Cajon lessons
Cajon and rhythm classes held once a week Our church has Cajon and rhythm classes that are held once per week. I assume that most of the readers never heard of cajon. Is it an instrument? Yes, it is and it is a box-shaped percussion instrument. The word cajon is literally Spanish for box (drawer, crate, even coffin). One of the advantages is that the instrument can be easily transported as a drum. While the musician is sitting on it, it is usually played by hands, fingers, or sometimes implements such as brushes, mallets, or sticks. What is the connection between cajon and rhythm? Why do we learn both things? Learning to play a cajon has a significant influence on a musical development; sense of rhythm and body coordination, which is a basis for learning playing any instrument, especially drums
Mission trips and plans for the future
Children’s ministry But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as. (Luke 18:16) Dear parents, if you would like to listen to a sermon during a church service, don't worry, we will take care of your children during that time. On Thursdays and Sundays, during church services, we organize a time of fun and learning for the youngest children, which is a new ministry in our church. Children are able to listen to Bible stories, learn songs, participate in creative workshops and we play games together.
New Hope in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iran
Since the beginning of 2020 our church is involved in helping churches in Iran. Since we are unable to share with public most of the information, we would like to invite you to keep this important ministry in your prayers.
Mission week
For the second consecutive year our church is celebrating beginning of the year with a week addressing topics connected with missions. This year the mission week took place in the beginning of March, only a week before the COVID-19 pandemic started in Bosnia. Mission week 2020 had a focus on several countries, and the topic of women in missions was especially addressed. Besides missionaries serving in Tuzla church, Tea Deak from Croatia, Izabela Sietejko and Magdalena Sawczuk from Poand, Beth Hafer from the US serving in Hungary was also a speaker during the mission week.
Tuzla in centre of migrant crisis
In 2019 Tuzla was one of cities with the biggest number of refugees and migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Tuzla, migrants were gathering on a bus station and the whole area became some kind of wild camp that did not have even basic living conditions.
During the whole period of refugee crisis in Tuzla, our church organized food distribution, medical aid, as well providing shelter and sleeping places for families with children, pregnant ladies and minors travelling without adult supervision.
Food distribution was organized on the bus station. The biggest food distribution distributed 500 meals. After the transfer of migrants to a camp in Sarajevo, Tuzla church continued to provide haven for a number of migrants that seek asylum. In several places in Tuzla area we have placed over 20 persons.
Church services in Farsi language
During the migrant crisis in Tuzla our church organized church services in Farsi language for believers from Iran. On these church services we often had guests from various countries. For all of us, the biggest blessings in our Farsi-speaking congregation were moments when someone attending the church service becomes a believer and the baptism service organized in February 2020.
Mission trips and plans for the future
From the beginning, New Hope church was focused on helping churches and ministries in other countries. Until now, we were sending teams to short-term mission trips and we were financially supporting projects in other countries. Now, the church decided that until 2024 we will send full time missionary. After discussion, we decided that a country where we would like to send the missionary is Kyrgyzstan. In the next several years we will send teams to Kyrgyzstan every year and we hope to have guests from Kyrgyzstan in Tuzla too. This is a big project for New Hope church and we would like to ask all our friends to pray for our future missionaries and places where they will serve.
Mission trips and plans for the future
From the beginning, New Hope church was focused on helping churches and ministries in other countries. Until now, we were sending teams to short-term mission trips and we were financially supporting projects in other countries. Now, the church decided that until 2024 we will send full time missionary. After discussion, we decided that a country where we would like to send the missionary is Kyrgyzstan. In the next several years we will send teams to Kyrgyzstan every year and we hope to have guests from Kyrgyzstan in Tuzla too. This is a big project for New Hope church and we would like to ask all our friends to pray for our future missionaries and places where they will serve.
Celebration of international women's day
If March 8th is a day of a fight for equality of women and men, then every day is March 8th in our church. For several consecutive years our church has a tradition in which men from our church make, organize and serve gala dinner for ladies in our church. In such a way we celebrate the international women's day.
Connections with two churches in Rijeka, Croatia
In the beginning of March New Hope Church hosted guests from two churches in Rijeka, Croatia. Our friends from Rijeka volunteered and participated in projects that the local church and Wave organized during their visit. Besides cooperation on various projects in the past two years, during the visit we also discussed cooperation on children's camp for children in various institutions and NGO's in Tuzla and Srebrenica. The kids camp will be held at the end of June in Selce, Croatia.
Wave Projects is organizing psychology lectures in our church building
On the 22nd and 23rd February at 18:00 Wave projects is organizing a lecture Knowing self and others: a key of successful communication. A host lecturer is Nolan Sharp (USA/Croatia) who held the lectures in companies like T-com, Chamber of commerce, etc. The lectures are usually held for a fee, but it is for free in our church building.
Mission week in Tuzla
This year BC New Hope is organizing for the very first time a week with focus on mission with a goal that it becomes an annual event with guests, interesting lectures and new initiatives. This year it will be help from 19th February to 26th February. During the Mission week, the church has guests from four countries and three continents, as well with experiences missionaries in Europe, Africa and central Asia. During the mission week, the local church will organize round tables, theology lectures and lectures with interesting lecturers.
Christmas concert in Tuzla
In BC Nova Nada, a Christmas concert was held inviting participants to Wave Projects educational programs, as well as friends and representatives of institutions in which Wave Projects serves the year. In addition to the emotional performances of the Christmas songs of the team for celebrating BC Nova Nada, a group of young "Irish" performed several Christmas songs and received great applause and sympathy of the audience.
Church in Tuzla is celebrating a week of thankfulness
Tuzla church decided to celebrate a week of thankfulness, which is annually taking place at the end of November and the beginning of December. In all programs we are focused on reminding one another to be thankful on all the people in our lives, all the things that we have, as well as other relationships and things that make our wonderful. This is the third year that we are celebrating a week of thankfulness in Tuzla church.
Reformation week in Tuzla
Sedmica reformacije u Tuzli obilježena je objavljivanjem tekstova na nekoliko portala, održavanjem programa u crkvi i na Waveu o protestantskim vjerovanjima i principima. Također, na praktičan način smo obilježili Dan Reformacije posebnim programima u našim projektima služenja zajednici.
Shoreham by Sea i Tuzla
At the time Tuzla church had just started its work, a Baptist church in Shoreham by Sea, England, recognized the importance of mission work in Bosnia and developed a partnership with Tuzla. Such a partnership can be an example of friendship, respect and community to many others.
The church in Shoreham regularly participates in all programs that Tuzla church organizes. Some of our friends in Shoreham already feel as hosts in Tuzla and guests in Shoreham! Pastor Ray Orr regularly visits Tuzla, encourages us and supports our projects.
Our dear friend Roy held a special place in the cooperation between Tuzla and Shoreham. We named him “Sunshine” due to his joyful and funny appearance.
We hope that the cooperation between the churches in Shoreham and Tuzla will continue to be a blessing, not only to our home towns, but also in many other places.
Educational and recreational projects in the church building
In a New Hope Church building in Tuzla, various educational and recreational projects are taking place throughout the whole year. Besides regular courses in English language that often have guests and volunteers who are native speakers, through Wave projects education the church is the host of lectures in statics for students of civil engineering and mining, as well as lectures in maths for students of technical colleges. Occasionally we also have open programs with lectures in various fields, open doors days, German courses, Turkish courses and computer courses.
Trip to Poland
A trip to Poland that the Tuzla church organized in the beginning of September was a very important step in connecting Bosnian and Polish churches. During this trip, a group of Tuzla church members participated in many activities of different churches in Warsaw, Bialystok, and other towns in east Poland. Although I must say that participation in common projects, church services and other events in church is very important, it is much more important that our churches are developing a family relationship and a desire to organize together many more events and projects. Despite being 1000km apart, Bialystok and Tuzla became neighboring towns through our cooperation.
Baptist Theological Seminary in Warsaw
As part of a trip to Poland, a group of people from Tuzla had the opportunity to visit the Baptist Theological Seminary in Warsaw. The pastor of the Tuzla church met with the president of the Polish Baptist Union. During the meeting the two sides agreed on cooperation and on several concrete projects that we hope will be a blessing for both sides. This visit was a great encouragement for the Tuzla team.
A visit to Bratislava, Slovakia started a new initiative
In September a team from the Tuzla church visited friends and one of the protestant churches in Bratislava, where they had a wonderful time. During the visit to one of the local churches, they had a program where they presented the work of the New Hope churches in Bosnia. They also treated the hosts and guests of the program with Bosnian treats. During the visit and meetings with missionaries who serve in Bratislava, the Tuzla team agreed on future cooperation. They also started an initiative called Focus on mission, which the Tuzla church will organize every year: among the guests of this new conference there will also be guests from Bratislava. This initiative has been planned to start as a small project of the Tuzla church, with big plans for the future. During the first Focus on mission conference, alongside meetings, workshops and lectures focusing on mission, it is planned to start working on principles of sending missionaries from Bosnia, as well as other serious projects.
Reformation week in Tuzla
Reformation Week in Tuzla took place from October 29th to November 4th 2018. This year we celebrated 501 years since the reformation started.
New Hope churches celebrated it by publishing a few texts on several portals, as well as having a lecture about Protestant beliefs and principles in our church and Wave programs.
We also celebrated this in a practical way through special programs in our serving projects in the community.
Our dear brothers and
sisters in Prijedor
Tuzla church is thankful to God for brother Yuriy and that we are able to support each other's mission projects. We are praying for wisdom and strength for pastor Yuriy, his family and church in Prijedor. Tuzla church is using every opportunity to organize trips to Prijedor and we are happy that our dear ones in Prijedor are using every chance to visit Tuzla. We are hoping that in the future we will have many more opportunities to visit each other and to work on common projects.
New Hope Sarajevo
For over a year Tuzla church has been regularly visiting brothers and sisters in New Hope church Sarajevo. Together, like one big family, we are going through a time of spiritual growth, joy, problems and everything else that life brings. Although this is a new mission project we already have traditions of visiting one another, BBQ's and trips. Please pray for New Hope church in Sarajevo and the growth of this church.
Sunday's cafe in Tuzla
Every second week Tuzla church organizes a cafe after church services on Sundays. With the quality and quantity of the food served we could easily call it a church restaurant.
Each cafe usually has a theme. Some of the recent themes have been:
* beach party
* tea in India
* products from Tuzla
* Arabic lunch
* cafe at a railway station
* snacks around the world
* when we were children
* New Year's cafe
* ...
It has been a pleasure to participate in this program.
Mission work with
refugees in west Bosnia
Almost all of our church members participate in this mission, either collecting humanitarian aid or working directly in the field. For several months a large number of them have been helping with a humanitarian aid in Bihać and Velika Kladuša. The number of refugees asking spiritual questions and accepting Christ into their lives is growing and that encouraged us to organize special meetings in which we are encouraging people and connecting them with other protestant Christians. Our humanitarian work continues to be aimed towards all people, no matter what their faith, nationality or anything else. However it is a joy for us when we can spend time together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Ray returned to his second home
In June we had another visit from our brother Ray who is the pastor in our sister church in Shoreham, England and used his sabbatical time to visit Tuzla. As usual, Ray’s visit was an encouragement for our church and Wave activities in Tuzla. During his visit Ray participated in all church and Wave activities. Pastors Ray and Željko had a chance to speak about how our churches could cooperate in future projects. Ray also had meetings with our future church leaders who will lead new mission projects in our church and conversations with our church youth. Before he left he made an appeal that Tuzla church should encourage pastor Željko to go on a holiday.
January intensive Wave program
Every year in January Wave Projects Bosnia and Herzegovina organizes an intensive English language course that gathers over 150 participants. Wave courses are more than just learning English. Besides education, the courses also invite participants to join various initiatives, educational programs, humanitarian aid and to volunteer for teams in institutions that we work with.
Visit from Croatia
In January 2017 we had a visit from Branko Kovacevic from the Baptist church in Mackovec. The goal of this visit was for Branko, with his knowledge and experience, to help further develop and train our church worship team.
Visit from Poland
Our church is building friendships with protestant churches from other countries. One of the very important partnerships is with our partnering churches in Poland.
In May we had a visit from Beyivostok Baptist Church, one of the biggest Baptist Churches in Poland. We have committed to visiting each other every year. Our churches are sister churches and we are already feeling like a family.
From our past experiences we know that every visit from Poland brings a lot of fun. We enjoy a BBQ, downtown visits with drinking boza (that is also very popular among our Polish guests) and many meetings in which we discuss how to develop projects in which we will cooperate in Bosnia, Poland and other countries.
Organized activity of collecting humanitarian aid for refugees.
Humanitarian work is not one of the segments of the work and life of our church. Humanitarian work should be following Christ’s principles, the biggest fruit of our relationship with God and the focus of our practical visible piety. Our goal is always to give our maximum in serving those who need our help the most. All members of our church, as well as our friends, always think about projects that are active and open. Collecting aid for churches and humanitarian projects in DR Congo and Pakistan, supporting projects in the senior’s home and the school for kids with special needs, as well as support to families on welfare is the core of what we see as the result of our faith. In the past few years probably the biggest focus of our humanitarian work has been helping refugees and migrants in Serbia, Macedonia and Greece. All of these projects are wonderful ways to make improvements in people’s lives and to help those who have less than we do. Our projects of helping are always open to people who are not in any way part of our church. We are inviting you to join us in efforts to make our city, country, region and the world a better place to live in.
Address: Rudarska 61, Tuzla
Contact us: +38761906479