Fifteen energetic workers distributed 20,000 flyers all across the city of Kragujevac, Serbia—along with 450 posters and radio and television spots. Then, despite the fact that we were told that not many come to such outreach programs anymore, on the very first night we were blessed with over 100 visitors to hear Dragan Ivanov give the first presentation on How to Eat Healthy. About half of the people had come because of the flyers and half from the posters. Only one came from the TV and radio ads.
The Sabbath morning worship service was not advertised on any of the flyers, but we told the visitors that we would be speaking on the same subject from a biblical perspective the next morning—and we invited them to come. We were pleasantly surprised when 20 of the visitors came to hear it! They really enjoyed the spiritual food—and hearing about the vegetarian diet from the Bible was something really new to them. As Dragan Ivanov began the evening meeting on How to Overcome Stress, he spoke to a room full of people. There were about 140 attendees for the evening presentation. When we announced the spiritual program beginning the following week, almost everyone took a flyer on the way out, and many books—not just about health—were purchased.
On Sunday, many people had to go back to work, so we had only approximately 120 attendees with some new faces to listen to Emotions and Health. One difficulty was to have the transition from health to spiritual topics in such a short time. As Dragan gave 11 points on how to improve the emotional health to avoid depression, his 10th point was on prayer. After he finished, he invited me to come forward to introduce the spiritual meetings. (I told them they are not the only ones that ask where I am from. Even in the USA and Australia they ask the same question. However, they were shocked that I was born only 80 kms—48 miles—from this city. I spoke in Serbian but assured them that I would speak through a translator the next week.) As I reminded them about the 10th point from the presentation that evening, we invited them to speak to our God as we closed the meeting in prayer. As they were leaving and getting additional flyers, many assured us that they would see us on Friday night. Again the book stand was very busy, as people really wanted not only the health books and DVD’s, but also the spiritual books.
Please pray for us that the Lord will continue His magnificent work in bringing souls to the meetings and eventually the present truth for our time.