Dear brothers and sisters,
We hope you are doing well! Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. It is a great honor to share with you what God is doing in Serbia. Please leave some comments and prayer requests in the comments section, we would be glad to read them and pray for you!
About Us and Building Repairs
We are so thankful for all of you that is always praying for our family and ministry. Stefan had some exams with the doctor and praise the Lord his chronicle disease is under control. Sofia is growing fast, she is already 4 months old, she is almost turning around, loves to look at everything, and to laugh.
We are so happy that Mari’s family could come to visit and meet Sofia, even her grandma, who lives in Brazil could come. It was a special time together as a family and we will cherish that forever.
Our roof is finally repaired, thank you to everyone who prayed and helped. There are still some minor damages in the building but God will provide for that in His time. This was also a great opportunity to testify to our neighbors, pray that they will want to know more about Christ.
Ministry Updates
Stefan had the privilege to preach in our church a couple of times in the church service and in the Thursday meetings. He is in charge of recording the sermons on Sunday so we can put them on the YouTube channel of Spiritual Library to be able to reach more people. We also continue to organize the worship in our church and encourage the youth to participate not only in singing but also in playing instruments.
We were so happy to watch the baptism of one of the girls from our church, she is a great encouragement and she is currently studying at the Bible Institute in Hungary. Keep her in your prayers, please.
Stefan could also help to unload a truck full of Christian literature that the ministry we are part of could print, give away during evangelism, and share with other churches. Please pray for the leadership of the ministry and everyone who is involved to have strength to move and organize all of these books.
This year we could not help with Word of Life camps because we had a newborn at home to take care of, but Stefan was able to help with some graphic design and designing the camp T-shirts. We also were able to visit one of the camps for a day and it was very encouraging and nostalgic! They are doing great work over there. also
The Christian podcast will finally start in October. The focus will be to produce sound teaching, quality Christian material, short answers to tough questions in Christianity, and much more.
There are very few people that create any kind of Christian content in Serbia and this area is something important to invest in.
Continue praying for this project. We were able to raise all the money that we needed for the podcast to start. For the future we still need to invest in a good computer and furniture, but all that can wait for God to provide in his time. Pray that God will give us wisdom, humility, time, devotion, and the correct mindset.
If you also want to help with financial support, you may do that. Any amount is going to be useful.
We are very thankful that God provided for this project. We can see His hand in this and are excited to start the podcast. With this we want to thank everyone who helped praying and financially. If it had to be only from our own finances, we would not be able to do it.
prayer requests
We are grateful for your prayers and for partnering with us in our ministry. Here are our prayer requests:
Praise: We are thankful that Sofia is growing well and that Stefan`s exam showed that the disease is under control. We are thankful that we could rebuild the roof of our building.
- Family from our church – pray for a little boy from our church called Relia, he is 6 years old and his cancer has come back. Pray for God to give him strength in this new cycle of treatments and for his parents to continue to trust in God in this hard time. They both had to pause their job to take him to the hospital em Belgrade where they have better doctors, our church is raising some money to help, if God puts in your heart to help as well you can send us a message. Any amount would be a great help to them!
- Mia’s Bible School Studying – As we mentioned, Mia is in BI and she needs prayers. Please pray for God to teach her, shape her, and bring her home more useful for His ministry. Pray also for financial support. Word of Life Serbia was able to raise some money, but not all. She still needs financial aid. Please pray and share with others about this need.
- Podcast – Please continue to pray for the Podcast ministry as it is something that we are new at and need a lot of wisdom.
Our Ministry – keep praying for our ministry and that God can use us for His glory in this ministry. - Parenting Journey – pray for our parenting journey with Sofia, that God will give us wisdom and that we will teach her always in the Lord`s way.
- Language learning – pray for Mari as she is learning Serbian.
- Support Raising – pray that God will continue to provide for us. We continue in the process of raising support so that we can work full-time in the ministry. Pray as well if God is putting on your heart to be partners with us in this ministry. Stefan has to work on the side to be able to support our financial needs, but we pray that in the future we will have enough support to go full-time ministry as we continue to give all our needs before the Lord!
- Auto-immune Disease – as you know Stefan has a chronicle disease called Ulcerative Colitis, there is no cure but it can be controlled. After a time of struggle with the disease, God heard and answered our prayers. Stefan did another colonoscopy exam and the doctors said that the sickness is in remission, which means that it calmed down. It’s still there, but it’s under control which is very encouraging. Thank you for your constant prayers for that. This is great news because it is hard to achieve that in the first 2 years of treatment. Pray that the medication will keep it dormant for the rest of his life and that he won’t have big problems with that in the future.
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. We are very thankful for all of you amazing people who encourage us and pray for us!
Please let us know how we can pray for you!
God bless,
Stefan and Mariana Vika.
Thank you for sharing your email with me .Congratulations on your new baby .I read all your prayer requests and plan to pray for the work God is doing there ,among other things as well .Keep me in your prayers too ,that l walk humbly before God .