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OPEN THE FLOODGATES OF HEAVEN
#September 2022
Europe is a hard mission field. We don’t suffer from persecution like one would in China, North Korea, or the Middle Eastern Countries. In Europe the ground is hard. I have said before that at times it has felt like we were hitting at the ground with a pickax for 20 years with only a small hole as proof. Europe needs a heavy rain of revival to soften the hard ground! For over 20 years, our church has never stopped praying. Our Tuesday morning and mid-week prayer meetings have gone on despite great discouragement and oftentimes a desire to quit because no one would show up. I believe we were soaking hardened ground and just now we are beginning to see results. 
GROWTH

For Easter Sunday we added 10 chairs. As quickly as we added them, they were filled. A few weeks later we added 10 more. They also were very quickly filled. A couple of weeks ago we added another 10 chairs and yet again on Sunday, our sanctuary was completely full! We have no more space to add chairs. Our altar area has already been shortened, every corner and possible cranny has been filled with chairs. For 20+ years one of our goals has been to reach and surpass “the 100 mark” in attendance. We’d gain a few people, loose a few people, and consistently stay at 50-70 people. We have been at the 100 mark and surpassed it months ago and were so busy, that we didn’t even realize it!

We do have some new strategies in place to make more space in our sanctuary, but what a wonderful change. There is new life and energy in our congregation that has never been there before. 
WORK WITH THE UKRAINIANS

In a wonderful answer to prayer, donations came in to purchase 4 laptops for our Ukrainian refugees. The children have enrolled in school, and we had one student enroll in the Faculty of Science. It was her heart’s desire to enroll in the department of Physics and she was able to make that dream come true here in Croatia. One gentleman arrived in Croatia three months ago. He was allowed out of Ukraine due to a handicap/injury from several years ago. But he arrived on a work visa and because of that, was not allowed the refugee privileges. However, his bag was stolen with all his documentation and for three months, he lived homeless, sleeping in parks, and living off the kindness of passersby. In the end someone brought him to the hostel where some of our refugees are staying and they invited him to church. We’ve been helping him and through a miracle of God we’ve been able to get him refugee status. We noticed he was having difficulty seeing and so we took him to an optometrist and got him glasses. He had no cell phone, so we were able to take care of that, as well. Since his first time to church, he has attended each service regularly. It truly is our honor to serve these precious people.

Please be praying for their teenagers. Many of them are really struggling right now with fitting in. They miss their friends and their schools in Ukraine. Their mothers need wisdom in helping them find their niche here in Croatia.
PRAISE REPORT>

>Our church has almost doubled in the past 6 months.
>God provided our Ukrainians with 4 laptops.
>Churches in Croatia were placed in the category of domestic gas consumer.
ANSWER TO PRAYER

For years churches in Croatia have paid industrial consumer prices for gas heating. It was an injustice we couldn’t control, and we began to pray about it. With the prices of gas going up, the Catholic church began to react and sent an appeal to the prime minister Andrej Plenkovic requesting that churches be placed in the category of domestic consumer. This request was granted last month when some of the industrial consumer’s gas prices were raised 1000%! God is so faithful. He cares for our every need.

If you are feeling discouraged today, may these testimonies of his faithfulness encourage you. It may seem like it is taking so long for him to answer your prayers, but “the prayers of a righteous man avail much”. Never ever give up!

Thank you for your consistent prayer and support of our ministry. May the Lord richly bless you.

Blessings,
Mario & Bonnie Ducic
PRAYER REQUEST>

>For our Ukrainian teenagers to be able to settle in here and be open to making friendships among our Croatian teens.
>For our leadership base to expand and wisdom to handle the growth of our church.
>For our monthly support to grow because of the current inflation.
Croatian Evangelistic Outreach