Dear Praying Friends,                                                                                                                          January 2011

Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (23) Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Recently the Lord has showed me the importance of yielding our lives over to him. I believe that it is not until we yield ourselves to Him that we can always see the Spirit’s fruit evident in our lives. We must yield ourselves completely (without reservation) to Him. Before this is done, our relationship with the Lord will be good, but after we do this, our relationship with Him will be much more special and sweet.

In October, I met with the mayor of Rakusy to ask him if we could purchase land in the Gypsy village in order to build a church on it. He said land was limited there, but that he would mention it at the council meeting which would be held on October 14^th. Most of the population of the town and gypsy village of Rakusy are Gypsies. Therefore most of the men who sit on the council are Gypsy. Many were praying with us about this meeting. On October 15^th, the mayor sent me an e-mail which stated that he mentioned the fact that I spoke with him about procuring land in the village. When he asked the men who sit on the council if they were interested and if they thought it was necessary for me to have land they reached the determination that they had “no interest in our activities or services” (as quoted from the mayor’s letter). I will not hide from you the fact that this came to Sarah and I as a discouraging blow. I had hoped that those who did show interest would go to the councilmen or directly to the mayor and say “That is not true. We are interested in their services and activities.” No one did, however. As a matter of fact, those who did show interest before the meeting grew very cold and distant to me and our meetings. I began to earnestly pray and seek godly counsel to determine what my next steps of action should be. After much prayer, I realize and believe that there may come a time in ministry when one must shake the dust off his feet and move on as stated in Matthew 10:14, “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.” 

We are still meeting in the school building in Rakusy on Sundays. I think that any plans to tear it down have been indefinitely postponed, which means that we can continue to meet there for a while. Anyone who would like to come is welcome, of course. Although we usually do not have any adults. Some of the children, however, have actually showed more spiritual maturity than the adults. I do not extend an actual invitation. Since I am predominately working with children now, I fear that if one were to come forward in an actual invitation then others would follow without really knowing why they are coming forward. I do invite the children to come to me or my co-worker, Don Waite, after we dismiss if they would like so we can discuss salvation. Occasionally one would come forward. Praise the Lord for that! On Sunday the 9^th of January, the Lord really blessed! It started with a little 9-year-old girl named Nikola. When she came to me after the service I said, “ Why do you want to talk to me?” She said, “ to accept Jesus into my heart.” I said, “Why do you want to accept Him into your heart?” Her response was, “Because I love Him.” AMEN! What an answer! There were four other children and one woman who also accepted Christ that day. Nikola came again on the 16^th of January. After the service she came to me again and said she wanted to accept Him again. I told her that Christ only must save us once and that “He will never leave nor forsake us.” I also mentioned now she needed to grow as a Christian, and that she should start praying and reading her Bible. She told that she didn’t have a Bible. I was able to give her a Bible, and she was very glad. Several of the children are doing a good job memorizing Scripture. AMEN!

We are now praying and seeking the Lord’s direction about the next Gypsy village in which to work. I have visited two. The first one I visited is a village named Vyborna. Vyborna means “excellent.” The Gypsies acceptance of Don and I, the Gospel that we tried to mention to them  and the Gospel tracts we attempted to pass out certainly was not “excellent.” The second village I visited was Vrbov. This is a very small village of Gypsies with only about 200. They were much more receptive of us and interested in the Gospel. Please pray that they remain receptive and interested!

Sarah and I want to be ever so sensitive to what the Lord wants. I believe that I was the kind of missionary who thought that you go out there and before you know it, people are saved and baptized and boom you have a church. In a sense, a church with baptized members was my desire. Of course, that is not a bad desire. God, however, wanted to bring me to a place of spiritual maturity so that I could say “God, I’ll serve not so that I can pastor a church or even see people saved and baptized, but, God, I’ll serve you just for the sake of having the opportunity to serve such a wonderful, such a loving, and such and an amazing God who deserves my service.”

                                                                                    Missionaries completely yielded to the Master,

Michael, Sarah, Olivia and Michael Powell Stevens