During November, after all my travels in September and October, I was firmly in place in Banja Luka, but we had some lovely visitors come to stay which was great fun. We also managed to get up to a lot of different things during the month!
Eric and Sophie (above) came from YWAM Ireland, and Jesse and Charity from InterVarsity - all in time for the events we held with Professor Emyr MacDonald, who is a Professor with Cardiff University who also is a believer. His work in nanoscience has caused him to believe even more in a creator God as he sees all the intricate details at the nano-level which couldn't have just happened by chance. He spoke at an event at Ihtus (below) and he also lectured at the Natural Science faculty.
Sophie and Eric also helped with our weekly reading club at the Children's Home. We have really enjoyed going in each week with a different story and then doing a craft - and my favourite was definitely this one of Pinocchio: It might have taken me going to 4 different stores to find the split pins to use for it, but it was worth it! They were super cute - and yes the pencil nose can grow when he is lying!
And we also held a "Fall party" while Sophie and Eric were still around. Based on Thanksgiving it was a great evening of fall foods and also remembering all that we are thankful for:
The last week of November, we held the training for Operation Christmas Child ministry partners for this part of the country:
Here I am in action, doing my part of the training:
We have to ensure that the partners will do the distribution of the 10 000 packages in the way that they are supposed to. It is so fun to be able to be part of the team that helps make sure things are done well.
Our friend, Jelena, was also coming to help with the training, so we convinced her to come early and stay on and so she helped us with our Reading Club and also ran an event for the Mothers in our sponsorship project (she is on the left):
She talked about "Zimnica" (Preserves) which each woman here usually makes for winter - jams, relishes, pickled vegetables, you name it. But she related it to our spiritual/emotional lives - that we also need to preserve good thoughts and things we are grateful for. We each decorated a jar with little slips of paper inside with things we are grateful for. When times are hard we can take them out and remind ourselves of all the good things in our lives. It was such a good life lesson and the mother's loved it!
Here are Emina and Vesna with their jars:
All in all it was a busy and varied month, and a lot of things to be grateful for!!
