Hello St Wilfrid's!

I really want to thank all of you who supported me on my trip to Serbia last month, whether it was financially or through prayer, it meant everything to me, so thank you!

The trip was fantastic, it was filled with engaging with Serbian students as well as travelling around the beautiful Balkans. The camp was an amazing place to be, full of Christians and non Christians living together, sharing meals and becoming friends! Many of us on the UCCF team described it as a "glimpse of heaven" and it certainly was! 

The times of worship were mainly in Serbian, but a large amount of the songs were translated from ones we would sing in the UK. Knowing what the words meant and hearing them in a different language was such an emotional experience, to hear people from other nations singing out to God! 

Although it was a camp for Serbian students, it happened to turn into an international camp! With Serbians, Russians, Croatians, Americans, other Brits, 2 Hungarians and 1 Canadian! This was really comforting as it didn't mean us Brits were the odd ones out, it felt like we were all the odd ones out a little bit. If you have ever been on any kind of mission trip, you'll know that you prepare yourself beforehand, both practically and spiritually, filling yourself up ready to pour out, this is what I did. However, I could never imagine that I would leave feeling more filled spiritually than when I got there! My cup was truly overflowing with the love and grace of God! What a marvellous God he is!

While at the camp there were many students who were not already Christians, one of these was Faith (I have changed the name). At the beginning of the week Faith wanted nothing to do with the camp sessions, especially not after a 12 hour coach journey to the camp! Faith and her friend had planned to stay inside one of the buildings while everyone else was in the main tent attending the sessions. As the week moved on, Faith and her friend got a bit bored of missing out, and were drawn to the main tent. The two of them began to attend sessions and to engage with the worship. They had asked if they could run a First Aid workshop on the Thursday evening, as they were both training to be doctors and have been involved in some extreme sports. Two hours before this session, Faith while talking with a leader, gave her life to Jesus!! This was an amazing transformation from the beginning of the week and we cannot thank God enough! It was amazing to be able to spend time with Faith for the two days after the camp also, where she bought her first bible and has been reading it eagerly since! By the end of our time in Serbia all of the UCCF team had formed such a close bond to Faith, making it really hard to goodbye, luckily she is going to attend UCCF's yearly conference Forum next month as she was planning to come to the UK anyway!

There are many other stories of students from the camp, and in total throughout the week 5 students gave their lives to Jesus for the first time!

This camp is a time I will look back on for years to come and I will always be remembering more things about it, there was some moments where God was really showing me that he was there, like when I happened to meet a man who worked at the camp, from the UK, who before living in Bosnia, lived in a town 5 minutes from my home!!

Through this trip God has really shown me that he is above all! He is above divided nations, and his gospel is truly international and is truly for all people! The trip has made me so thankful for living in the UK, the sacrifice for a young person saying they are following Jesus can involve being kicked out by parents for 'abandoning the orthodox faith' or other reasons, but it isn't an easy decision to make by any means, and I am so thankful for the freedoms that we have in the UK to follow Jesus, and I will continually pray for more freedoms in Serbia for people to follow Jesus! 

One final note about the trip, towards the end of the trip one of the members on the UCCF team, Ben, said a phrase which really stuck with me. "International mission IS local mission." By this he means you can't go on international mission and expect to swoop in an solve all their problems with Jesus and then swoop back out, you must treat it as local mission, become a local, get to know the people. We were travelling into a country which was Christian before the UK had even heard of Christ! We immediately had to throw away the mindset that we are taking Jesus to them! They already have Jesus, they have just lost sight of him, through idols and traditions. Approaching this trip as "local mission" was absolutely how it was best to do it, you cannot evangelise without knowing people, and spending time with them, after all that is what Jesus did! 

That is a short round up of some of the things from my trip and there are many more stories and experiences to tell, so when I am back at St Wilfrid’s in September please feel free to ask me about the trip, I would love to share more about it! So, one final thank you to everyone who has helped this trip to happen, in prayer and in practice, it has been a huge blessing to me, and the Serbians were very grateful for our help!

Thanks and God Bless,

Elliot