The new semester started!

After a time of silence we are ready to share some of the good work og God that is going on regarding students here in Montenegro, Niksic.

This semester we started up by a pizza and music evening the 25th of February. After having a break because of Christmas it was good to see the students again, hang out and catch up after a couple of weeks of vacation and a whole month in December where the students focused a lot on their exams. 

However, we want to go back to December. Again, this year we, the EUS team, had the honor of blessing and making 3000 children happy in Niksic with Shoeboxes, Christmas packages, and in the same time share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them and their parents.  All this is connected with the organisation Samaritan Purse and specific this project also known under the name “Operation Christmas Child”. This year we were blessed with a small group from Camp Monty coming and helping us out with these good but intense days. It was such a gift to be giving a couple of extra hands. In Niksic we were able to give out 2000 packages and 1000 packages in the neighbouring towns and villages, as Pluzine and Savnik. In Niksic we managed to have the gospel presented by a talk but also a drama team showing a drama about the Christmas story of Jesus coming to earth. How wonderful it is that both children and parents were presented for the gospel and the good news of our saviour being born. We rejoive over the fact that we could give these families the greatest gift of all. A great door has been opened. We went to a primary school and was allowed to talk about Jesus. This is very unusual for our society. It is not allowed neither in primary school, high school or university to openly talk and teach about Jesus. So we rejoice over the factor that we got this special and giving opportunity - all glory and thanks to God. In top of the fact that we were able to preach the gospel to children and their families this project helped us to build good relationships with especially the schools in the villages.   

Locals, team member and Camp Monty team with a
whole bunch of children in the background.
This is how these outreaches looks like - how amazing to be able to bless.

Children and their parents waiting for the story to be told and the shoeboxes to be given.

The team waiting to hand out the boxes. 

A team ready to start to start the event. 

Students at a school in one of the surrounding villages of Niksic.

More children are given the boxes. 

In the beginning of March, the yearly Balkan Staff Consultation - a conference for all the different IFES movements on the Balkans. There were participants from Montenegro (of cause), Serbia, Rumania, Bosnia, Albania, Greece and Kosovo. We were very honoured by the fact that we hosted the consultation here in Montenegro in Bar. Because of that we were also asked to lead the worship on the conference, which were a blessing to us. It was a great encouragement for all of us that we had the chance to share all our success and struggles of out work. The main speaker was the general secretary of IFES in Europe, Thor Erling Fagermose. He was giving talks about evangelism.

The different people from the Balkans attending the conference. 

The last two weeks we have had the pleasure of hosting a team from the Danish IFES movement (also known as KFS). Before they came to us, they were in Albania in different cities doing outreaches there. The main purpose of having them here were the possibilities of getting contact to new students, to tell students about Christ and invite them to search for Jesus themselves. 

The team was of cause at excursions around this beautiful country when they had time of, but the main activities they were doing was a Danish corner at the university, hosting our weekly student meeting, having a Danish evening on university, hosting a weekend camp for christians students as well as non-christians students and of cause just hanging out with students in general. It was two good and intense weeks with many new contacts. And especially the camp gave us a chance to enjoy fellowship with one another and get to know newer students better. We have already seen fruits from the work these lasts days. It is such a blessing in our work that we see student grow in their personal relationship with God despite weather they already knew him already or we gave them the first opportunity to get a personal meeting with him.

The whole Danish team on the top of Trebjesa looking over Niksic!

Our weekly student meeting at our office - now with a majority of Danish people! 

On the bus ride on the way back from the camp.
It was absolutely packed but full of happiness.

The first evening on the camp with worship, social games and good fellowship.

Ready for Danish corner at university...

A social game played at the Danish evening at university. The Danish
liquorice was not well received by the students! 

Two things that have really become clear these last weeks from the bible are the speech Paul gives to the eldership in Efesos which has turned into a prayer for the work we are doing here in Niksic. Paul says: “…for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Act 20,27). Our prayer is that we would be able to say that every single day of our ministry in EUS. We want to declare the whole truth about Jesus and stand strong in his words and promises to each person. What we also have experienced these weeks are words used by Paul in the same speech:“…it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20,35c). On a daily basis we experience these words. It is such a privilege and a joy to be given the opportunity to spread the good news in Montenegro and especially Niksic. When we are giving the opportunity to share Jesus, discuss our faith in him and use words about him - we are growing personally with him. We are growing in proudness of him. And that is creating a daily thankfulness in him. 

After this reflection we want to point to our daily regular activities for this semester: 

• Monday we have girl bible studies at 19 at our office.

• Wednesday: Our weekly meeting for students where we will have talks about different topics about faith and life. We will also sing and worship together and use time in fellowship with each other.

• Thursday: We have conversation club at the student café from 15-17. This is for students who wants to practice conversational English. Enjoy a good cup of coffee and practice your English skills with native speakers.

• Friday: Every friday we have a movie night at our office also at 19. We watch a good movie and afterwards we are discussing the different themes the movie presents and how we can applicate the themes into our lives.

• We also have personal bible studies with students or small groups of students. 

Shortly, we also want to mention the themes and dates for the student meetings at Wednesdays just for April: 

• 5th of April: We will have guest from the conference Renewing Our minds (also known as ROM) who will have a talk. 
• 12th+19th of April: Our student meetings are cancel because of conferences. 
• 26th of April: We will have a party with food with a short talk about the Jesus resurrection and the consequences of it

In the nearby future, in the Easter, we have two conferences we, as a team, will attend to. Two from out team will go to IFES’ conference “Presence”  in Germany together with two students from Montenegro. The theme for the conference refers to the idea that we want to remember God's presence with ud, and think about the ways in which His presence with us affects our presence at the university. 2 from out team and one student will go to Denmark on a Easter conference arranged by the Danish IFES movement. This conference carries the theme “Standing in awe of him” and points to the fact that like Luther found a stand and took a stance we refer to standing by the cross and stand firm in Christ. We are all exited and pray for God to move the students heart and refresh our minds.   

In the summer period, we are again planning to have English students coming to make a week-long camp where they are going to teach English and talks about Christinity and faith. Later in the summer we again have the big sports camp - Camp Monty. So be ready to do a lot of sport while you in the evening can attend meetings where there will be great music and talks about Jesus! Balcan Feurer in Montenegro: Training for public proclamation of gospel.

We have even more exciting plans for this semester, but they are not completely settled yet, therefore be aware to be updated following this blog and our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/euscg/?fref=ts