Annual Women Conference, Serbia
16 May 2010
On May 16, sisters from Serbia had their annual conference in a small place, but very nice, new church building. The place is called Erdevik, near to the border with Croatia. The theme of our conference was "Love your neighbour – ministry at work/in practice", and the bible text as a base for the theme was 1 John 3:18 "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."
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Our host sisters made everything possible for us, that we feel home. At the beginning of service, the church building was out of electric power, but that didn't stop us to rejoice and praise our Lord with songs. The pastor of the church, Darko Kaljik, greeted warmly all sisters who came to the conference, he was excited because that was the first Sister's conference held in their church.
Worship team led us in wonderful singing and they even found and old song "Love your neighbour" as a hymn for the conference. Sisters responded in a great number, mostly from the northern part of Serbia, but we were blessed with the presence of some sisters from central and south Serbia. The main speaker was Melita Vidovic from Belgrade and she reminded us what good deeds are and what aren't. She also emphasized the difference between submission and obedience, which we often don't realize. Submission is serving God with joy, obedience is executing God's commandments without joy. We can love our neighbour and show that love in deeds only if our relationship with God is right.
After we go home from the conference, we are responsible:
1. not trying to buy salvation by good deeds;
2. not trying to impress God with your good deeds;
3. to submit ourselves to God
4. in obedience to choose blessings for our lives
5. to cherish daily a personal relationship with God through prayer and studying His word;
6. to cherish the fellowship with sisters and brothers; to not neglect church meetings;
7. to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
We're more than grateful to God for our new leader for sister's work in Serbia, sister Maria Nagy. Sister Marija Andricek prayed for her future ministry. Sister Marija had been for a long time the responsible for Ladies' work in the whole ex-Yugoslavia. At this conference we were privileged to present our new board member, sister Lidija Gages, responsible for the Slovak-speaking churches.
A great blessing for all of us were the testimonies of our much more experienced sisters in Ladies' work, Marija Andricek, Ruth Lehotsky and Stefica Orcic. Lot of us were moved by the question sister Ruth asked us: "what benefit has your church from you" and "what benefit has your home, your neighbours and society because you are a Christian". We were encouraged by other spontaneous testimonies sisters shared with us.
At lunch time we were asked to meet at least one sister we have never met before. So, sisters met each other, had fellowship and enjoyed God's presence, love and fellowship.
We're looking forward to seeing each other at the next conference, and to seeing some of you, sisters from Europe, in our midst.
In Christ's love,
The sisters from Serbia
Lidija Dega
