December 29, 2011
The Christmas Wrap
Merry Christmas, everyone!!! (Sretan Božič!!!) We finally have our annual Christmas video done. Enjoy!
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December 5, 2011
A First Look…Baby Roo!!
Well hello internet world!!
Our apologies that it has been SOOOO long since we posted to our website followers. It’s been tough to keep up with everything in the transition from Bosnia back to the U.S. I actually wrote an update in September at some point and it just disappeared into ‘website heaven’ somewhere. If I ever find it on this computer I’ll be sure to post it (late, obviously).
This post will be pretty short, but we wanted to introduce to all of you our our new addition – still going by the name “Roo” at the moment. This picture is from the latest ultrasound today. Roo is doing great and weighs about 3 pounds 5 ounces right now – 30 weeks. Mom (Jess) has had a few complications…gestational diabetes, and a few other things, but nothing too serious. Please continue to pray that any complications will be things that can be regulated, especially so that we will be able to visit New Orleans (and Jess’s parents) for as long as possible before returning to Lubbock for Roo to be born.
Our support-raising trail is blazing and God is blessing us beyond what we could imagine. A huge thank you to everyone we have already visited with for your genuine interest, prayers and financial commitments. We are currently at about 56% of our monthly support goal (plus some one-time gifts which we can’t quite be sure to what degree they will raise our monthly percentage). Your prayers are also welcome for this support-raising journey, that we would continue to update our current partners in ministry and that others would be moved to become a part of what God is doing in Bihac!!
That’s all for now, and we’ll work on making our posts more regular once again. We look forward to seeing those of you we haven’t seen yet!!
Be Blessed!
Daddy Billy, Mama Jess, and Baby Roo 
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April 21, 2011
Loooong Awaited Update…(sorry)
A few weekends ago, we were preparing to take some women to a women’s conference in Sarajevo. As usual, the plans came down to the last minute. We had signed up three Bosnian women for the conference to go from Biha – knowing very well, that we might not take the particular three we were thinking of when we signed up.
In particular, there was one young lady I wanted to take, but she wasn’t sure if she would be able to get released from school to attend. I will call her Amira*. About a week before the conference I met with Amira for a coffee and she really wanted to go to the conference, despite the fact that it was not just for young people and that the schedule might be really full. She got permission from her mom that day and permission from the school the next day. At this point I knew that we had not planned for her and possibly would have to pay late registration for her, but I really felt that she should come with us.
Two days before the conference, Amira called me and asked if there would be room to bring one of her friends (Sanela*) with us. Sanela had never really had contact with the church, other than meeting a few of the believers through Amira. I told her I had to check with my teammate to see if all the other ladies were still planning on coming. Turns out that my teammate had just gotten off the phone with another young lady who had to cancel, and the day before, another believer had also cancelled. So I called Amira back and said, “Yes! Sanela can go.”
All I can say is that God knew all along who he wanted at this conference, and even which sessions we would attend and with whom we would connect. I was a little worried about how Sanela would feel, knowing that she was going to get a mega-dose of Jesus in a very short period of time and that she probably had never seen anything like it before. But as usual, God took my expectations and blew them away!
I had to give the Lord room to take me out of my “western mindset”. Yes, the conference was paid for and it was right for us to attend the sessions, but missing one or two, in order to have conversations with these girls about who Jesus is, or why there was a workshop on the topic of purity, was so worth it. We spent a lot of time with a woman from Sarajevo who has a heart for teenagers and is incredibly gifted at laying out the gospel. I believe with all my heart that God set up “divine appointments” for these young women all throughout the weekend. Amira is thinking more and more about what it means to make Jesus the Lord of her life. Sanela is full of questions, maybe even confused at the moment (in a good way), and searching for answers . They have asked me if we can start meeting together specifically to talk about the Bible!
Please pray that this curiosity and renewed fire will burn bright in these two young women. Pray also for wisdom for me, and schedules that allow for the three of us to meet together. I believe God is moving in their lives, and I can hardly wait to see what happens.
*Name changed for internet privacy
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December 25, 2010
Sretan Božić 2010
Zdravo, svima!!!
I hope that you enjoy our new Christmas video for 2010. We love you all and miss you very much. May we focus on Christ everyday for the life he gave us. Prijatno!
So that all may know,
Billy and Jess.
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December 4, 2010
Welcome to Bihać…
We made it! I’m writing to you from our new home in the northwest corner of the country, Bihać, and boy do I have a story for you!!
Some of you may remember my story about possibly training for a half-marathon in September, with my friend, Elma*. Well, because of my travel schedule, the half-marathon didn’t quite happen, but we did get to go on several training runs together and we kept in touch through the gym I worked out at in Dobrinja. It just so happens that Elma is originally from Bihać!! Not only that, but her younger sister, Azra*, still lives here. She set me up with Azra’s phone number and even the phone numbers of a couple of potential flats for rent.
After arriving in Bihac on Wednesday night and moving our things temporarily into our teammates’ house, I went ahead and sent Azra a text message. At this point, I had no idea how old Azra is, or what she is like at all. I just knew that Elma told me she would be willing to help us out. Right away on Thursday morning, I got a very excited text message back from Azra (mostly in English, with a couple words in Bosnian) asking where and when I would like to meet with her. So Thursday night, we arranged to meet “kod sata” (at the clock) – a very common meeting place in the center of Bihac.
Billy recognized Azra as Elma’s sister the moment we walked up…I, of course, wanted to be sure, so I gave her a call and sure enough, Billy was right! We went to a near-by coffee shop and talked and laughed and told stories for 2.5 hours. Azra is quite a bit like her sister, and even made me laugh by using the same hand gestures a couple of times. She is full of life and curious about America, currently studying sport at one of the universities here in Bihac (something we have in common), and is extremely excited to help us find an apartment!
But that’s not all… Through our conversation, we came to find out that Azra and her twin brother used to attend the kids klub that our team here in Bihać had 8 years ago!! She still remembers our teammate, “with the long dark hair”, that ran the program. She is very excited to help us with anything we do with music or sports, she wants to do it all!
We are blown away by God’s faithfulness in bringing us here, and just through this one coffee, we can see that God has a plan for us and He is in complete control. Please pray that the Lord will draw our new friend, Azra*, closer to Himself, and that our joint efforts to find an apartment are fruitful.
Be blessed, friends!
Jess
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December 2, 2010
Home Sweet Home…
So, we have now moved into our new home…Bihac. If you look at the map below, you will find it in the Northwest corner of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We are safe and sound living with our new teammates for now. We just got back from looking at an apartment. It had two bedrooms, was furnished, and was pretty nice. However, we didn’t feel peace that it was the place. It was only the first place we looked at, though. Pray that we are able to find our own place to call home as soon as possible. Other than that, life is good so far. We have some more news for everyone, but we will save it for our newsletter that we will send out in a couple of weeks. If you are not on our newsletter email list, you can sign up by contacting us through this website.
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September 15, 2010
Has it been a year?!
Here’s a little message for you “in person”…prijatno!
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August 1, 2010
Short Term Mission Team July 2010
Hey everyone,
Sorry it has been so long since our last blog. June and July have been a whirlwind, but soooo great. We will be sending out a newsletter before too long to update you on some stuff here. If you are not currently receiving our email newsletters and would like to, leave a message for us by clicking the “contact us” link on the left and send us your email address.
In the meantime, I would like to show you a video. We just got done with having a short-term mission team here for a week. They were from the US, Holland, Australia, Finland, and England. Here is a short video made by one of our teammates here showing you a little bit of what they did here. It was certainly a jam-packed, GREAT week! Enjoy.
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January 21, 2010
New song player on the website…
Hey everyone,
Our awesome web designer has been able to put a media player on the left panel of the website. Now, we can continue to record some songs for you and add them to the playlist. I will add a post each time we add a new song.
We have just added “Preko Planina i Mora.” You know this song in English as, “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever.” Please remember that we are working on our language and we still miss up on the songs at least once every time. But, I’m sure you don’t mind.
Here are the words in Bosnian:
Preko planina i mora Tvoja mi ljubav dolazi I srce svoje otvaram Puštam da Ti ga iscijeliš Sretan što spoznah istinu Ja dajem slavu Bogu svu Zauvijek o tom pjevaću Bog daje ljubav najveću Mogao bih vječno slavit Ja o ljubavi Tvojoj pjevat Osjećam da plešem Iz sveg srca sad Kad svijet vidi svjetlo Svi će plesat tad Ko što plešem jaWe hope that you enjoy the song. We love you all and always love to hear from you. Also, our web designer has added the option to add comments to the posts, so feel free to talk back (however, we get to approve the comments, so make your comments wisely
So that all may know,
Billy and Jess.
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November 26, 2009
Zahvalni smo…
The title means “we are thankful” in Bosanski…and we are most certainly thankful. First, let us just say Happy Thanksgiving. Second, we are so incredibly blessed.
We had the opportunity of getting to spend some great time with our new “family” here in Mostar. There is another couple with our organization that lives here in Mostar, and they are from the U.S. We were able to go to their home and have a wonderful meal (chicken, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and even pumpkin pie), play games, and watch a few videos (including the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special). We even got to watch a little bit of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…technology is crazy.
We are so very blessed and thankful for so many things…especially each and every one of you. We love you all and miss you very much…especially on the holidays.
Blessings,
Billy and Jess.