Closing Out 2018

Dear friends,

Thank you for being on this journey with us as we settle into our new normal.  It has been a little longer than usual since our last update, as we have had a little less sleep, a little fuller days, and a lot more love to go around.

1. Late Summer

Dan is on the leadership team for the Slovenian Young Adult Ministries.  As part of that responsibility, he helped plan and organize the Summer camp.  He and another Slovene pastor were asked to host an "American" themed night.  It was a great time of fellowship, fun, games and great food!  Thanks to Light For The Lost funds, we were able to give every student in attendance a copy of True Identity/Prava Identita, that had just recently been translated into Slovene.

He also helped a Slovene home missionary to the Roma communities with a week-long summer camp for children.  We were able to give every child there a Slovene Action Bible - a kids' Bible in their very own language!  For many of them, it is the only Bible the have access to.

2. A New Ministry Team Member

In September we welcomed the newest member of our team!  Abigail gave birth to our littles missionary here in Slovenia, in a city called Postojna.  The medical care was wonderful, and baby and mommy did great!  Big brother is completely smitten, as are we all!  Thank you to all of you who congratulated us, and sent notes of love and joy!

3. The Puzzle

Our "Puzzle" project is moving forward wonderfully!  Two weeks after the arrival of our Peanut, we spent two days recording the Slovene voices for the characters.  It went wonderfully! We've since received the finished copy, and it sounds great!

We also just received the costumes in the mail!  Once the new year starts, we're hoping to start putting together the actors and practices!  Thank you so much for praying with us about this exciting ministry opportunity!

4. Training and Missionary Fellowshipping

During our first term (3 years) as missionaries, every year we attend a "First Term" retreat.  It is a terrific time, full of friends (especially for the kiddos), being ministered to, learning new things and being spiritually fed.

After that, we went to our Southeast area conference.  It was on a Hungarian horse ranch, where we were encouraged to relax, fellowship and unwind.  It was great to see new friends, and make some new ones.  Our son especially enjoyed getting to ride a horse!  One really exciting fact - every single missionary in our area who was on the field was in attendance - around 80 of us!

5. Regional Director Visiting

We were honored to have our Europe Regional Director, Paul Trementozzi come and visit us at the end of November.  He came to speak at the Slovene pastors' meeting, and preach at two of the Slovene national churches.  He spoke on unity, cooperation, and the importance of personal Sabbath.  Thanks to our Speed the Light vehicle, Dan was able to drive Paul to all of the meetings throughout Slovenia.  We are so thankful for our safe and reliable transportation, thanks to our PenFlorida youth!

Thank you all so much for your continued prayers, love and support!  We hope you all have a blessed holiday season, and a very happy New Year!

What's Up With The Blairs?

Hello, dear friends!

Well, another season has passed, and as we are on the cusp of Summer, which holds many exciting new ministry opportunities, we wanted to take the time to let you know what we've been up to lately! 

Language School



For the past 3 1/2 months we have been attending language school through the university. We have thoroughly enjoyed it, the teachers were excellent, we feel like we've gained a lot of knowledge, and we've enjoyed getting to know our classmates. Abigail has developed a real friendship with one of the ladies in the group (whose children actually go to the same preschool as Aidan).  It has been a great way to build relationships!




Church Life

We've become more and more involved in our local church here in Ljubljana. Dan has been a part of the men's group and has had the opportunity to help with many everyday things that go into running the church. He has recently been to an all-pastors' meeting, and has been invited to preach at the Slovenian superintendent's church in Ženavlje this Sunday. Abigail has been volunteering in the nursery, helping with kids' programs and has recently joined the worship team. 


Around Slovenia



We took a trip to one of the cities here in Slovenia, called Piran. It is on the coast, and one of its famous buildings is a church named after Saint George. As we were standing there taking in the beauty of the church, we noticed this sentence graffitied on the electrical box: "God is a joke". (Far right of the picture.) This image illustrates the general spiritual climate in Slovenia so well - churches are no longer places of worship, but rather tourist attractions, and most people feel that they have no need for God - that He is a joke.
The other picture was taken at the church in the main square of Ljubljana during a regular service. It was very sad to see so many empty pews in a building originally built for the worship of God.





Coming Up!



We have a very busy and fun-filled summer ahead!  This week we have a leadership conference that Dan is helping with, called Voditi z Namenom (Lead with Purpose). For most of July we will be helping with camp. Dan has been asked to be on the planning team for the young adults' camp, and we are hosting an "American Night", with games, American snacks and prizes. A special thanks to John and Temple Gracza for sending us party supplies, and to Paul and Lori Traver and Kaiserslautern Assembly of God for blessing us with the fun and yummy snacks! The local church we attend here has a book publishing company. They are in the process of translating a book called True Identity. Thanks to Light For The Lost, we have been able to preorder 200 of them to give to everyone attending youth and young adult camp! We have also been able to purchase 100 Action Bible New Testaments to give to every child attending kids' camp! Many of the children there will be from an unchurched background, and this will be their only access to the Gospel. We've also been asked to help with a camp specifically for Gypsy/Roma children, and will be able to give them Action Bible New Testaments too. We are so thankful for this opportunity to support both our local church, as well as the Pentecostal Movement.
We're also very excited, because "The Puzzle" (Sestavljanka in Slovene) has now been translated into Slovene! "The Puzzle" is a terrific children's outreach tool that we will be starting here in Slovenia soon - hopefully by the Fall. We are now in the process of finding voice actors, we've ordered the costumes, then after all that we'll be recording the performances, training the team and traveling to churches and schools all around Slovenia! Thank you, BGMC for making this dream a reality!




Prayer Requests



There are many of you who have reached out to us, asking what you can be praying for, and we'd like to share them with you:

- Summer Camps -  especially that the books and Bibles that we are able to provide will be a blessing! Pray that hearts and lives would be changed, and that the hope and love of Christ would be felt.

- "The Puzzle" project - We are very excited at the prospects of what we will be able to do with this ministry tool, and are praying for God's guidance each step of the way.

- Our Neighbors - as we've gotten to know more people in our neighborhood, the tug on our hearts for the Slovenian people has only grown stronger. Please pray that they would soon know the freedom we have in Jesus.

- The Churches - that we would be able to make connections in the other churches around the country, and would be a blessing to the Slovenian Pentecostal Movement.

- Our Pregnancy - so far, we've had a very healthy and normal pregnancy, and we ask that you continue to pray for health and safety for our little girl.



Thank you for your continued love, prayer and support. We are honored to have you as our ministry partners! We pray God's blessing over you!

Spring Has Sprung!

Vesele velikonočne praznike!  Happy Easter!

The weeks leading up to Easter were very busy for us, full of ministry and friends!  Here are some of the highlights:

Ministry

In March, Dan had the great pleasure of attending/helping at the Pentecostal Movement's Winter youth conference, and then the next weekend the young adult conference.

Students from all over the country were there, worshipping Jesus!

There were over 80 high schoolers, and over 60 college-aged students there!  

During the youth conference, Dan was able to help with the recording of a video for the leadership that they could use, among other things.  He was also happy to help out in the kitchen, and grill breakfast sausages!

At this same time, Abigail was attending, and helping with the Europe's Children Energia Conference, held in Budapest, Hungary.  This conference was for anyone working in children's ministry in Europe.  There were people there from far and wide, learning new ways to reach the children in their churches and Bible classes.  Because Abigail grew up in Hungary, she was able to help with translation, registration, and did a TED Talk on ways to use Pinterest in ministry.

During our time here in Slovenia, we have befriended a lady from Russia.  She and her family lived at the refugee center here in Ljubljana for their first year.  She has a heart for the families who are living at the refugee center now, and asked us to help her with blessing them this Easter - and of course we were thrilled to do so!

Thanks to our Speed the Light vehicle - which we filled with groceries twice - were were able to buy groceries for 15 families.

The next day, we went to the refugee center with the groceries as well as Bibles in their heart languages.

There were families there from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Russia, and a few other places.  We were able to tell them that Jesus loves them, and that they are special to us.  

We are hoping to be able to do this on a more regular basis.  Please be praying for our new friends, that God would open their hearts to His love, that we would be able to reach meet their physical needs, as well as spiritual ones.  We are so thankful for this opportunity to share God's love!

Abigail has started volunteering in the church's nursery, which she enjoys - especially because the kids speak about the same amount of Slovene as she does!  We have a few other projects in the works, which we are excited to share with you in the next few months!

Language Learning

We've been taking language classes through the university for about a month now.  We are in separate classes, which has been fun for us!  We've been getting to know our new classmates - many of the exercises have involved introducing ourselves, or describing why we are in Slovenia - which always leads to questions during the coffee break.

We are enjoying understanding more and more of the language, being able to read signs, order off menus and read the notes on the bulletin board at our son's school!

Speaking of his school, he is coming home speaking more Slovene words every day!  He loves school (and sometimes cries when we pick him up, because he doesn't want to leave), his new friends and teachers.  We are so proud of his bravery and sweet spirit!  We've been being more and more "Slovene", with our big guy riding his bike to school when weather permits.

Family News

We recently found out that we are expecting a sweet baby girl, due to arrive in September!  We are so excited and thankful for this newest addition to our family!  Please be praying for us, that we would have a smooth pregnancy and delivery!

We had a wonderful Easter holiday, making new traditions, and getting a bird's-eye view of our beautiful new home!  We pray that you all also enjoyed a blessed and peaceful Easter celebrating Jesus' love!

As always, we are so thankful for your continued prayers and support!  It is so encouraging to know that there are people lifting us up on a daily basis!  We could not be here without you!

Winter Update From The Blairs

Greetings from Slovenia!

It's been a while since we've given you all an update, and to be quite honest, it's because of... life!

We are really settling into our new home, and getting used to our new normal.

We were delighted to get to spend our first holiday season in Slovenia, and our first "real" winter in a long time - this Florida-transplant family forgot about the cold!

So, we just wanted to give you all a short update on what we've been up to in the past couple months.  

Christmas

We were so excited and honored to be a part of the Christmas program at the local church we attend, here in Ljubljana!  Our big guy played the part of a wiseman, and was part of the children's choir!  It was extra special to hear him singing Christmas carols in Slovene!

On Christmas Day, we were so thankful to have Christmas dinner at the church with a few other families.  One of the families from the church hosts it every year, especially for those who don't have family nearby.  We loved getting to spend Christmas day with our new church family!

We also delivered cookies to our neighbors in our apartment building.  With the help our language teacher, we wrote each one of them a note, wishing them a very Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year.  Then, we went to each door and introduced ourselves - in (broken) Slovene!  It can be difficult to get to know one's neighbors, especially in an apartment building, but we're hoping that through interactions such as these, we'll be able to build meaningful relationships with them!

Language Learning

This is definitely NOT the glamorous side of missions, but it is the foundation, the groundwork without which we won't be able to truly reach Slovenia.  So, we have been working hard at our Slovene language classes.  Here are some examples of how much we've learned in the past few months:

We've had language classes for about 3 1/2 months.  We have learned how to introduce ourselves, talk about the weather, give directions, talk about motion, conjugate verbs, express possession of nouns, describe our families, lots and lots of grammatical rules, and we just started learning the past and future tenses.

We could not be more pleased with our tutor - she is very knowledgeable (she teaches at the university), patient, she loves her language - which in return makes us love her language, and she has a wonderful way of tying in what we're learning about Slovene with the culture.

Our teacher is actually leaving for 3 months, for a job outside of the country.  Please join us in praying for her, that she would be able to adjust well to her new surroundings, she would enjoy her job posting, and would... come back!

In the meantime, we will be taking a course at the university for the 3 months that she is gone.  We took a placement test earlier this week, and classes start at the beginning of March.  Please be praying for us, that we would make new friends at our courses, that our Slovene knowledge would deepen, and we would have a good time doing it!

Ministry

We were so excited to visit one of the other churches in the Pentecostal movement, a church in Murska Sobota.  In the type of coincide that only God can bring together, the pastor of that church was actually a friend of ours from college, at Continental Theological Seminary in Belgium.  We had a wonderful time sharing with them!  We introduced ourselves in Slovene, as well as we could, and then Dan shared his testimony, and how the Lord orchestrated everything for us to be able to come here.  We look forward to being able to visit more of the churches in the future, and building relationships.

Speaking of relationships, we've been very excited to get to know some of the children and parents from our son's school!  In the afternoons, we all seem to pick up our kids at the same time, which has been a great way to meet.  These pictures were taken on a hill near buddy's school, where we got to have some fun.  In the next few months, we're hoping to meet some of the parents for coffee, or arrange play dates, so we would appreciate you praying for those relationships as well!

As always, we appreciate your prayers, your love, and your support!  Thank you for making it possible for us to minister in Slovenia, we couldn't be here without you!