Main Street Banovce - Afternoon

hi y'all. just wanted to share with you a few things that have been happening around here with me. today at 5:30 i leave for a youth camp. it is for Christians all over slovakia. probably something like s.a.l.t. (for those of you who are involved in chi alpha)...only in the summer...and in slovakia...with camping involved...ok, so nothing like salt:) but i'm excited because treti den' is playing for worship. they're a really good slovak Christian band that i have been listening to since the first year i came here. last friday 10 of us went to a neighboring village to have our friday (young believers') group with some Christians who live there. we had worship and this guy, martin, gave a word and it was powerful. there was a tongue and interpretation and during the last worship song i was thinking about how sometimes i feel bad when people ask me what i'm doing here, like what i do on a daily basis because i feel like i don't have enough to tell them. i'm like "i'm studying slovak and meeting with people and praying for them and helping where i can," but it doesn't feel concrete or like it's enough. so God spoke to me in that moment. He said, "you are doing way more than you realize." and i just cried because it was what i needed to hear. then afterwards martin came up to me and had my friend gretka translate for me, he said "God wants you to know that you are helping Him more than you even know." and i could have hugged him. so neat.
then, last night i had made arrangements to meet with jaro fero (mentioned in previous xa blog). i really wanted to hear his story, so tomas met us and we walked out to the lake and sat and talked. he told me how he came to believe and it was amazing. he has such a good sense of humor and he kept saying that he is so glad God has a sense of humor. i can't tell you how wonderful it was to be with them and just talk about the Lord and His goodness and grace. jaro said he is the type of person who cannot be forced to do anything, so that was one of the things that drew him to God. he asks us to do things, not forces us, you know? his wife was a Christian before he was and it was causing a lot of trouble in their marriage so he set out to prove her wrong with her own beliefs. in other words he set out to read the bible to prove her wrong and in the midst of doing so, got saved. he said one day he was in one room and he was reading through a tract that had an american astronaut (neil armstrong) on the front. i guess maybe he was a Christian or something. anyhow, jaro was skeptical about this tract. then he got a phone call and went into the living room and for no aparent reason picked up the tv remote and clicked on the tv and right on the screen was the exact same picture of the astronaut as the one on the tract. he said he laughed for ten minutes. it's beautiful. he is excited to meet again and study the bible together with tomas and maybe others. and so am i:)