Starting Off 2019!

Hello, friends!

December and January were full of ministry opportunities, celebrations and festivities!  Here are some of the things we've been up to:

1. Church Christmas

Abigail was very excited to be a part of the Christmas program for our church! She sang in the choir, and led the kids' ministry bell choir, which debuted at our Christmas service. It was a huge success, and everyone loved seeing their children perform something new, so well!

2. Young Adult Ministries

Dan continues to be a part of the country's leadership team for the Young Adult Ministries. They are in the process of planning the Winter camp, and have had a number of worship nights. Dan has greatly enjoyed getting to know some of the pastors better - in fact, he and a pastor friend will be attending a symposium in Spain next month, hosted by the Assemblies of God, about reaching secular people. We are thrilled to be a part of the ministry towards the youth of Slovenia!

3. Bethany Global University Missions Trip

Our church in Ljubljana is a host site for Bethany Global University interns. We currently have 6 students taking part in the training. Our pastor asked us to help them find some areas of ministry. Abigail's mom, fellow missionary Jocelyn Gracza has taught English at one of the Hungarian high schools in Budapest (actually, the school where Abigail and her brothers attended), and was able to have the interns go and facilitate conversational English lessons. Dan even ended up substitute teaching for one of Abigail's former teachers! We were so glad to be able to strengthen the relationship with this high school, as well as help the Bethany students fulfill some of their academic requirements.

4. Friends and Neighbors


We have loved getting to know our friends from church, as well as from our son's school. God has blessed us with exceptional people, who we are blessed to live in fellowship with. We spent Thanksgiving with a family from church, have had cookie decorating parties, baby showers and play dates. At Christmas time, we once again baked cookies and delivered them to our neighbors. Through this we've gotten to know our one neighbor and her dog, another neighbor had cookies for us too, and we have a mommy-baby walk planned.

Najlepša hvala, thank you so much for your love and support! We couldn't do any of these things, if it weren't for your prayers, encouragement and partnership! As always, we appreciate you more than you know!

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!

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!

Our First Couple Weeks in Slovenia

Well, we've been gone a since Aug. 28th, and our life has been a whirlwind, but we wanted to give you all an update!

Pastor Jonathan and Al from Oceanway Assembly gave us a ride to the airport on Monday, August 28th.  We loaded up our bags, and boarded the first of 3 flights.

Our little missionary kid, dreaming about his new home!

After 19 hours of international traveling, we arrived in Hungary.  Here, we stayed with Abigail's parents, where we got over jet lag, and prepared to move to Slovenia.

After a couple days, we were very thankful to let Aidan stay with his grandparents, while we went on a week-long house hunting, and prepping trip.

One of our first pictures after crossing the border into Slovenia.  We automatically fell in love!

We were so honored and pleased to meet Dr. Daniel, the superintendent of the Slovenian Pentecostal movement, his lovely wife Vlasta, as well as see his daughter and son-in-law, Tina and Andrej - who also happen to be our friends from Bible college!  They graciously invited us to their home in Murska Sobota, and we enjoyed a wonderful time of fellowship.

After nearly 2 years of talking about it, we were FINALLY in Ljubljana, our new home!  That is the castle in the background, and to the right of us, the university where we plan to take our Slovenian language classes.

We spent the next few days viewing apartments and houses, as well as getting to know our new home a little better.  Here are some of the notable moments:

1. Trying out the local market

 This is an automatic milk dispenser.  It is local, raw milk.  You can buy one of the bottles provided, or bring your own - and fill them up!  It's one of the neatest things we've ever seen!

 There was scrumptious-looking local fruit...

 vegetables...










flowers... as well as honey, mushrooms, dairy products, meats and more!

2. One of the days, we went up to the top of the castle, to get a birds-eye view our this beautiful city!  It's surrounded by mountains all around!  We also had to find the dragon on Dragon Bridge.  The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, and is featured heavily around the city!

3. Getting to know our neighborhood

 We were feeling brave one day, and the local pastor named Chris graciously allowed us to park our rental car in the church parking lot, so we took the bus!  The Ljubljana bus system is extensive, and easy to navigate.  We look forward to our public transportation adventures!

This is one our local grocery stores, it's actually the Slovenian (and Austrian) version of Aldi.  It was fun seeing all the grocery options!






4. Trying the local food

 We decided to take the attitude of "if it looks good, try it!"  And we did!  Honestly, everything we tried tasted wonderful!  They do lots of different kinds of cured meats, and spreads, dumplings, yummy desserts and more.

Abigail even tried this purple cheese.  We have no idea what it's called, what it is exactly, or what animal it comes from, but it was good!










5. Home Hunting
We were very thankful to find an apartment that first week we were there!  The apartment we found is right in front of a bus stop (with buses coming regularly, taking us either downtown, or to the church here in Ljubljana), there is a post office across the street, and a grocery store within short walking distance.  We signed the contract and went back to Hungary to get Aidan, and buy some furnishings for our new place.

6. IKEA

 This is what it looks like, to furnish an entire home with IKEA!  We were so thankful to find all the things we needed!  

 Waiting to load it all up!

Who needs a seatbelt, when you're hugging two mattresses, lol???








7. The MOVE

So, on September 15th, we moved into our new apartment!  After living with a dear friend, and in and out of hotels for over 2 years, we cannot express the joy it felt to have a home to call our own!  Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us get to this point!






8. Getting Adjusted

 We don't have a car yet, so we've been mostly walking everywhere.  On one rainy day, we decided to walk to our local grocery store!

 It was overall a great experience, and it was fun to see the different way they do things.  For example, when you bag your produce, you then come over to this machine, where you punch in the produce's code, and it prints out a label for you.

We loaded up our bags and stroller, balanced an umbrella each, and walked back to our apartment, with some necessities and yummy things to eat!  We are so thankful for this grocery store, called Tuš (pronounced Tush - yeah, we've had fun with that)!  It's a great location, and easy to get to!

We've also been riding the bus, which Aidan is particularly fond of!  He keeps making friends with the people sitting next to us, and he loves pushing the button to indicate we want to get off!

So what are we up to now?

We are in the process of applying for our visas (please keep us in your prayers about that, specifically for favor), we will hopefully be purchasing our Speed the Light vehicle soon (thank you, PFYOUTH!!!), and we will also be looking into schooling options for Aidan, and language school for us.

Thank you SO much for all your love and support, we couldn't do any of this without you!

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