Home!!!

       This was a life time experience for us because in the first 30 days of our married life we slept in 14 different places, 14 different beds. With no doubt we should be in the Guinness book of records but we don’t recommend to any newly weds to try and break our record. On moments it was lots of fun but also hard, we went up and down, being happy and sad, smiling and crying, being thankful to being desperate...But in the mid’s of all of that God was teaching us that only secure resting place can be found in Him and Him only, teaching us how to be thankful with what we have, teaching us to rejoice and give Him glory no matter what.

       Thought #1: It reminded me of the words of Jesus in Matthew 8:20 "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."     

That is still so true today. Jesus is still looking for a place where to lay His head, place where He can find rest, place that He can call home, He is looking for a church, a family, a heart…and as we make our hearts a resting place for Jesus, He, Himself becomes our resting place. Will you make your heart a resting place for Jesus? Will you make your heart a dwelling place for Jesus? Will you make your heart fully devoted, completely surrendered to Jesus and the things that are on His heart?

       It’s Monday night and this is our first night in the new apartment that we found few days ago.  Oh the “joy” of searching, renting apartments in Macedonia?! From one side we have great view on downtown of Skopje and on the other side we look towards the mountain Vodno and the 60 meters tall cross. The cross is lighten up but some of the lights are not working which gives not so clear picture of the cross itself. 

       Thought #2: That made me think about our own lives and what kind of light we give, what kind of reflection we shine? Do we allow God’s light to shine through us bright or do we sometimes allow the burned lights in our own lives to stay dead and with no light at all?

       It’s already Thursday night and we’ve been working hard cleaning our new home and making it more cozy. When we first saw the apartment one week ago it looked great and everything seemed to be in working order but you discover the true state of the place once you move in and start living. This apartment wasn’t any different :) but at least the landlord is willing to fix the little problems :)

       Thought #3: Facades?! Just like apartments that look so nice on first look but with lots of problems beneath I ask my self what about myself, what about you? Do we have good, cool looking facade but lots of issues beneath that? Do we just fix and show outward appearance without working on the deeper and real problems?

       Ministry life: Since we came back to Macedonia in spite of not having a home and being very tired we started our ministry with the House of Prayer Macedonia. This last two Fridays we had a great time of worship and prayer as we were praying for and with the American medical mission team who joined our time of prayer. They were visiting two villages in the mountains populated with ethnical Albanian muslims and one of the villages is where the war back in 2001 started, so it is a place that is in the memories of everyone in Macedonia.

       Thought #4: This last two House of Prayer gatherings really made me think how the church should really function. There we were different people, different place, different backgrounds, different occupations, different callings, from different churches...but we all were gathered together in seeing God’s glory being released in our country. And that is what the Bible is teaching us, that we are all different parts but together we are joined into one body. So many times our churches get closed in themselves, focused only on their own thing (which is not wrong) with no real communication or support for the church down the road...  

  

       We are attending the Evangelical Church here in Skopje and it is probably the biggest church in the capitol by number of people. It is a great community and church that is always orientated in planting new churches throughout Macedonia and because of that there is Evangelical church in many of the Macedonian cities. It is a church that have open their doors for me and allowed me to live there while I was still single and a church that has given us lots of help when we came back from Finland as a married couple.

       We also go in the evenings to “Glasnost” a small church that is connected with 24/7 movement. I’ve lead worship there few times and Mirjami also likes it very much because the church is mainly young adults and there is few mixed macedonian/english speaking couples. They’ve been teaching about generosity and in one of the messages it was said about John Wesley that when he was earning 30$ he gave away 2$ and lived on 28$. When he started to earn 60$ he gave away 32$ and lived on 28$ and when he started to earn 120$ he continue to live on 28$ and gave away 92$. It is said that even when he was earning 1400$ he still continued to live on 28$ and gave the rest away.

       Thought #5: Ever since I heard this I can not shake it away from me. Most of the time when we get extra income we usually choose to make our lifestyle little bit better and easier and that always means more expenses, why is that so? I have always considered myself good with managing my money but this thought really made me think and I started asking myself questions???  

       Last Sunday we went to the International Church and joined in afterwards the lunch at pastors house. It gave us a chance to meet lots of new people and have a good conversations with them. While enjoying the lunch we had a good conversation with one of the Campus Crusades workers and he was sharing with us that they as a mission organization are trying to encourage their staff to focus more on prayer as they’ve noticed that they are lacking that in their ministry. We were able to share with him about our own personal walk with the Lord and why we focus and put value on worship, prayer & intimacy with Jesus as one and only way of achieving everything else that God has called us to do.

Our desire in being back in Macedonia is to give our small contribution in seeing the church of Macedonia being awaken to the glory and beauty of Jesus, being fascinated by Him, gazing on Him, church passionated and on fire for His presence so that as a church we will get revelation and knowledge of God father’s heart for the world and the people around us and in that way seeing great harvest of souls.

       Financial accountability: During our last week in Finland we said; Hallelujah, praise the Lord we managed to raise 100% of our support needed to be in Skopje, Macedonia. Two days after we sign the document for renting our apartment I was checking our finances and I realized that I’ve managed successfully to miscalculate the numbers, realizing that we have 86% of our monthly budget :) You can imagine the excitement and the smile on my face when I realized that I made a mistake :) I’m usually good with numbers!!! But we believe in God’s faithfulness and provision and that this is once again answer to our prayers that God will glorify His name in every area of our lives. This way we know that it is not because of us having money, but it is because of God’s goodness and favor. 

       Our marriage is officially registered in Macedonia and in 10 days from today we gonna start the proces of applying for residence permit for Mirjami and also the proces of registering our marriage in Sweden since we didn't thought about that at all so that Mirjami can apply afterwards for new Swedish passport with her new last name!  

And now when we have home you are welcome and come and visit us!!!

Please pray for:

• God’s grace upon us as we continue to build the House of Prayer ministry in Macedonia.
• Open doors to serve and minister throughout Macedonia.
• Growing in knowledge in intimacy with Jesus.
• Getting the residence permit and all other paper work done without any problems.
• Protection over us, our home and God’s financial provision.