Macedonia Tour 2005 Debriefing Letter: (Click Here to See Pictures)

A Little About the Tour
We the tour to Macedonia was October of 2005. Macedonia (also known as FYROM - Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia) is located in the southern Balkans and is a yellow country just above Greece on the map on the left). The population is made up of Macedonians and Albanians. The vast majority of Macedonians are Orthodox and the majority of Albanians are Muslim. We spent two and a half weeks touring to various cities in Macedonia. We gave ten concerts in various towns in both Orthodox areas and Muslim ones. All of our concerts were in indoor venues such as theatres and cinemas. We averaged about 300-350 people per night.

Our Role
B-House's primary role was sharing the Gospel with people who attended the concerts. Before the concerts he would help set up the lighting and at times on of the cameras. During the concerts he ususally ran one of the video camera (we had a big screen behind the band with live action from one of three cameras) or did still photography.

B-House had the opportunity to share the Gospel with about 15-20 people through the tour, including with both Orthodox and Muslims. Although he didn't have anyone pray to receive Christ, he did have spend a lot of time with one young man (about 25) who said he wanted to receive Christ and another, Masko, who was very close to receiving Christ but just wasn't ready for the final step. As a team we did see a few people come to Christ. We were told that we had done a huge number of people had heard the Gospel for the country and that we had done many ground-breaking things that many thought would was not possible.

Reflections
This tour was someone challenging physically. We didn't have as much gear as we do for outdoor tours but we still had quite a bit. The tour was more demanding in the usual way of late nights (2-3am), somewhat early mornings (varied) and not as much food (some meals were absolutely fabulous and others were more creative). We had a very healthy team dynamic with generally good relations with all team members. The band was one of the best we've ever had (we had a guitar/lead vocalists from Florida, keyboard player from Croatia, dummer from Calif., percussionist from Texas, Suprano sax from Spain, Tenor Sax from Calif., Trombone from German, Bass Guitar from Germany & Flute player from Germany. They played a combination of Jazz, Blues & Fussion (still not sure what that is).

In other respects, it was very challenging trying to break through the Catholic barriers in people’s minds. Everyone I talked to believed forgiveness came through the sacraments or through the priest. We also found of a lot of people who were into the occult. In our second city, we also had the local government trying to shut us down (and would have if higher government officials had not intervened on our behalf). We also had a great deal of rain that likely shrunk the audiences a little (though it did keep the people inside once they got there). It rained so hard one afternoon that our tent was flooded with water and parts of the roof looked they were about to cave in, which led us to move quickly to try to keep the gear and cables from getting wet.

Summary
In short, it was a wonderful time evangelistically though it was very hard to be away from Jennifer & Taylor. God helped us in our areas of challenge (physical strength, safety, auto breakdown, team dynamics, power issues, etc.) and we hope He was honored by our efforts and used them for His glory. Thank you so much for praying for us!

Please Note
We’ve posted several pictures of our trip on our website. Please check them out to get a better idea of our summer tour. Thanks!