Bekah's learning to talk!

Bekah is starting to do that hilarious babbling that little ones do. She really seems to be saying something...sentences with punctuation, inflection, and an obvious period. We tried to catch some of it on video. Hope you all enjoy!

An article about Croatian economy

Hey guys,

Check out this article on a demonstration that happened here last weekend. I've probably barely mentioned this problem, but the cost of living in Croatia is high (generally it's a bit higher cost of living that in the States). This is contrary to the stereotype in our head that eastern Europe is cheap. Yes, it's slightly cheaper than western Europe, but most of you would consider it expensive to live here. The issue is, most people's salaries here are much less than the average American salary. A typical monthly salary is $1,000. This is for a good job. Many are paid much less than this. Obviously this creates a serious problem when the cost of living is so high and the salaries are so low. People are burying themselves in credit. So, anyway, read the article. It's short. I think you'll find it interesting. Have a good one!

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2008/04/13/nb-07

Encouraging link

This is a link showing how the 24-7 group was reaching out to Ibiza, Spain. Ibiza is an island off the coast of Spain that is known especially among the British as a party island. During the summer, anything goes. It's a Vegas or New Orleans type atmosphere. This video shows how they're creatively bringing light into a very dark place. They have now established a prayer room there. Instead of expecting people to come into their church, they're taking church to the people. Good stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5RWSWshmnI

Trip to England

Andrej and I returned late Monday night from our whirlwind trip to southern England. We were in Guildford, England visiting the 24-7 prayer guys. These are the guys who wrote, "Red Moon Rising" and "Punk Monk"...as well as others. (Visit www.24-7prayer.com for more info.) We got in contact with a couple who are moving to the Balkan Peninsula next year and we wanted to talk prayer, church-planting movement, and the Balkan together. I knew there was a lot for me to learn from them...and I hope I was able to pass on something useful about living here. Here's some pictures of our trip with an explanation under each picture.

Here's our host, Phil. He's a serious cook and this is him preparing our meal.

Here's Phil, myself, and Anna (his wife) during a walk through the English countryside. Just a side note...this weekend we experienced some truly English weather...rain, sunshine, hail, and snow. Craziness!

This walk lasted a few hours and we just shared our stories and talked about what God's doing in our lives. We also talked a bit about "footy" and horse racing as well. We're not that spiritual. :)

On Sunday they took us to Brighton on the southern coast of England. It snowed. Never been to the beach in the snow. Have you?

Between deeply spiritual talks, we threw some snowballs at seagulls and small children. :) Just kidding. Just throwing them into the water.

We came back after a day at the snowy beach for some time with some of the students in their "Transit" house. This program is a year long program that is something like YWAM's Discipleship Training School.

We played games for the most part as well as just chatted hearing each other's stories.

London baby!

Cool pic, huh! That's the "Tube" whizzing by.

I'll post some more later on this trip and about this group. We were really encouraged by our time together and look forward to more contact with them in the future. Thanks again to all who prayed for us!