Lieve meereizenden,

De eerste helft van de speciale predikingsactie zit er op.....en dan moeten wij nog gaan! De resultaten zijn enorm en buiten verwachting. Er zijn ongeveer in Bosnië 1150 verkondigers in 16 gemeenten. In de eerste 3 weken zijn er in Bosnië al 1705 bijbelstudie opgericht. Dat komt overeen met het oprichten van 1 bijbelstudie op elke 27 bewoners die je aan de deur thuis treft. Jehovah zegent de actie rijkelijk. Ik zet hieronder in het Engels een ervaring die in de regio Sarajevo is gebeurd:

SARAJEVO

One delegate wrote: “The apostle Paul described the residents of the island Malta as people who showed him “extraordinary kindness.” This campaign convinced us that such people still exist today. They live in Bosnia. The people are exceedingly hospitable. They do not only serve us with Bosnian coffee and sugar dices, but also with goats' milk cheese, house-made juices, plums, pears, apples, blackberries, figs, vegetables from their gardens, and honey in honeycombs. Very often we were not able to leave one’s house empty-handed. It was just their way to show their gratitude for our visit. A man climbed a plum tree to offer us some plums, since that were the only things he had. In one village every householder gave us some fruits and some vegetables. Four of us pioneer sisters used that food to prepare a meal and a big bowl of fruit salad, which we took to the social gathering with the friends. Some sisters from America said they didn’t know that fruit directly picked from the tree has such a good taste. They are also very happy to get acquainted firsthand with such wonderful people that the news media in their home country sometimes wrongly depicted because of their ethnic background. Words cannot describe the blessings we daily experience. We sense that, through this campaign, Jehovah is molding us and making us humble, by using us to preach the good news to these beautiful people.

A couple from the United States had the following experience: “We made some return visits in a residents’ building in Vareš. There was a young man in front of the building carrying boxes to the last floor. While passing by, he watched us to see what we were doing. He even helped us finding an address we could not find. In our conversation with him we mentioned we are from America and learned that he had lived in New York for a while, but had recently returned to Bosnia. After finishing our return visits he was still carrying boxes, so we waited to try to talk some more with him. Before we could even say anything, he asked in poor English: “May I ask you something? What are you doing here?” I then answered in poor Bosnian: “We are volunteers and we are Jehovah’s Witnesses.” At this he became very excited and immediately dropped the boxes. Since I did not have any tract left, I took the ‘Good News’ brochure. That thrilled him even more, and he excitedly pointed to the brochure. Then he told us he had been in contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses while living in New York and recognized the cover of the brochure. He stated that, after returning to Bosnia, he had looked up our website and requested a Bible Study, but no one showed up! I then said: “Well, here we are!” He immediately gave us his address and telephone number, and we arranged to start a Bible study the same week. When we were leaving, he said: “You will be my new best friends”, and called us his “brother and sister”. We are looking forward to the opportunity to observe his eagerness to study the Bible.

Other delegates had the following experience: “On Saturday, the first day of the campaign, we went to the Duboki Potok village. Our navigation system mistakenly directed us to a relatively good unpaved road which abruptly ended up in a forest. We parked the car and decided to continue to the village by feet. The forest road became totally impassable and muddy, so we were compelled to return. Then we noticed that oil leaked out of the car engine, because the oil sump had burst. Local brothers immediately came to our assistance arranging towing service and repair of the car. After our car was repaired on Tuesday, we were determined to find that village. People in nearby villages said no one is living in Duboki Potok village. The village is located on a mountain and we arrived there via a very bad and scarred unpaved road. In one house we found a woman. She was a medical nurse and during the last war she has seen and experienced atrocities. The worst is she lost her 14-year-old daughter two years ago, so she left the city and moved to this remote village. The pain and suffering devastated her. She cannot understand why God took away her very little girl. The khoja(“hodža”) has forbidden her to mourn, since her girl “moved” to Allah. After attentively listening to her, we showed her what the ‘sacred pronouncements of God’ say about the death. We also showed her that prophet Isa (Jesus) wept when his friend Lazarus died, and that death is man’s enemy. We read with her the report about the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter and how Jesus said to Jairus to have no fear. The woman confirmed she exactly felt that way. She feared for herself and for the future of her family. She felt as if some enemy took her child away. We showed her the video “Is There Hope for the Dead?”, gave her the ‘Good News’ brochure, referred to Lesson 6 and arranged a return visit. The next day we who brought her a Bible, since she always wished to read the Old Testament. She read the entire brochure in only one day, so we started a Bible study using the ‘Bible Teach’ book. We visited her four times in two weeks and studied the introduction of the book, and half of chapter 7. Before returning to Zagreb, we handed the study over to friends of a nearby congregation. A female neighbor attended the study, and was sitting with us all the time. She did not make any remarks, but when we read Luke 8:50, she just said: “I brook out in gooseflesh at these words of Isa!” Later we learned her mother died ten years ago, so she was closely listening all the time.”