I will sing of my Redeemer

I was watching the video from the Sunday morning service at my home church, Trinity Baptist in Arlington and one of the hymns sung during this service is I will sing of my Redeemer.  This hymn blesses my heart so much.

My God is so holy and righteous and loving and merciful, and I am so excited about Him that I can hardly see straight.  This hymn makes me want to jump and shout.  (In fact I did do some shouting. I'll leave the jumping to the younger crowd.)


Dear God, I just want to say that I LOVE YOU and THANK YOU for saving my soul.  I WILL sing of my REDEEMER.  I will serve you and honor you all the days of my life.  I am not ashamed to wear your name.

O magnify the LORD with me, let us exalt HIS name together!

Here are the words to this beautiful hymn.  I found them here, http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/m/y/myrdeemr.htm

I will sing of my Redeemer,
And His wondrous love to me;
On the cruel cross He suffered,
From the curse to set me free.

Sing, oh sing, of my Redeemer,
With His blood, He purchased me.
On the cross, He sealed my pardon,
Paid the debt, and made me free.

I will tell the wondrous story,
How my lost estate to save,
In His boundless love and mercy,
He the ransom freely gave.

I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I’ll tell,
How the victory He giveth
Over sin, and death, and hell.

I will sing of my Redeemer,
And His heav’nly love to me;
He from death to life hath brought me,
Son of God with Him to be.

A great day of witnessing

Today was a great day for witnessing in Čakovec. I walked through the downtown this morning and was able to give out around 70 gospel tracts. 
Then went to the bus station at 2:00 and talked with many teenagers who were waiting for their 2:15 departures. Eighty-five of them accepted gospel tracts and I had a very pleasant time chatting and making them laugh a little to put them at ease.
Then, after holding up a gospel sign for all the bus riders to read as they departed, I made my way to the south of town to stand with the gospel signs for rush hour. (It got all the way up to 27 deg F today - It felt like a heat wave!). A higher-than-usual number of people responded positively to the Bible verses as they passed by.
As rush hour ended I went to meet Pastor Telebar so that we could make a visit to the Gypsy village of Kuršanec to encourage Brother Dejan and his family. While there, I had the joy of watching Brother Telebar lead a man named Damir to Christ.

What a wonderful day!

Praise God for an opportunity to serve the Lord.
God save Croatia!


Psalam 126:5 Oni koji siju u suzama, žeti će u radosti.

(Psalms 126:5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.)

Providence of God - Part 2

Today at 2:00 in the afternoon, I decided to go and have the rubber stamp we use for gospel tracts changed to show the new web address of our church, http://stablozivota.com.

Arriving at the rubber stamp store at 2:15, I was surprised to find the door locked and a note taped to it saying, “Vraćam se u 14:30“ (meaining “I will return at 2:30“).

Well, there I was, stuck in a cold hallway having to wait for 15 minutes.  Shortly, a man who looked about 50-55 (in other words, very very young) walked up to the door of another business just down the hall.  That door was also locked, prompting the man to say something to me in Croatian.  I responded, explaining that I was American and spoke very little Croatian.  To my delight, the man said in perfect English, “So, you are an American! I was in America in 1976-77.“

He quickly spotted a sign on the door stating he needed to ring a doorbell to bring the business owner downstairs to wait on him.  As he rang the bell, I quickly pulled out a gospel tract and said, “Let me show you why I am here“.  

He read the question on the front of the tract which says, “Äre you 100% sure if you died today that you would go to heaven?“

As soon as he read the question he began to weep and tell me that his 26 year old son had died just 15 months ago.  I put my arm around him and told him how much God loves him and that God was reaching out to him today.  I told him that Jesus died for Him and wants to save his soul and take him to heaven one day.  As the business owner walked up to let him in, I asked the man to please come to church and let us talk more about this.  He said he is seriously thinking about it and thanked me very much.

My rubber stamp guy never did show up.

Mudre izreke 3:5-6  Uzdaj se u Jahvu svim srcem i ne oslanjaj se na vlastiti razbor. Misli na nj na svim svojim putovima i on će ispraviti tvoje staze.

(Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.   In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.)

Providence of God

Today's great blessing is a demonstration of the providence of God. My car had an unusual defect that caused the speedometer to quit working periodically, and the car to die unexpectedly. My regular mechanic could not figure it out so I had to go to another mechanic about 10 miles away and I had to be there at 8:00 AM this morning.

Expecting to have a long and lonesome wait while my car was being worked on, I took along my Croatian New Testament to read. Shortly after I sat down in the waiting room, a man who appeared to be in his early thirties walked in and asked me a question in Croatian. I replied in Croatian that I am an American and I understand only a little Croatian. To my absolute delight, he said very clearly in perfect English, "OK then, so I will speak English."

His question was, "Why does your car have green license plate letters while most have black?" This question is very exciting for those of us here to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ because the reason our license plates have green letters is because we are not from Croatia. This inevitably leads to the question, "Why did you come here?"

Over the next 1-1/2 hours, I had the great joy of getting to know this precious man and getting to share the gospel with him. Oh, and since I brought my Croatian Bible with me, I was able to show him directly from God's word about Jesus Christ and the necessity to trust Him for salvation.

During our very pleasant conversation, I learned a great deal about him, his family, and his business. We exchanged contact information and I gave him some gospel tracts to read and invited him to church.

So I have a new friend in Croatia, the seed of God's word and been planted, and I have a new family to pray for.

Oh, and Yes! My car got repaired too. The mechanic speaks no English, but asked my new friend to hang around an extra few minutes to translate for him, which he was glad to do.

Praise God. Maybe my car will develop a new problem next week. I hope so.

Traffic Heaven

We had a great day standing up for Christ in Čakovec, Croatia! With a chill factor of 18 degrees, it is hard to find people walking the streets, but sharing the gospel with hundreds as they drive home from work is easy using our gospel signs.
We stood for about an hour today and had solid traffic during the afternoon rush hour. We were so blessed by all the responses we received - both positive and negative. (If the people who respond negatively had any idea how that charges us up, I am sure they would never do it.)
The photographer from the local newspaper showed up today and took some photos. If they put a photo of all of our signs in the paper, we will be thrilled. It would be just like our great God to bless in such a way. After all, His main interest is getting His Word out. What a great way to do it!

Praise the Lord!

Tomorrow it is supposed to be REALLY cold, and we are excited about hitting the streets again in the morning. Hallelujah.

Jeremija 33:3 'Zazovi me, i odgovorit ću ti i pokazat ću ti velike, nevjerojatne stvari, za koje nijesi znao!

(Jeremiah 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.)

Amen.

A Great Day At The Local Bus Station

With all those buses in the background being filled with high school students in preparation for their daily departure at 1:20, it seemed perfectly natural to be standing at the exit with our gospel signs. We've been through the terminal several times passing out tracts and witnessing to people as the crowd gathered for departure, and today we thought we would make it easier (if not irresistible) for all of them to read a few Bible verses as they left town.
The response (reaction?) was very encouraging. Young people are not afraid to let you know what they think. Most of the response was positive, but in every case we knew the message was received and understood. I can't wait to see what God is going to with this segment of our ministry. (Rush hour is coming at 3:00 PM, so I have to get to the other side of town to catch more traffic.)

What a blessing to stand up for Christ!

Great Children's Program Sunday

Bro Scott Holcomb leads a children's program at Stablo Života, the church in Čakovec, Croatia, on Sunday afternoons at 4:00 and is doing a terrific job.

Just last week we had more kids stand and recite their Bible memory verses than ever before. Well, this week that record fell. As you can see in the photo above, MOST of our kids got up to recite their memory verse!
Bro Scott always brings good, practical Bible lessons for the young people and they really seem to be enjoying it. Attendance and participation are way up.

We are so blessed. Praise the Lord.


Prva Petrova Poslanica 2:2 Kao tek rođene bebe čeznite za čistim mlijekom riječi da bi po njemu uzrasli ...

(1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:)