I felt I needed to introduce myself too

Hello all!

Eventhough I've already posted few posts I never actually introduced myself and I always felt this was missing on my part, so now it's time to put this right! :-)
I've been visiting this website for almost 4 years now, mainly downloading sermons and also checking out the forums once in a while. It was by the spur of my countrymate Kire (tears_of_joy) that I actually registered and posted my very first threads.
I was born in an Eastern-Orthodox family (as most Macedonians do) but by the grace of the Lord I got in touch with the Gospel and got saved in '97-'98 (I don't remember the exact date). Since then I've been attending a Methodist Church near the town I live (with sound Bible doctrine, no ecumenism involvement etc.) and also an International Baptist Church (during my studies in Germany).
I've been drawn to come again and again to this forum because I saw people here who love the Lord and who want to see Him glorified in this age and time we live in. It is a rare thing for me to see so many Christians who so want to live their lives for the Lord in one place, as it is here. And that is my desire too, to live my life absolutely surrendered to Jesus and to see Him glorified. I've been encouraged many times by posts on the forum, though I've rarely replied. Now that I've introduced myself maybe I'll have more courage to post:-), but as the Lord leads.
I am very happy to be part of this community and I look forward to more admonishment, exhortation, edification through this body of Christ, all to make me grow, love and serve Christ better, and I will be honored to be also used by God at this place if He permits.

Your sister in Christ,

Milica

Hello Milica! Any friend of Kire is a friend of mine :-) What a blessing to have him for a friend.

May God bless you as you continue to grow in Him.

In His love, Chanin

Welcome Milica, your brief testimony is a great encouragement.

Looking forward to your participation in the doings here.

In Christ,

Ron

Ah, Milica...what a lovely name. Does it have a special meaning?

I'm always interested in names, and those from Greece always seem to be the most beautiful, though I know that many people in English speaking nations have Greek derived names.

Macedonia is of course very well known for Alexander the Great, but for people like me with poor geographical skills in a world where places keep changing names, I would love to know how your area got back to being Macedonia, and what it was most recently, and what it is like there.

And yes, I am encouraging you to post, if only to satisfy my curiousity, and also to let you know that that like many at SI, I received an education that didn't anticipate geography changing a lot. Nor did most of us get English as a second language, much less German and perhaps others as well.

But I think we are all friendly, and love to hear about other people.

So please, join in!

Blessings,

Forrest (another sister, although with a masculine name)

I've been visiting this website for almost 4 years now, mainly downloading sermons and also checking out the forums once in a while. It was by the spur of my countrymate Kire (tears_of_joy) that I actually registered and posted my very first threads.

I must echo Chanin here;

Hello Milica! Any friend of Kire is a friend of mine What a blessing to have him for a friend.

How wonderful to hear from you sister! It is always refreshing to hear from those that I know are out there, peering into these things. After 4 years you would likely know much of the history behind us. Intrigued by what you might have to share. Welcome seems almost out of order ... welcome again? ;-)

Milica, welcome to you and to the forums and community in Jesus' name. I pray that all your time here will be full of light and that God would shine upon you in the face of His dear Son.

Your friend Kire has been a blessing to me and I am glad to see you, his friend, here.

Warm welcomes and peace be with you,

Chris

zdravo sister, brother kire learned me to spell that :-) hope i remembered right.

Welcome Milica!

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

thank you very much to all of you for your quick response of warm welcome (again;-)) to me and for your blessings and prayers!
I cannot promise that I will be very frequent post-er from now on, but I feel better having introduced myself and that one can relate my posts to a somewhat 'known' person rather than a total stranger. I tend to think a lot before I write anything (maybe somewhat perfectionist attitude :-( )since many different people will/may read it, which is good on one side but sometimes it's overwhelming and discouraging that I may never even write what I've thought of writing... But perhaps it just takes time to get used to posting (which certainly does not mean that I should pay less care then :-), after all we are responsible for every single word we say before God).

Sister Forrest, I'm glad you like my name, (and hope you still do though) it's a Slavic name ;-). It's pronounced as: 'millitsa and it does not have a literal meaning by itself but it's rather composed of the root word "mil" (read below for its meaning) and "ica", which is a common female ending. Now "mil" literally means dear or lovely in Macedonian, and is also found in "milost" (and all words derived from it) which means mercy. I was named after my grandmother btw :-)

And concerning Macedonia and its history and geography..complicated story... I was trying to explain that to sister Joy just recently, so here is what I can briefly say about it:

The name Macedonia exists from a very long time, as we can even see from the Bible, for more than 2000 years now.. Now history (these days) is very biased and it's lot of politics involved in it. So I've studied the history as it is taught in my country and I know that there are many, especially Greeks (but also our other neighbors Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians) who oppose what we learn about Macedonian history. The problem with Greeks and our official name as Republic of Macedonia is a major problem that we've had ever since we became an independent country, after breaking from Yugoslavia in 1991, since they claim we have no right to call ourselves Macedonia. So I will just tell you briefly that this ancient Macedonia was a large area, comprising the present rather small territory of our country, western part of Bulgaria, small part of Albania and large part from northern Greece, reaching out to the Aegean See (where Thesalonica and Philippi are). In this long period of time this territory has been many times invaded, and the most successful invadors were obviously the Slavs, who came around 6th century AD, and from whom we inherited our language which belongs to the Slavic group of languages. (In this group are also Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Bulgarian, Serbian and similar.) Now whether we are descendants of ancient Macedonians or we are Slavs or we are mixture of them I don't really know..cause there've been different evidences for these and I don't know which are trustworthy but I just tried to write this as objective as I could.. I think brother Kire knows to explain this even better as he has studied in the neighboring Bulgaria and had to answer questions about Macedonian's identity quite often.. But as a Christian I learned not to bother too much about this, cause I am looking forward to my heavenly country and home!

I hope I didn't bore you too much with history :-P

EDIT: (I saw your post after I posted mine)

hmmhmm wrote:
zdravo sister, brother kire learned me to spell that hope i remembered right.

Shalom,

Milica

Yes, my dear Milica, I still love your name, especially the way it is pronounced!

It's also good to have a refresher course in what's happened in that turbulent area of the Balkans over the last 16 years. It's strange, but it seems like yesterday to me, and can't have been pleasant to live through.

I too long to go Home, but I fear it is not quite yet, much as I would wish otherwise, though I admit I look up everyday to see if it is. But God knows best, and we all have our bits of work to do for Him before it's all done. But it is frighteningly real to see it all coming together, knowing it could be tommorrow, or could be held off for another ten years, as God pleases.

As for not posting because so many will see what you write, remember that most are more troubled than you are about setting down in print their thoughts.

Perfectionism is a problem for me too, but I just correct my posts to make sure everything is spelled as correctly as possible, and try to make sure my thought is clear, knowing that if it is not, someone will ask very nicely what I mean.

I don't think about how many will read anything...I write to the friends I have begun to make since I found this site in February 2007. And blessedly, even when we are disputing doctrine, it is mostly a friendly matter, with people just pouring out their hearts, hoping to connect with someone they will not see until the Marriage Supper.

As for your English skills in writing, they are better than most, so you need not worry.

And p.m.'s (Private Messages) to each other is just like writing notes in class, but knowing the teacher won't catch you at it!

With God, and more God, and then the blessing of each other, I find SI is indeed where I go almost daily, and very gratefully.

I'm so glad you have finally said hello! And thank you for going over what is old news to you, but a needed refresher course to us. Our reporters just don't cover anything but disasters, and I prefer finding out about surviving and pressing onward. So I search the newspapers worldwide that print in English, and try to keep up, but frankly, it is my friends worldwide that keep me up to date. And now that I've found you, please don't go away!

Blessings,

Forrest