Glasnost...

I've been back from Macedonia for 5 days and i am still missing everyone like crazy. I had an amazing week despite the fact that for most of it it was raining, but it wasn't the weather i went for. I went because of my friendship with Glasnost, a group of amazing macedonians from Skopje who inspire me in ways they don't even imagine.
Last week i learnt so much about what it is to be part of a community who love each other like family, who really love each other. I'm not saying that my friends and church dont love each other but Glasnost have something so deep and real with one another, i cant explain but i want it so much. There was a couple of guys with them who had only recently become christians. it was so refreshing to be around new believers, i realised that i haven't been for a good couple of years, not in a friendship setting anyway and it makes me so sad and utterly determined to change my life as a result of it.
Faith seems so real to glasnost they have actively chosen Christ and stepped out from a life without him in the culture into one with him right at the centre. Its inspiring to me because, me and many of my friends have been brought up within the church (whether we believed it for ourselves or not) and that effects our faith today in a huge way, i believe it dulls it down and makes it part of the furniture. What i love is that they are discovering church and creating it for themselves rather than being told what to do all the time or not changing because they have always done it that way generation after generation. maybe iIm not making sense.

I guess what i'm saying is that they really are the new thing that Isaiah talks about. They are totally new yet are reclaiming the old for themselves and for Christ within their generation. They are rebuilding the ancient ruins and cities long devastated in Macedonia and yet at the same time it is a totally fresh, new and real amazing move of God.

I am desperate for some of that, i'll settle for friendship with them for now.