Croatia Bound

This has been an extremely busy week for me. I am preparing to travel with some friends from our church to Croatia to teach in a seminary sponsored Expositors' Institute for Croatian pastors. I have been asked to teach the pastoral epistle of Titus.

The seminary is called the Theological Biblical Academy and is part of a system of theological schools associated with The Master's Academy International in conjunction with The Master's Seminary and Grace Community Church and the ministry of John MacArthur.

This invitation to speak came from the seminary professors, primarily my good friend Todd Dick. Todd is a native of Amarillo and was trained to work as a chemist in the defense industry at PANTEX. While driving to work one day, he heard Dr. MacArthur preaching the gospel on his car radio. God used that message to bring Todd to Christ. Soon after, he married his wife Lynn and moved to Southern California to study at The Master's Seminary. Upon graduation in 1998, he and Lynn moved to Croatia to begin this ministry.

I met Todd when he returned home to Amarillo on furlough in 2001. He called our church one day and told me he had heard about our church and had visited our website and would like to worship with us while he was in town visiting his relatives. Our friendship quickly grew. Todd shared his ministry with our people and by the time he returned to Croatia we began to support him financially and prayerfully. Some time later, Todd's brother Tim became part of our church family and he is very active with our Missions Team.

I have been busy this week because I am trying to condense my verse-by-verse teaching series through the book of Titus from twelve messages into ten lectures, each less than hour long spoken through a translator. I've told people this is like pouring a gallon of water through a funnel into a quart jar. It will not fit and I have to leave much out. I will give three lectures on next Friday evening and seven lectures through the day on Saturday.

In addition to the teaching I will be doing, our team will visit Croatian churches and will perform some gospel music in two concerts. Tim Dick traveled to Croatia over the Christmas holidays and told Todd that two of our team members, Bill and Sally DeHay along with me are Bluegrass musicians. Todd immediately asked if we could perform in Croatia because this type of roots music is very popular there. In fact, there is a group of musicians in one of the churches there that plays traditional gospel music.

So next Sunday and Monday evenings, Sally, Bill and I will be part of two gospel concerts held in public halls in two cities. The Croatian musicians will open the concert with several songs, then our trio will play: Sally on bass, Bill on guitar and lead vocals and me on mandolin and tenor vocals.

I am part of a internet group known as Flatpick-L. This internet list is dedicated to the discussion of guitar flatpicking. Through the list I came to exchange emails with an Austrian musician named Alois Kleewein. It turns out that Alois and his banjo-playing wife Edith only live about a hundred miles from the Dick's. So they will come down to meet us, jam with us and play a couple of songs with us during the concerts. I am very much looking forward to meeting them in person.

I don't want to leave our the other member of our team, Brian Reyes. Brian is a former professional football player, a Chevy salesman and a very active member of our church teaching in our youth department. I have been so blessed by Brian. He is the model of discipleship. When he and his wife Stacie came to Cornerstone they gave themselves fully to the work of the Lord and he has grown immensely in his knowledge of the Word and obedience to Christ. Brian will be taking video and helping out in many, many ways.

There is much to do before we leave early next week but I wanted to post some information about this trip because I plan to upload information and pictures to this blog to let you know what we are doing while we are there. Please pray for our safety, health and success.

Soli Deo Gloria!