Добар дан иѕ Београда (Hello from Belgrade)

We thought we'd type the whole blog entry in Cyrillic, but we didn't think you'd all appreciate having to translate the whole thing.

We've really seen God working through our team this week in really amazing ways. Last week was really exhausting, with teaching English in the mornings, coffee dates in the afternoon, and late nights. Our team was looking for a way to relax and enjoy each other's company, and God definitely was faithful to us in that!

Last Friday, we went to the USA vs. Finland basketball game as part of the Universiade, basically the Olympics for University Students held here in Belgrade until July 12 (http://www.universiade-belgrade2009.org/). We found out Quincy Pondexter was on the US team, so of course we had to go see him play. We wore our UW stuff to show our Husky pride all the way across the world, and we went up to him after the game and managed to get a few pics with him. We saw him again a few nights ago, and have enjoyed seeing the US team in action. Hopefully, they'll play for the championship this Saturday. They beat Serbia by 2 points last night, so we have enjoyed reminding all of our Serbian friends about the US Victory.

This weekend was also some really great, relaxing team time for us in Novi Sad. We took a bus to Novi Sad on Saturday (about an hour and a half north of Belgrade) and visited Vanja, one of the former interns at the INN. Novi Sad was incredibly beautiful, very relaxing and a great way to slow down. It was fun to see how the Austro-Hungarian Empire influenced the region, since Belgrade was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. There are many cultural and architectural differences that still exist today. We really hope that we can go back to Novi Sad sometime soon, and get to know more of the EUS students that live there, and of course spend some time with Vanja, who was a great hostess.


Last night we had our second big party with EUS students. It was held at a new coffee shop near the University student housing, and it was a huge success. We had about 10-15 students show up, in addition to some of the EUS staff members. Some students even traveled down from Novi Sad to enjoy the evening. We hope to continue to build relationships and follow up with the students we met last night, as there were a few girls that we met that aren't involved with EUS and are really excited to get to know us.

Thank you all so much for your continued prayer for our team. You can be praying for the students that we've met, that Jesus would open their hearts to hear the Gospel. We are learning how to slow down and be still, so continued prayer for strength and rest amidst our busy days would be wonderful. We also pray that Cassie doesn't contaminate the rest of the team with her cold. It's not the swine flu...or at least we pray it's not.

Ljubav (Love),

The Seattle Dragons