Slovenia Bog Blog

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today our children went off to preschool dressed as Spider Man and a beautiful Princess! This is not our normal habit, although if Philippa had her way it would be! The past few days we have been celebrating “Pust”. This is basically carnival time in Slovenia, with the aim of scaring away winter and welcoming in Spring. While we don’t support the superstitious undertones of this, at the end of a cold winter it is fun to dress up and look forward to sunshine, flowers, warmer temperatures and spring. As I write this today, the sun is shining and the snow is melting.

Here are some prayer points for the month...

• A few weeks ago we had a television crew come and film our REC bible study group, for a  “religious” program that is run regularly on national TV. The program seeks to  inform people about different religious groups in Slovenia, so we were happy for them to come and see what we do and why. Pray that when the program goes to air, people who see it might be challenged to read their Bibles and consider the truths of the Scriptures. We hope that it will also be positive advertising for our church.
• Our women’s bible study group have come to the end of our study of Galatians. We were all particularly challenged by the practical instructions of the last chapter; to make sure our actions are in step with a Spirit filled life, to carry each other’s burdens and to not become weary in doing good. Pray for us as we seek to live this out in our day to day lives. We all decided that for our next series of studies, we will look at the topic of “contentment”. For this we will be following a series of six studies produced by the Good Book Company in England. This is an area that many women (all over the world) find challenging. Please pray that God will help us to understand his will for our lives and give us the gift of contentment.
• It is visa time again! Mark received a temporary working visa several years ago, and the rest of the family have had visas for shorter durations over this period. It has been a blessing that we have been able to obtain visas during the past 8 years without too much hassle – just a lot of paperwork. All our visas are again due for renewal at the end of March, so Mark has been collecting all the documents in order to obtain permanent residency here. This is taking our residency status here to a new level. The only real benefit of this is the reduction in effort required to continually renew visas. We are hoping it has tax implications, allowing us to pay tax here (which we wouldn’t because we don’t earn enough), and hopefully will result in lowering schooling fees for the children. Please pray for a smooth visa application process.
• Praise God that our health has been considerably better over the past month. Thanks for your prayers. The children still have niggling colds, but overall we are enjoying much better health.
• On the home front, Rochelle has been busy with school enrolments for Matej (he will start at our local school in the new school year starting September) and organising for Philippa to transfer to the preschool around the corner from our new house (also in Sept). We are very thankful that we already know the principal and her assistant at the preschool, as the children’s current preschool comes under this main one. They have been very kind to us in allowing her to transfer and making it as smooth as possible for us (a very rare thing!). Although it is while off, please pray the both children will be put in good classes, with teachers who can accommodate non-native speakers.
• We are looking forward to Rochelle’s parents joining us for a few weeks at Easter. It will be lovely to spend time with them and have some extra helping hands around the house. The children are already counting the days until they come! Pray that we will have good quality time with them and that we might be able to recharge our batteries a bit while they are here.

In Christ,

The Groombridges