December 2007

Pack Your Purse with GRATITUDE

Feature: "Canned Food Scavenger Hunt"
As we learn about the country of Bosnia this month, a country ravaged by years of war and deprivation, we can realize afresh the many privileges we enjoy in this country. At this time of year, many organizations are collecting food to give to the less fortunate among us. As an expression of gratitude to God for all the blessings and privileges He has given us, consider having an event that gets your women involved as a group in meeting the needs of the community. Organize a "Canned Food Scavenger Hunt"! Divide the women up into teams of 2 or 3, give them a time limit, and send them out with paper bags, either to homes in the neighborhood around the church or to church member's homes, to request donations of canned goods for the needy. When everyone has returned to the church, award prizes for the group who returned first, the group who returned last, and the group who has the heaviest bags!

Outreach Idea:
During the holidays, offer free gift-wapping at your local shopping center or book store. Have a sign in front stating who you are and that the gift-wrapping service is free of charge.

Prayer Tip:
The Lord says His house is to be a "House of Prayer". Make it so. Make prayer important again. One of the focuses of Alliance Women Ministries is prayer. Is one of your focuses Prayer? Is your church known as a house of prayer? Is your heart a place of prayer? If not, do your part to change it! In Isaiah 56:7 and again in Matthew 21:13, the scripture says that the Lord wants His house to be a house of prayer.

Discipleship Thought:
We, as disciples of Christ, live in a very hostile world. It is so easy for us to argue and speak against other Christian brothers or sisters, but we ought to remember Christ’s word, "for whoever is not against us is for us" (Mark 9:40).

Good to Go in Bosnia-Herzegovina

By Petula Myers
I met Elvira and her husband, Jasko, in the summer of 2005 when I went to Tuzla to help my teammates host a summer team.

In the Fall of 2005, I relocated to Tuzla to begin assisting in the English school and church. Last summer, our home group multiplied into two groups because it had grown too large. I began to lead the home group that meets at Elvira's family's apartment and is comprised mainly of Elvira's family and a few others from their neighborhood.

I have translated her story below.

"My name is Elvira Bjelich-Kushljugich. I am thirty-five years old, married and the mother of two children, ages 12 and 16. I live with my family in my parents' two room apartment. There are a total of eight of us living in this small apartment, but I am happy and content with my life. Until a few years ago, my life was completely different.

My husband and I had our own apartment. We both worked. We had a car and all the other things necessary for a normal life. However, we were unsatisfied with the life we had and began searching for something better, something that would fill the emptiness in our lives. We believed that we had found what we were looking for in heroine. At first, it filled the emptiness inside us and we were content. But after a few months, the satisfied feeling disappeared and we were left with an insatiable addiction. It consumed us and we became enslaved to our need for it. Heroine had become the master of our lives.

We were in chains. My husband lost his job because of the ever increasing number of absences from the work place. Soon after that, we lost our apartment. I was then the only one working and it became very difficult to earn enough money to feed our drug habit and pay for all the other needs of our family. We began to sell drugs to earn enough to cover our expenses and it wasn't long before the police arrested us. We both ended up in jail. My husband was sentenced to a year and a half and I received six months. I hadn't been out of jail long before I returned to my old habits and once again found myself in jail.

When my husband got out of jail, my parents begged us to try and get help. We had heard that there were some Christian rehabilitation centers in the neighboring country of Croatia. There was one in Split for men and one in Pula for women. So we made the decision to both go into rehabilitation. My husband went to Split and I went to Pula.

Upon my arrival in the center in Pula, I met some women who were truly following the way of Jesus. Most of them, prior to coming to the center, had lived lives similar to my own. They told me how they had let Jesus come into their lives and He had done something miraculous—He had changed their lives. At first, it wasn't clear to me what they were talking about. But after a few months, Jesus touched my heart as well and I decided to give my life completely to Him. That was when I experienced the miracle the others had been telling me about. My life changed and the chains I had worn for so long were broken. Jesus freed me from my addiction to heroine, but He also freed me from many other things in my life that had seemed justified to me.

A few years later, I returned to my home town. My husband also returned and shortly after his return, accepted Christ as well. Today we are both free and serving Christ in the Evangelical Church of Tuzla. We are blessed by the way the Lord continues to care for us."

Elvira is truly an example of a life changed and committed to serving Christ. She now works for a Finnish ministry to the Gypsy communities surrounding Tuzla. She heads up an "Adopt a Child" program that provides much needed school supplies for more than 30 local Gypsy children. Elvira makes regular visits to the homes of these children as well as their schools to make sure they are still regularly attending classes. A life once lost in hopeless darkness now carries His light into the darkness of other lives.