It's often said in our culture that you can tell day by the morning, and since the prayer weekend
was our first camp we knew we are about to experience the best camps ever.
This prayer weekend was amazing, and we all stand in awe of God and His works. It started on Friday evening, June 29th and lasted until Sunday, July 1st, just one day before we had young people come. We had 67 leaders come from all over the country to pray for the camps, but also the Church and the country. We have all become aware that this year is different than any other year and that we stand in the crossroads asking God for direction. We came to this prayer weekend desperate to hear from God, and God was faithful.
The first thing that comes to mind is wake up call for His church in this country. God sounded the trumpet for all those who hear to return to Him, to get ready, get sanctified and position themselves for the battle. We started with reminding ourselves that we are the branches and that He is the vine and that we must remain in Him if we intend to bear fruit. At the end of that first evening, we all had to pick a stone and write a promise from God on it. Early the next morning we were awakened by the sounds of a shofar calling for all to assembly in the centre of the camp site where starting from the pastors, we laid our stones building the altar
as a memorial of the place we came from and the place where God is taking us from here. It was a turning point, a mark in this broken and ravaged land saying this is a different day and from this point on, no day will be the same again. History will never be the same again, because of His promises and because of all of us who said YES and are ready to go all the way!
On Saturday morning, the word of the Lord came from the book of Amos that God is setting the plumbline among His people measuring their lives, families and ministries according to His standard of the Divine plumbline! It was a a strong word calling us to raise our eyes to the only unmovable thing and line up in order to be tested and be found standing. The afternoon was spent in prayer groups covering the map of Bosnia, focusing on specific cities with churches and those that don't have churches. We prayed for the long term team and in the end we gathered and prayed for the pastor and the leaders.
Something deep and transformative happened during that time as we all stood around our leaders soaking them in prayer. The river started to flow -- the one of repentance, love, encouargment and support and it covered them as a banner. What a sweet, sweet time we had! We all knew that the living God was among us, setting the firm foundation for what's coming!
And then came the evening. Everything that was building up just exploded in those few hours. We were reminded of all that we heard from God in last 2 days and as people of Israel in Joshua 24, we still had to make a choice whom shall we serve. Suddenly Emek Beraka "Valley of the blessings" 2 Chr. 20, has become for all of us "the valley of the decision" (Joel). God has sounded his trumpet calling His warriors to step up and become aware of the war that is waging for the souls, cities and regions! The only disqualfying thing to be a mighty man or a woman of God,
as we could see in Gideon's story, was fear. Fear to let go, fear of people, fear of change, fear of failure, fear of losing control...fear that makes us stop and stoop back and let the harvest pass by us. Oh no....all of us who were present on Emek Beraka prayer weekend 2007 have determined that we will not be found among those since we are of the ones who do not shrink back but of the ones who presevere and finish the race.
At the end of the message worship just broke out inviting the King of Glory to come in with 4 pastors standing on the 4 corners of the meeting tent proclaiming the Lord's Kingship over the recently bought property and setting it apart for His use. It felt like the heaven opened up as we sang from the top of our lungs "Christ you are the King over all Bosnia and Herzegovina"!
We finished that evening with walking around four sides of our camp property and anointing it while praying and worshiping. Sunday morning service was nailing down everything we experienced during the weeekend, and we crowned it all with the baptism at the lake.
This generation has a task and during this weeekend we heard it all once again afresh and somehow everything in us wanted to line up and be part of what's coming. We could feel it is close, it is huge, it will overflow, and camps are in the midst of it...Talk about being excited about this year camps!
Pastors Slavko, Sasa, Beki, and Neno
Pastors worshipping
Altar of God's Promises
Baptism at the lake
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