It's an Outhouse Miracle!

So, thank you everyone for your prayers, and thanks ESPECIALLY to Michael McEntyre, FBC's youth group, and the John and Jean Cooper Fund administered by the East Tennessee Foundation: the villagers of Sveti George have ten brand-new outhouses. I've needed to write about this for almost two weeks, ever since the project was finished, but I'm still processing it myself. This project has been on my heart and mind since last fall, so I'm going to need a bit more distance from it before I can write about it! Bob is planning to come down tomorrow so we can go over there and check out the situation, so in the next couple of days hopefully I'll get some closure and be able to write about it.


But God has been doing some amazing things in my own life in the past two weeks as I wrap up my year here in Croatia. My last day is July 28th, technically, but this week is the last five-day club Karmen has planned until August, after I leave. So, in many ways, this is my last week, and appropriately, club this week is in Sitnice.

I HATED going to Sitnice last year. That's the village where a baby bit me and a 6-year-old boy tried to put a curse on me and threatened to kill me. After going there for a year, though, that's all over. The kids swarm me when I get out of the car, and the little boy who tried to curse me asked me yesterday if he could go home with me. The kids are still wild, and yesterday a man walked through the yard where club was with one of the local prostitutes over his shoulder...but God has been working there, and more children have accepted Christ there than in any other village.


Week after next, I finish out my work year in Croatia teaching an English class at the seminary in Osijek. Then I pack, put as many of my things in storage as I can part with, move out of my apartment, and leave for Texas on August 5th.

But THIS Saturday, I finish out my year in Europe another way: meeting my brother for a week in Greece!! He's making his first trip to Europe, and since we don't have club next week, Karmen said I could take the week off. I leave for Athens on Saturday night. I don't know what he plans to do for the week, but he said something about a couple days in Athens, a trip north to some Greek Orthodox monasteries, and then visiting some islands. It's been such a cold, rainy summer here in northern Croatia--overnight lows tonight are in the 40's, and it's not getting much above 60 during the day--that I can't WAIT for some southern heat and sunshine!