Baroque churches one may step inside of, and be awed by the paintings and reverence displayed by those who go in and out of each church. It is even cooler when one is able to do something like sing in one of these churches. Katie and Nicholas are members of their high school choir at Vienna Christian. The choir recently had the privilege to present their Christmas concert at St. Peter's Church in downtown Vienna. Not a bad place to have a concert and sing.

More typical

Another "typical" privilege we have is hosting guests. We were so happy to welcome friends from Germany, Albania, and Montenegro and share memories, laughter, prayers, and ministry together. It is a privilege to have guests and extend hospitality to them.

Daily schedule

Quite often we are asked to submit our schedule of a typical day or workweek on our mission field. When we receive requests we just kind of shake our heads and try to figure out what to put down on paper that will make sense to a reader far away from where we live. There are no typical days in our lives, at least they don't seem very typical. One example: when I was in Podgorica, Darko, the leader for CEF Serbia also joined Miruska and me. Darko and I spent time unloading a container of Samaritan's Purse shoeboxes and installing Miruska's kitchen! Not exactly typical for one's weekly schedule but certainly typical for us and the many and varied things God asks us to do in this work of being a light and life of our Saviour.

Mega-Church in MNE

It was a unique moment, for me anyway, being a part of a special church service in Podgorica. I was in a "Mega-Church," Montenegrin style. Some 45-50 people gathered on Sunday evening for the weekly service of one of the 2 churches in Podgorica. This number represents nearly 1/2 of all the known followers of the Lord Jesus in the country. It was a great evening singing praises together, listening to His word, and then listening and observing as a couple of people requested a few minutes time to confess sin and ask forgiveness of the local body. Continue to pray for the Church in Montenegro. It is small but loves our Lord. It is new and ripe for attack by the liar and destroyer. They are encouraged by your prayers.

How excellent it is that God gives Jan the privilege to share His Hope with students from around the world. These are some of her students that she tutors twice weekly at our kids' school: Vienna Christian School, an American international Christian school based in Vienna. Please pray for Jan as she works with these students. Pray for their salvation. Pray for the school administration as it seeks to solve a long running search for visas for the faculty/staff that are not able to receive Austrian residence visas.

Hyperbole Maximus

You probably missed this important fact about the Obama victory that at least one Austrian news magazine has helpfully printed for us: "HOPE FOR THE WORLD: the 'New Kennedy's' and how Barack Obama's Victory will make the World a Better Place!" Excuse me, but that Hope has already been to this planet and He has already done everything necessary to make this world a better place. Yes, the secularized, post-religious world of Euroamerica might believe Mr. Obama is our hope and answer. After all he will undo or "Kill" as another publication here put it, all of the absurd and backwards restrictions upon normal life that President Bush dared to impose upon American society simply to please naieve, backwards, and biggoted religious voters who really are clueless when it comes to the modern (or post-modern) world and the views of said world. How thankful we are that Jesus, Messiah, the Saviour, came to this planet and endured the snide and hurtful comments of the religous and political leaders of His day; He endured the beyond belief torment and torture; and He gave His life as the ultimate sacrifice to become the only point of Hope and Light for this world. How awesome it is that our hope and future is not in a President, a Prime Minister, journalists, a King or Queen, or the other multitudes of gods and goddesses our world has built and worships. When you pray for Mr. and Mrs. Obama, pray too and again for Europe. This is truly a continent and peoples without Hope.

Yugoslav nostalgia

In Nis, Serbia is a cafe bar called "Broz." It is a bit of nostalgica expression of a yearning for the old days of Tito and Yugoslavia. Anyway it was fun to meet up with 'ol "Broz" and even better to enjoy a lovely coffee with good friends!

Road Irony

Look closely at the attached picture. First of all you will see we are following "Christ." That is good. Followers of the true and living Christ are to follow Him in all things. Now, look at the license plate on the truck. You will notice "NP" on the plate. NP signifies the city of Novi Pazar deep in SW Serbia, very near the Montenegrin border. Novi Pazar is also one of the key cities in an area called the "Sandzhak," which was a corridor set up by the Ottoman Turks allowing Muslims to travel from Turkey to Albania and up to Bosnia-Herzegovina. This corridor is still today highly Muslim with virtually no Gospel witness of anykind. The corridor runs roughly along the Serbian/Montenegrin border and is on both sides of the border. So, the irony: following "Christ" from one of the main Muslim centers in Serbia and Montenegro. Go figure! But also pray for this corridor in Montenegro and Serbia. How can we take the Truth into this large area?

Dobra Voda 2008

Camp was a great hit for the 35 children and teens that were a part of Bible Camp 2008 in Dobra Voda, Montenegro. The campers were challenged to have the faith and prayer life of Nehemiah while they enjoyed swimming in the Adriatic Sea, frienshipping, handwork, and the other fun parts of camp. Please pray with us about camps in 2009. Our funding for Montenegro was stopped by the person who had helped fund the camp for the past three years, meaning we have no funding at all for next year. By faith we desire to have two camps, one for children, the other for teens. One camp is approximately $4,400 or about $80 per camper. Thanks for reading and enjoying the pictures.

Soccer Fever

It has been fun to be in Vienna during this month's European Soccer Championships "Euro 2008." To witness the Austrians showing their national colors and pride was a bit unusual as normally they are more reserved than the Italians or Serbians! June 19 we travel to Serbia, Montenegro, and back through Serbia for about three weeks of camps, clubs,visits, and other ministry. We will not be able to keep you posted as we travel, but upon our return we will post some pictures and other news. Please pray with us as go and as together with our colleague Miruska and a team of national followers of Jesus, we have the awesome opportunity to encourage, bless, teach, and witness of the Lord's grace to each one of us.

Katie, a member of the high school choir here in Vienna, had the very cool opportunity to sing, I mean the entire choir, along with the Moody Bible Institute Choir, at St. Peter's Cathedral in downtown Vienna, when the Moody choir was on tour in Vienna earlier this spring. We were quite jealous of her!

One of the best reasons we are there...


A reminder map of the Adriatic regions


Katie and a couple of the leads in "High School Musical"


Street scene in Podgorica, Montenegro

It is summer in Europe and that means the European Football Championships. They began in Switzerland Saturday evening and continued here in Austria yesterday. Sadly Austria lost it's opening match 1-0 again Croatia on a penalty kick only four mintues into the match! A lot of sad Austrians were running the streets last night.

Thank you so much for praying about my recent travels. I was gone for 8 days and it was a very good 8 days. Darko Adamek, the National Director for CEF Serbia, and I had many hours together with good coffee, comfortable chairs (even AC as it around 100 degrees F!), good Serbian food (special thanks to Lidija and "Little" Darko), and the presence of God's Holy Spirit guiding and directing our conversation. I learned that there were some expectations or understandings on the part of Darko and Lidija that Jan and I had not met or failed ourselves to see and understand. We talked those things through and were able to move on to how CEF Serbia and CEF Montenegro might look in the future as two organizations yet also sharing and helping each other with different strengths and gifts. Though those discussions are not yet finished -- and that is perfectly OK -- we have a good start on things and will plan, Lord willing, to bring the entire team together in the fall to talk through expectations and how we will hope to function.

Secondly, it became clear that it is NOT God's plan for us to be involved in helping the CEF Serbia team with Bible camp in August as originally planned. There are some underlying issues that make up one part of this decision -- issues that are NOT because of anything Darko and I have done; there are others involved outside of the organization and we are still trying to understand these people and what they have done or not done. The biggest reason however is that we are really not needed. Why? As all of us CEF team members met during the weekend for camp planning meetings, there was a large number of "outsiders" present who are also planning to work at the camps. These are all national believers who have either been trained in evangelism by CEF, have a vision of reaching children and teenagers through camp, or simply want to be used by God in a camp situation. As I sat through the weekend and met new and old friends, I realized that God had gone far beyond anything we might have imagined during our first CEF camp in 2000, and brought together this group of believers to minister in His way and in His time. I began to praise God for what He is doing in Serbia and to let go of what Jan and I wanted and let God do His work.

Katie and Nicholas finish school this week and are more than ready for it be to over. Enjoy your summer as I hope they will and stay in touch!

"I will look unto the hills; from whence cometh my help?" And so the Psalmist asks the question. Of course the answer is the "Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth." This afternoon as we looked out our window we could see that Psalm in action. Dark clouds were roiling over the hills to the NW of us. Surely some kind of nasty storm was going to hit even as the late afternoon sun shown brightly on those same hills. Soon the clouds thickened more and we watched what looked like snow crawl down the hill into the valley and begin ascending our own hills. It was not snow but hail. Suddenly the hail was bigger and then after a few second lull even bigger hail stones began to fall. The clouds rolled on and again the hills were bathed in the setting sun. As gasoline became $7.60 a gallon yesterday and the dollar hit another record low we also had to ask where our help comes from. The Psalmist knew; our help comes from the One who is in control of all things even currencies. "Thank you Father that you are in control. Help us to truly believe."

Record lows for the U.S. dollar...record highs for oil...stock market drops...wow, what a distressing past few weeks. Since we arrived in Europe the dollar has fallen precipitously, oil has skyrocketed, and now we get to pay around $7.00 a gallon for diesel for our car! What a privilege! But, when I begin to fret, feel sorry for ourselves, or lose sleep about this, I am quietly reminded by the Father that He is in control and that we are exactly where He wants us to be: we cannot control the dollar, we cannot control oil prices, we cannot control stock markets; and even if we/I could we/I would be sure to mess it up badly. So, it is a good thing that God controls these things and even though we would desire and beg for a stronger dollar and cheaper oil, the situation now causes us to depend completely on our Father and not on our cleverness. Yes, we must watch our expenses carefully and guard against frivolous spending, but it is God that controls the overall picture.
This is another posting from $7 a gallon Austria!!

Last days with our parents, siblings, and cousins at Christmas and New Years. We miss them so much.

Finally

Aren't we glad it wasn't flight #666!
Hi Friends,

We are able to finally update the "blog" page a bit. Reading a compilation of the "Zits" comic strip this is something that I should be doing at least every five minutes and include all of the marvelously bizarre things my parents say and do. Well, since I would be the parent in question, it just "ain't gonna happen!!"
We are back in Europe, in Austria, under a roof, and awaiting our first trip back to Serbia. We had planned three different times to go down in February, including a trip to Montenegro. Container problems prevented those trips from happening. But perhaps it was also God's way of keeping us out of harms way during the demonstrations in Serbia before and after Kosovo declared it's independance from Serbia. Those wounds remain with the Serbs and run deep and painful. Kosovo is the spiritual/ancestral/historical birthplace of the Serbian people centuries and centuries ago and to simply have it yanked away is very hard for them to undertand or accept. I guess to put into a perspective our American friends might relate to would be the originial 13 Colonies or the Boston or Philadelphia metro areas suddenly declaring independance

and all of the sites that are a part of our American heritage and ancestory would now be in a foreign country. Just keep praying for the people and government officials in Serbia and Kosovo.

We continue to marvel at the ways God shows us that He indeed wants us back in Europe. Though it was and is so hard to have part of our family in the States as well as our moms and dads and siblings, we know we are supposed to be here, and look forward to getting back into ministry in the Balkans. Our container arrived the end of February and we were excited to see it roll up. Now we are awaiting one more move to permanent housing and we can begin to unpack! Katie and Nicholas are enjoying school and being back in real school after a semester of home schooling. They have renewed acquaintances with a handful of friends that still remain from several years ago, and are also making new friends. Jan is volunteering at the school several days a week and is enjoying being a part of the kids' school life.

Lord willing we travel to Serbia during Holy Week and renew our friendships and acquaintances there. We are looking forward to being there and spending time with our CEF colleagues for times of meeting and prayer.

OK, the blogging is done for now. Let us hear from you!