A Lesson On Materialism

Serbia taught us a lot, but one of the lessons we learned was a lesson on materialism. Many Americans don't know this, but what we consider poverty, is NOT poverty by the world's standards. We are so blessed in this country with so many material things. So, why is it that depression is on the rise? Could it be that we are clinging so tightly to all this "stuff" that we let it get in the way of our relationship with God? I know if I had less "stuff" in my house, I would have less to clean up and organize and more time to spend in prayer and reading my Bible. It's a bit unsettling that I have so many "things" in just one room in my house that I can't even count them. Try it...try to count all the things in just one room. For most of us, it would take a while and we would probably give up before we finished. Why are we so materialistic? We might say "because we are Americans and that is just the way we live." That is about as frustrating as hearing a Serbian say "I am Orthodox because I am Serbian and that's just the way it is."

Is it time for a change? We think so. I get so frustrated with our electric bill each month, but if it weren't for all this "stuff," we could live in a smaller house and pay much less for electricity! Today, our family began to take action. For the next several weeks, we will have Matthew 6:19-20 posted on the mantle as we go through all this "stuff". Today we went through our movies and books. Why did we have over 100 DVDs? I didn't count them, but it was at least 100. There aren't enough hours in a week to watch all those movies! Some of them we haven't watched in years. So, we decided to share. We kept about 20 DVDs that we watch the most and are donating the rest to the local library. If we feel the need to watch one of those, we can simply go down to the library and check it out for FREE! So, now we get to benefit others and we can still watch them if we want to. We did the same with books. We selected a few to keep on hand and are taking the rest to the library. We've already read most of them, so what good are they sitting on our shelf? And to make it even better, most of them are Christian books and it's been my experience that the library doesn't have a great selection of those. So, now hundreds or thousands of people can read those books that were sitting on our bookshelf collecting dust. (On a side note, I thought it was pretty funny when I pulled a bookmark from a book I am donating and it said on it "Simplify" and at the bottom it says "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Jesus Matthew 6:34

We aren't trying to rub this in anyone's face and say we are "holier than thou" or anything like that. I just thought I'd share this with others who may not have looked at it in this way before. We will not look down at anyone because of their possessions and will probably even continue to have more than many others do. It will be a process to untrain ourselves from the materialistic lifestyle we have always led. We just decided it was time for a change in our life. If we can get rid of some of the "stuff" that holds us back, we will begin to spend more time with our kids and with the Lord. That is our goal...to make our life less complicated by material things so we will be more free to grow closer to God and our kids. If anyone wants to join us in the fight against materialism in your home, let us know and we can talk and support one another.

Now, it's off to the closet where, once again, I cannot count the number of items in it. Yikes!

Prayerwalking in Serbia

We posted this on the Pray4Serbia.org website while in Serbia.

We arrived Monday night to prayerwalk in Serbia for 7 days. Satan tried his best to make this trip not happen, so we are expecting great things from it. Our flights kept getting delayed, making our trip last around 34 hours. But prayer and Jesus kept us going.

Our translator wanted to cancel a few times, but said he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So, he is with us and has blessed us so much with his encouragement and his excitement for the Lord. Yesterday we prayerwalked in Belgrade. We met a young lady who was very receptive to what we told her. Our translator knew of a Baptist church in her hometown. He explained where it is, and she took a copy of our testimony (they had been translated into Serbian for us). Pray she will be open to the truth of salvation through Jesus and will find her way to that church.

Last night we traveled to Novi Pazar. The weather hasn’t been cooperating, but we just keep pressing on (Our luggage was lost and should be delivered today, so we will be able to dress warmer).


This morning, prayerwalking in Novi Pazar was interesting. We can tell a difference between this town and Belgrade, but both towns need much prayer. They had a call to Muslim prayer this afternoon while we were prayerwalking. So, we prayed at that time as well. We didn’t see anyone pray at that time and it was a bit of a relief to see that, while they are Muslim, we are not sure they are 100% committed to it. They seem a bit more liberal about it than other Muslims we have had experiences with. This may make it easier to open their hearts to the truth of Jesus.

Overall, so far we have seen that this country is in great need of the truth. They are in bondage to the lies of Satan and need to be set free. They need more Christians to come tell them about the love and salvation of Christ. And, by what our translator has told us, there are many Serbian Christians who need discipleship. Romans 10:14 says, “But how can they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe without hearing about Him? And how can they hear without a preacher?” Serbia needs Christians to come and tell them, so they can hear and believe.

GOing is Bittersweet

We will be on a plane to Serbia in 13 hours. A little anxious, a little nervous, a little sad to leave our kids, but VERY excited to see what God has in store for this mission trip!!!! Thank you for all your prayers. We'll be posting as often as we can from the mission field.

It's been too long

It's been too long since we've posted here. I'm sorry about that. Life gets so hectic sometimes! We have just one week until we leave for Serbia. We'll be posting here frequently while in Serbia. Keep praying for us! We still have a lot of preparations to do this week. We're so excited and anxious! Can't wait to see how God works through us over there.

Thank you to all who donated for our trip. Our church funded what we weren't able to raise, but they didn't have to fund very much because our fundraising went AWESOME! Thank you all for your support and prayers!

John and Beth

Prayer Warriors Wanted

Prayer is a very important part of our mission trip. Tonight at church we will be enlisting people to be in prayer on different days of our trip to Serbia. If you would like to sign up for a day (or more) just send us an email and let us know which day you would like to commit to praying for us. We want to fill each day with several prayer warriors so that several times throughout that day we will have people lifting us up in prayer. You can pick any days from June 19th through June 27 and pray at any time during that day or night, preferably several times. Things to pray for: our safety, our children and those caring for them while we are gone, for all conversations we have with Serbians to lead to spiritual things and for them to be open to the gospel, for victory in any spiritual warfare that arises.

If you sign up for any specific days, we will send you our itinerary so you will know exactly where we are when you are praying for us. We will also email you a reminder right before we leave.

Thank you and God Bless!

Share Your Experiences

In our mission training workbook we read this:
"When you follow [God's] command and participate in a mission trip, you will find that your heart burns within you as you return home. You will have changed because of your encounter with God at work in that faraway place. The impact of that change may mean that you must become salt in your home church. God may desire to use the afterglow of your experience as a light to guide the body toward a deeper understanding of and commitment to being on mission in your community, in your nation, and to the ends of the earth. Your church will then have an even greater impact on a lost and dying world."

Has anyone reading this every experienced something like this? If so, please tell us about it.

All the Latest

Here is all the latest on our mission:

We bought our airline tickets
We have all hotels in Serbia and the one in London for our overnight layover booked
We have a translator who will travel with us
We are almost done with our Mission Training Workbooks
We are working on a 31 day Bible study called "Get Set" to prepare us for our mission
We are about to enlist a prayer team...I will be posting more about that soon

Keep praying for our mission! Thanks!