The end of this chapter...

My time in Serbia has come to a poignant close.

I sit here with my laptop at a loss for words. I am leaving family, not just friends. The Almighty has forged a bridge between me and these people--I don't go through an experience like this and then let it collect dust on the shelf forever. My heart is intertwined with them. 

Sunday 8/5

I said my goodbyes to the Serbian and Roma congregations in the morning and evening, respectively. How blessed I was to be able to "lock the door" by looking out on all the faces I have come to love so much and trying...just trying...to express my gratitude. With each congregation I shared my prayer for them from the letter of Ephesians:

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love, and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

-Ephesians 3:14-19 (HCSB)

This is one of my favorite passages in Scripture. I pray it for all of you as well. Being filled with all His fullness means to be, well....filled to the point of needed to speak something into the atmosphere. It's the fullness that makes one (or at least me) want to sprint up to a mountain-top and yell "Yahweh" with every ounce of breath, and hear it echo. 

I leave with a heaviness, because parting ways always hurts. I also leave with hope and expectancy, because, God-willing--I'll return in several years (by then I'll try to have much, much more of the language down ;) 

I will take back home with me a heightened spirit of worship unto God, and a renewed compassion for people. No matter what country, language, or customs, every need that people have points straight to the Messiah. I refuse to grow old and look back with regret because I should have spent more time with those who needed it. 

God Almighty, save the people of Serbia

"Only Unity Saves the Serbs"