NGO and Growth

Hello to all!

I hope all of you have been having a good week.

As you know we've been continuing to try and figure out what it means to be the Body of Christ here.  Part of this is beginning to concretely try to answer questions of "Who are we, and what will we be about?"  Out of our meetings, help from others and prayer we are trying to begin something tangible, recognized by the government and something we can continue to let grow.  What we would call an NGO (non-governmental organization), or what Croatians would call an Udruga (oo droo gaw).  We have been continuing to discuss what this will look like and why.  One of the larger picture things that will define us from the very beginning is the difference between an international NGO or a domestic NGO.  The international NGO is easier to create with less work to begin it.  For the domestic NGO it takes more work and you have to have a native Croatian on the initial constructing board.  We are prayerfully entering into the domestic.  What do we hope this will communicate?  We are here to stay.  We want this to be something Croatian people have been a part of from the very beginning.  We want Croatian people to take pride in what they have invested into, hoping in the end that it will be something that is completely passed onto Croatian leadership and sustaining.  Not even passed onto, but grown into.    This is something extremely exciting because the church and what this NGO will be about go hand in hand.  One will not exist without the other.  In fact, they will be one and the same.

Within this process we need the Lord in every single step.  Nothing is worth it if he isn't with us.  We ask that you would pray for us to have wisdom and discernment, that God would raise up a Croatian leader/partner for this and in the midst of it all we can love as God as loved us.  Thank you all for supporting us over the past almost 9 months.  I thank God for you, and I pray you live in the blessing of life continually.

Jerry