An Inspiring Story of Faith

Letter from Serbia

Please read this letter that we received from a gypsy church planter in Serbia I hope it is encouraging to you:

Dear brothers and sisters,

I want to share with you the great joy and tell you what the Lord does among His children.

We have one young man in our church who had leukemia, he was very young, only 22, but he already had two children (you know that Gypsy people get married early). He came to church with his wife and he could hardly stay for the service, beacuse of the big pain that he felt. That day we had the annointing service, as the Bible teaches. We prayed for this young man. He was crying and told me that he thought he would die, because he had leukemia, and was affraid for his children.

I asked him if he believed that the Lord Jesus Christ can heal him, and he said that he did, because he heard that the Lord has helped to so many people in the church. Few days after he came to me with tears of joy, and told me that he went to the hospital for a check-up and that the doctors told him that he doesn’t have leukemia. He brought the diagnostics from before and after the praying. Now he servs in the church, full of joy and praises the Lord for His love.

This is what the Lord does for His people.

Yours in Christ

Selim Alijevic
Gypsy Fellowship

The NHS Reality

We are just wanting to allow you all to understand the reality of the nursing situation here in the UK.

The NHS stands for National Health Services. This is the governing body that runs the public health care system here in Britian. The Britsh Health care system is very similar to the system we have in Canada (ie. publicly funded with not enough money to cover costs).

Well the reality is that in the first few months after we arrived in England the NHS fell into crisis. There were extreme job freezes and a large number of job cuts happening because of the massive over budgets in many of the hospital in the UK.

Here are some on the news articles title at that time:

NHS job cuts 'set to quadruple' - BBC

Thousands more Jobs may go as crisis hits NHS Direct - Daily Telegraph

Cuts are symptom of an NHS in crisis - Socialist Worker Online

NHS job losses 'could reach 24,000' - Netdoctor.co.uk

NHS remedies dominate papers - BBC

So that gives you a sense of how difficult it could be for Janelle. It is not an easy time to be trying to break into the nursing work force.

Now that Janelle has finally finished all of her bureaucratic requirements with excellence, she is diligently seeking employment where the option are presently very limited.

So we are asking you to pray!
Pray that Janelle would get the right job.
Pray that Janelle would get a job as quickly as possible.

We did not expect Janelle's qualification to take as long to go through as they did and did not budget for this long of a break, as Janelle's income is a good protion of our overall support.

So if you have been considering or thinking of joining us financial on this journey and becoming a partner in that way, now would be a wonderful time.

We would greatly appreciate your support and help at this time in our wonderful journey.

We are also very grateful and thankful for all those who have been supporting us so faithfully.

It has been great pleasure to be here serving and learning.

Many Blessings,

Ronnie +

The Comfort of Corn

Funny how you have to be miles and miles away from home to figure some things out. Though its always talked about, it has a new meaning to me now: comfort food. Uusally used in a negative connotation, as food that we pig out on when we're depressed or anxious, as something we unnecessarily overindulge on. However, I've discovered a more positive reality of comfort food: genuine healthy comfort. This reality occured to me the other week as I was making supper. As I was boiling the corn-on-the-cob the aroma began to stir up emotions within me. As funny as this sounds, the feelings only intensified as the corn was cooked and I rolled it through the block of butter. The creamy butter just drizzled over each golden kernel which was then crowned with crystals of salt. OHHH, AHHHH, my heart was overwhelmed as I smelled the sweet aroma! What joy filled my heart. The truth was then proclaimed: "I LOVE CORN-ON-THE-COB !!!" In truth it was soo much more than the delicious taste of sweet golden corn covered in butter and salt- it was the lane of memories it walked me down... Good ol' Canadian BBQ's with the family all around. The aroma raising from where Dad stood BBQing the meat and tinfoil wrapped baked patotoes, the steam boiling up from the corn into mom's smiling face in the kitchen, the rays of warm sunshine beating on your back, the sweet flavored breeze brushing your hair from your face, the dog wisely choosing his location from where he'll get the most table scraps...man all those childhood memories all the way to adulthood!!! Summer BBQs with corn-on-the-cob reminds me of all those years filled with love, laughter and fabulous company!!!! Man do I miss it!!! But hey, atleast we can have a blissful moment carrying on the tradition as we eat our buttery golden corn-on-the-cob! So Ronnie, consider yourself informed of why we may be eating nothing but corn in the coming months!!!

The People of Poland

I was recently privileged to join Greg and a wonderful family from Calgary on a trip to Poland to meet a number of the church planters there and see their church plants.

You see my first trip was into Romania, and there Adam (a CP regional coordinator) and I were working in the infancy stage of the project. Visiting many of the establish churches in Southern Romania and learning about the vision they have for their region. Visiting villages, meeting potential church planters and learning how they are strategically moving forward to seeing churches established in these regions.


Well Poland was much different, although very beneficial for me at this time. In Poland we travelled around to a few church plants and had a chance to meet the church planters and many of the people from their churches. We had an opportunity to hear what God is doing in their lives and churches and how they are not only establishing church but practically sharing God's love to help affect and influence the communities they live in. It was great to meet a number of wonderful and vibrant leaders who have such a passion to see their cities changed not only spiritually but socially as well.


One of the couples has found such influence and favour in their city that the mayor is helping them with the food bank program they are running and wanting to see them expand it, with his help. We had the privilege of running into the mayor on the streets of this city and he thanked us for the investment we have made into their city and Derek and Monica, the Pastor of the church and his wife, and said he was grateful for the ways that it has benefited them as a community.


We also had some opportunity to minister to the churches as Greg preached a couple of time and we were able to pray for an number of individuals involved. It was great to see God allow us to be vessels of his love and minister healing, encouragement and faith into the lives of these sons and daughters of God.



So I have now had the opportunity to see both a project at it's infancy stage and one that has just finished and it has given me a real sense of what we at NLI do and why we do it. It has been great to hear about the influence we have had and how we at NLI have helped to change lives for eternity.

Thank you all for you continued prayer and support. We are very thankful for all of you who are partnering with us to help make this a reality. It is a great blessing to serve along side such wonderful people and help see God establish his life changing power throughout Eastern Europe.

If you would like to partner with us please feel free to email us or view the Partner Information in the side apendix.

We would be delighted to hear form you and give you more information on how we can start that process.

Success

Well I have successfully completed my nursing course, and managed to do extremely well on it as well. (Thank GOD- literally!) Now comes the applying for a job part. I have begun already trying to find all the job postings and have been calling around. Not many leads, but a few. The nursing situation in my area is actually not in a employing state- unfortunately. The National Health Service (NHS) has been cutting some nursing positions and implementing hiring freezes in an attempt to deal with certain hospitals' overbudget spending. Sounds like a great solution to me- just get rid of all the nurses, that'll help things run effeciently (yah, right, not really a great idea at all!!!) Anyways, so things are a little grim. But God has seen me through thus far and I know that He has some great job for me somewhere!!! So I'm out to find it! But continued prayers from those willing would be sooo greatly appreciated. This job hunting process is not something that I view as one of my strengths, so I'm praying for patience to hold out for the right job and not to get desperate and just take whatever, yet for the perserverance and boldness to just go for it when needed. I'll be keeping you posted!!!! Thanks for all your support!

P.S. We did have a lovely anniversary together! Thanks for all the special wishes & blessings!!!

Three wonderful years!

As three great years have come and gone,
The Son's light on us has shone.
To brighten each new glorious day,
And drive our darknesses away.
He's helped us through tough times of sorrow,
To see another bright tomorrow.
New mercies are ours with each new day,
much needed at times for things we say.
Desiring for grace and mercy to abound,
For that is where great love is found.
Love is patient and love is kind,
It does not nag nor need remind
Of all the rights and wrongs we've done
But rather tames our sworded tongue.
Through thick and thin,
Through all we've been.
Great times we've shared,
with love and care.
The best of teams,
Achieving our dreams.
My love for you,
Is deep and true.
Love, peace, hope and laughter
I pray will be ours forever after.

I love you sweetpea! Thanks for three wonderful years!! Love Jae