Thursday, August 7, 2008

Bringing the Gospel to Europe (Croatia and Budapest)





Well, Mike and I had the tremendous priveledge to travel all the way over to Eastern Europe to share the good news of Jesus Christ. I have personally never been there but when we arrived it was a whole new experience. From the insane amounts of Carbs we ate to the insane amount of walking/traveling we did. For a quick outline of Mike and I's travel schedule, it goes like this: We flew in to Zargreb, Croatia and spent about 10 days with my church from Phoenix (Whitton Ave. Bible) and taught english to Croatian teenagers. Then Mike and I took a bus from Croatia to Serbia. We had a few hours lay over in Belgrade, Serbia then we took another bus to Macedonia. Macedonia is where my father was born and grew up so it was very special for me to see the house he was born in and all the stories I grew up hearing about. Macedonia was my favorite country because it was not really populated at all and the scenery was beautiful. I stayed with some of my relatives out there. Then from Macedonia we traveled to Hungary, Budapest but we had another layover in Belgrade, Serbia again. Our layover was 14 hours long. The cool thing was, was that we were able to watch the new Batman movie in a tiny, freezing theatre. Then we finally arrived in Budapest. Its actually purnounced budape(sh)t,FYI. We met our church from Anaheim, CA (Calvary Chapel) and we did many street ministry witnessing outings. It was awesome! I could write a book on the past month but I am only going to highlight some of the trips. In Croatia, Mike and I had the pleasure to teach breakn to the teenagers at the english camp. I eneded up hurting my knee again but Mike taught on his own while I tried to do what I could. There were a couple young guys who came to know the Lord that I had really been prayn for! And mike had the privelege as well to see some of the kids he spent time with, come to know Christ. It was awesome, God was saving people left and right. Then at our layovers in Serbia, we had really cool witnessing opportunities. What I came to notice was that people in the Eastern Europe parts, dont really talk about God. So when they heard that God is relational and God is love and God is alive, this was new news to them. It was incredible how so many people have never heard the real Jesus of the Bible. Then in Budapest, God was bringing many people our way to be saved.The hook team did an awesome job. The dramas were done with passion and Mike was like a machine with his breakdacing. It was awesome to see a young man in a Tupac shirt came to know the Lord in tears and with a quivering lip. The power of God unto salvation was poured out in Budapest. We prayed earnestly and in faith and God answered our prayers! Even on the plane ride home and middle aged man came to know the Lord! From bus stations to local squares to plane rides, God was working mightily! I praise God! Anways, it was a great trip and I thank God for his blessing and grace. "For the grace of God the brings salvation has appeared to all men and it teaches us to say to no to ungodliness and worldly passions." Titus 2:11

Friday, June 27, 2008

The Windy City, Chicago Part 2

Well, it had been over a year ago that breakfree invaded downtown Chi town. Chicago is personally my favoite city. The people, architecture, food, and culture make the city come alive and a lot of fun.On friday,the day before the event,we were hangin out at a local park breakdancing and what not. Sure enough, an older Asian man came up to us and wanted to learn. So we all engaged in teaching him breakn but we also were able to share the Lord with him. So Tim had a great coversation with him while mike witnessed to the Asian man's friend! I (Josh) was praying for them and thought how awesome it was to see God bless us with divine appoinments. It didn't stop there either. The amazing thing is that the weather was not good going into this trip and we prayed fervently about good weather for saturday's event that we had planned out. Sure enough, God blessed us with great sunny weather. So breakfree teamed up with Harvest Bible's College group(Mike and Josh both used to attend this church)and we presented the gospel to the lost. Right before the event got started Mike, Tim, and I were able to witness to some peeps. Instead of us going out fishing for men God literally had the fish jump into our boat. Tim and I were able to witness to a group os scientology protestors, which was great. Mike got to witness to a couple guys who were sitting on the bench next to him. Then when we actually got the event started, we breakdanced at the same beaufitful location as last year, Millenium Park. We danced for maybe 5 min and the got kicked out. Last year, we danced there for 4 hours or so and now we got the boot in 5 min. Thats alright, we dusted our shoe's off and went the next park over, Grants Park. We had handfull's of people come and watch and it was great to see pretty much everybody witnessing to strangers!We also were able to break in a tunnel which felt like the old school way of how breakdancing really started. It was a great day of dancing and ministry. I was very blessed to be with my two best friends in my favorite city doing my favorite things: Sharing the gospel and breakn. God is so good and faithful! "We boast in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ