Prayer Needs

Hey folks...please write these down to pray for. This is a prayer update that our teammate, Erin, has written out for all of our intercessors. We are in a special time of prayer right now. Erin explains more about it in her letter. Here it is:

Friends, Supporters, Intercessors, Watchman on the wall,

We thank God for you and value your support and prayers. We'd like to do a better job keeping you updated on what we see as our targets in prayer. As always, if the Holy Spirit leads you to pray in a different direction we say go for it, and we ask for your feedback if the Lord leads you to share with us.

Hebrews 6:12 "Do not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God's promises because of their faith and patience.

Hosea 6:3 Let us press on to know the Lord! Then he will respond to us as surely as the arrival of the dawn of the coming of rains in early spring.

Praying for by faith:

-- Meeting place: We have been prayer walking Horvacanska street (We, the Albrights, live right off of this street) this week and are praying for favor to meet in one of the community centers on this 3 mile stretch. We are drawn to the Knjezia center which is more central for all our members, very accessible via public transport, and across the street from the student housing. Pray that the center will be available for us to use on Sunday mornings. Goran will approach them next week. We are also considering a small office in this same area.

-- Disciples/Seekers: We are praying for divine appointments and kingdom friendships. Pray for these friends,coworkers and neighbors: Zlata, Goran, Tomislav, Ivan, Mirjana, Dubravka, Andrea, Marica, Stef, Maja, Jelena.

--Cell Groups: Continued Growth in vision, leadership, and Life.

--Personal Intimacy and Transformation: Pray that each of us will draw closer to the Lord, growing in faith, intimacy and hunger for him. Pray for our times with Him. Pray that we will be submitted to constant transformation into Christ's likeness.

--Prayer Movement: As a church, we would like to commit to 24 hours of intercession each week starting in September. We are also praying for greater unity in prayer with other croatian churches and would like to continue to host and expand monthly prayer meetings together. Pray for strategy and perseverance.

--Finances: Pray that the Lord would bless our church and our individual families with miracles, good stewardship, and total provision. Pray for increased faith and faithfulness in this area.


Ok...there you go. Please do pray with us. Whether you quickly go over them before work or spend hours praying for them it doesn't matter to us. We appreciate any and all prayers. We know it is the one key to this work in Croatia. Thank you!

James

Westminster Nappy

Just got back from visiting family in England as well as enjoying a couple of extra days for a quick vacation. We had a great time!

Here's one of the coolest places we've ever changed a "nappy"...Westminster Abbey.

Cute Girls, huh!

Check out this song

As a worship leader here, I'm very interested in encouraging Croatians to write their own worship music rather than just translating English songs. Many times the translations just turn out awkward and less powerful after the translation.

I say that all to say, there is a Croatian believer down in Split who has recently written a worship song which in our opinion, is extremely powerful and seems to really be for this season in Croatia. I wanted to just translate the song for you to encourage you to pray for Croatia. The more we pray, the closer we are to God's purpose being fulfilled in this nation.

Here's the song. It's called, "Your Kingdom":

God, your grace is greater than all sins
and we are forgiven
Let us be courageous
Because in the power of Your Spirit
Is our victory
Prepare a great harvest...
and Your word is the sickle
You are the Lord of the harvest
Hear our prayer!

For your Kingdom is soon coming
And now is the time of salvation
Now is the time for us (I love this line!!)
That we speak to all about your grace
By which you give life
From which comes salvation

Pretty great words, huh! It has a cool melody too. I'll try to catch some of it on video or audio file so you guys can hear it.

Blessings to you! - James

Pictures of the kids

Back by popular demand, pictures of our cute biscuits...Lizzie and Bekah!

Presidential Debates

Did anyone see the presidential debates last week? I've been trying to get some decent information about how the candidates looked and was curious if any of you saw them. Let me know. Thanks!
-James

Sorry it's been so long

There's been so much going on! I'm really sorry I've not been more faithful at updating this. I'm sure you've given up on me by now. I hope to be more consistent at updating you all via the blog. I'm also working on a newsletter which will give a more detailed look at what's been happening with us and the church plant over the past few months. For now, I'll give you some highlights.

• Conversational English with Students: Roger and I meet with 4 (and now there's 3...one got a job) girls who are college students at the University of Zagreb twice a week for conversational English class. We started with just some get to know you topics like "favorites", "family", "marriage", "future/career", etc. From the very first weeks, we hit it off and became friends. It was a real blessing. Later, Roger and I started working through "The Purpose Driven Life" with them hoping we could find out more of where they were spiritually. Boy...did we find out! They are all over the place. Some hate the church (meaning the Catholic Church in their minds. For most Croatians, that is there only concept of church). Others believe in a God of some kind but not a personal God. Others believe in a new-age form a God attainable through meditation of various kinds, etc. Since then, we've stopped working through "The Purpose Driven Life" and started discussing social issues. Anyway, through all of this, we have had many opportunities to share about who we are and why we love Jesus. Some of them are unaffected. Others have been very curious and always want to hear us say more. We'll continue these relationships more through the summer, but stop the formal class at the end of June.
  
• Prayer Movement: Man...there's a lot to this one so I'll expand on it more in our newsletter. Bottom line is, we've noticed a trend here in Croatia. For many years now the small struggling church has been faithful at witnessing on the streets, to their friends, etc. and little fruit has been produced. There has been a general realization among us and among many others in the country that we need to back up and start to pray more. We realized we were primarily throwing our seed on to rocky, awful soil. We need to start working the soil over with our prayers. We also work the soil over with our actions...we continue to witness to our friends, we do random acts of kindness, we give abundantly, etc. All these acts of the Kingdom sow into the soil, but we realized one of the main ways we needed to help get the soil ready was through prayer. So, we've started to pray...a lot...and it's been wonderful. There's much more to this, but I'll stop here for now.
  
• Our Girls: Lizzie and Bekah are growing so quickly. Lizzie looks like a little girl now and not a baby. Bekah is growing completely out of her newborn look and is (as we like to call her) a "chunky monkey". They keep us tired and laughing. We LOVE being parents and despite all the exhaustion, we wouldn't have it any other way.
  
• Visit from Laura's Mom and Aunt: Laura's mom (Rae) and aunt (Yvonne) came to see us in mid May. Their visit enabled me to attend Kenny Kon & Zeida Rojas' wedding in mid-May as well. When I returned from my quick visit to the States, we immediately headed north to Salzburg, Austria for 4 days. It was a really enjoyable vacation with family. Lizzie and Bekah loved the attention.
  
• Kenny and Zeida's Wedding: What a stinkin' blast that was! Tim and I went golfing. All the guys played paintball for the bachelor party. We had lots of time together just sittin' and enjoying. Most of all, we saw Kenny Kon, the eternal bachelor, finally tie the knot. What a blessing and it was truly a celebration! We all partied like it was 1999. :-)
  

I believe that hits all the major points over the last few months. Like I said, a newsletter will be coming out soon which will cover some of these events and more in more detail. Forgive the quickness of this entry. I just wanted to get back out here bloggin'. Much love to all of you from the Albright family!