Dave’s sabbatical

If I could enable you to hear a heartbeat, touch tears or know the warmth of embrace through this blog, then I could tell you about my day today. But I can't. Put simply, God the Holy Spirit has touched me deeply through prayer and conversation. It's been a special day.

It might be difficult to understand what's going on in this picture. A girl with a straw, blowing paint on to some cardboard? All will be revealed as I relate our second Monday in a row running a children's Holiday Club. This week we collected some huge cardboard boxes (thanks Ilir!), flattened them and then built two cardboard houses, one stuck together with eight rolls of sellotape, the other with less than one roll of Gorilla tape (other strong tapes are avaliable). The one with sellotape came apart as soon as we tried to stand it up. No matter how much sellotape we used, it was a flop, but the children still painted it. It wasn't strong enough to take a roof and looked rather foolish. The one wisely stuck together with a minimum of Gorilla tape, however, was a great success. It easily took a roof and was much easier to paint. So, there we have it. Two houses built of the same raw material, one stood, the other collapsed, one was wisely stuck together with...

The son of a church member got married on Friday night and we were kindly invited to attend - a memorable cultural experience. It started with dancing, continued with dancing  and finished with dancing, all accompanied by deafening music. For four and half hours.  This is the wedding season and Kosovans like to party! After an hour or so a red carpet was hastily unrolled across the dance floor and the couple arrived to exchange rings and lead a dance to an Ed Sheeran number, the only non-Albanian song. The couple continued to lead the dancing, which seemed to go in an endless clock-wise advancing circle, 3 steps forward, one step back. People then came forward and stuffed money in some fairly inaccessible places on both bride and groom. Finally, the climax came with the cake. Cut and then fed to each other... For those of us of a non-dance persuasion, continuous food and drink were on ready supply. It was fun, even if conversation was impossible. ...

I have great respect for Jeton, the pastor here. In spite of the many challenges facing him, he always seems to be asking God, "what next  Lord?", always on the lookout for opportunities to lead the church in sharing their faith and serving their fellow Kosovans. So, on Friday we went to a large village half an hour to the south of Gjakova to do some prayer walking - on our hottest day so far. The heat that western Europe has been experiencing has moved east! We split into two groups and set off around the village. I started praying as we walked along, but 3 words into my prayer I was aware of someone talking to me in Albanian. I stopped and turned to find a man and a woman asking for money for a sick child. They had been sent (I think) by their imam. I explained through Ilir that the best thing I had to offer was prayer. Well, we were prayer walking! They accepted the offer, so I prayed in the name of Jesus for the child, for which they were grateful. I gave them €10 a...

Margaret last visited this lovely lady, Roza, almost 10 years ago. They connected then and it was a joy to see the love and affection still very much in evidence yesterday. Diana is an old friend too. Roza is a war widow, so it's 20 years since she lost her husband - and their ten children lost a father. Like so many, most of them have left Kosova in search of employment and a 'better' life. As you might imagine, Roza has not had an easy life. During the war she buried all her valuables on her property and fled to Albania with all 10 children. This treasure trove was not found, but on their return one of her daughters, Mire, went to the well to draw some water, not knowing that the Serbs had left a land mine in it. The explosion seriously injured her and had left her with brain damage. Mother and daughter are now the only residents of the family home. During the time of Serbian oppression, Roza needed hospital treatment. The tattooed crosses on her wrists, received wh...

I find this difficult at many levels  This extraordinary World Heritage building, Decani Monastery, built 1327-1335, is a 40 minute drive from Gjakova where we are staying. It is a 'must see' for visitors to Kosova, according to many guide books, so we went today (although Di has been a number of times). It was established by Serbian King, later Saint, Stefan Decanski. Here he is depicted on one of its inside walls giving the building to Christ. Every single inch of wall and ceiling space is covered in the most extraordinary paintings from the 14th century, just a few years after it was built. These paintings are, amazingly, in their original state and depict various biblical scenes and saints. Utterly amazing. So, where's the difficulty? Well, firstly my Christian faith is far removed from this expression of Christianity. It's not for me to judge the monks who live here; I just don't relate to the religiosity I encountered today, especially the venerati...

This is the 3... girls after our children's holiday club at church. Like Jan and me, ready for a rest! (If you didn't understand the title you are probably neither my age or nationality!) We started with some games in the courtyard outside the front door of the church building. The skittles did a great job! We then moved inside for a drink and biscuits and a song... ... ready for Diana to do a participatory story of Jesus asleep in the back of the boat while a storm raged on the lake of Galilee - as well as inside the terrified disciples. This introduced our theme: Beso ne Jezusin (Have faith in Jesus) which Jan had prepared for a collage later. They really enjoyed all the craft work. The older boys, however, concentrated all their efforts on a huge picture of the Bible story, all to good effect. Just as well Jan brought lots of her art materials with us in the car. Just when I was running out of energy (and patience!), Ilir and Florian took most of...