This picture titled  "Guardian of the country and the city" is of our friend Boki Jovanovic of Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia. He and his brother Alexandar  worked day and night filling sand bags to defend their city from the floods. Great men and true heroes!

NEW BELGRADE OPERA, in collaboration with young artists from Belgrade and Sombor, organizes a HUMANITARIAN CONCERT for the victims of the floods. OPERA TO THE PEOPLE! Soloists: Predrag Gosta, Marija Jelic, Jana Jovanovic, Simonida Jovanovic and Bojana Dimkovic. THE CITY HALL in SOMBOR, on FRIDAY, 23rd of May 2014, beginning at 6 PM.

https://www.facebook.com/events/532532046857788/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

Flood Relief Fundraising Events have been announced in five cities! Click here to see the list of fundraisers. We will update these as we hear of more.

We received this letter and update from our friend Jelena in Serbia ~

Dear friends, 


International Christian Fellowship would like to thank you so much for your prayers and support and for forwarding our prayer request to as many people, churches and organizations as possible all over the world:-). In this critical time for Serbia, but also for the Balkans, we do need each and every single prayer as we are still fighting the floods. 

We would like to update you on the latest developments and how you can continue to pray:-). From the time of our previous letter, the number of evacuated unfortunately rose to 24.352 people and will increase in the days to come. Serbia is yet to count casualties as the water still hasn't receded from many areas and several towns and villages were completely cut off from civilization until yesterday and were left without water and electricity. The water level rose to 6 meters in downtown areas of many towns and villages. Thirty percent of agricultural area of Serbia is completely devastated, more may be at risk and some projections say it would take 5 years to restore only that.  50% of all roads have been under water or severely damaged. Dozens of people are missing.  Thousands are still at immediate danger and need of evacuation and emergency support and supplies. Hundreds of thousands are affected. Food shortages, economic crisis and disease are looming. The damage on objects is yet to be estimated, but it is obvious now it would millions of euros. For a country like Serbia which already went through the devastation in 1990s, this is a very serious blow to the economy and agriculture. Some meteorological statistics say that this kind of rainfall happens once in 1000 years. 

The situation is extremely difficult, but we have God on our side and believe He is the only one who is able to produce good results out of this horrible situation. And take glory for everything:-). So let us start with praises at what God has done so far:

• Praise God that the sun has been shining since yesterday afternoon and the rain stopped. The level of local rivers is fortunately stagnating and in some areas they are withdrawing to its riverbeds.
• Praise God for unseen solidarity so far among the people. The entire nation is literary on its feet. Besides the firemen, police, rescue teams, trained professionals, all the institutions opened their doors to the victims of the flood (schools, sports centers, halls etc). Domestic and international companies are helping with donations. Local municipalities and churches open their premises to receive humanitarian aid in form of medicine, clothes, food etc brought by citizens not affected by the floods from all over Serbia. High schoolers, students, professional and recreational sports associations and teams, singers, artists, actors and others all do their part to help the victims. Thousands of volunteers came to help build the embankments and fill the sand bags. 
  
• Countries like Japan, US, Italy, Belarus, Baltic countries, France, Germany, Israel, Russia, EU Council, Czech Republic, former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Macedonia and neighbours such as Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria are all helping, with equipment, rescue teams, donations of money and emergency supplies.

This is where we need your urgent and fervent prayers today and in days to come: 

• TOWNS OF SABAC, SREMSKA MITROVICA- prayers for Sunday night and Monday morning - Even though the sun is shining, there is another wave of flooding coming from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina through the river Sava, which is expected to hit this night and in the days to come and jeopardize mostly towns of SABAC,SREMSKA MITROVICA and BELGRADE in the end.Pray that God send his angels who would be "on call" throughout 20 kilometers long embankment in the town of Sabac and prevent the river from overflowing - VERY IMPORTANT is that Sabac is defended as there is a chemical industry which, if flooded, can cause environmental catastrophe and jeopardize the entire water system of the country. 
  
• TOWN OF BARIC - also has chemical factory and of great importance to be defended from the flooding 
  
• TOWN OF OBRENOVAC - what used to be a cute suburb of Belgrade is now turned into a ghost town, 90% of the town was flooded, some people were stuck and drowned in their homes, their cattle, livestock, pets, entire estates are completely gone. We were told today, that dead bodies of elderly, children (those who were caught by the flood wave or simply did not manage to evacuate on time) and animals could be seen floating the town. The final number is yet unknown, so far, they counted 12 casualties. Please pray that God protects the rest of the coal power plant in the suburb which supplies 50% of Serbia with electricity. So far the damage in the plant is estimated to 100 million euros:-(.
• TOWN OF KOSTOLAC - there is another power plant in this town which supplies Serbia with electricity which is in danger of being flooded. 
  
• Very difficult situation is still in other towns like Lazarevac, Valjevo, Paraćin, Krupanj, Koceljeva, Smederevska Palanka, Svilajnac, Petrovac na Mlavi.
• The weather forecast says it will be around 30 degrees Celsius by the end of next week and there is great danger of all sorts of infectious diseases, once the water withdraws. Pray for the Government of Serbia to be fully equipped and ready to deal with the decomposed bodies of people and animals who have been in the water for several days now and for the entire cleaning processes that is ahead of us. Pray for God's protection over this process.
  

At the end,we want to thank you again for your immense support. Please, share this with everyone you know as we are starting a process of rebuilding this country which will take months, in some aspects, years and we need your help. 

At the following links, you can see today's reports by CNN and BBC:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27459184 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH7G3CN8AlE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

May God bless you, 

Jelena 

Here is a recent update and prayer request from our friends in Serbia.

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Dear friends near and far, 

We would like to ask you for your urgent and fervent prayers for Serbia. We have had heavy rainfalls for 3 days now, with the amount of rain equaling 3 month quantities (the same situation is in Bosnia and Herzegovina). It caused local rivers overflowing (rising even to 4 meters in just 1 day) in majority of Serbian towns and cities, leaving thousands of citizens' homes and land flooded, their livestock and domestic animals drowned:-(.  People were completely unprepared for this and in shock. So far, there are 5 casualties, but the numbers are not complete unfortunately. A massive storm churned river waters and triggered landslides across the country, leaving roads and railways underwater. Some motorways and roads are blocked, bridges torn down, and some towns in Serbia are still cut off from the civilization. This is the worst flooding ever in the history of Serbia.The Serbian government declared a state of emergency and natural disaster yesterday. 

As we are writing this, we know for sure that 7.520 people were evacuated until this morning,135,000 homes are without electricity, 19 towns are flooded. 

The critical is the town of Obrenovac (suburb of Belgrade) which is being evacuated in total as it is 90% flooded. It has around 18 000 people in addition to be evacuated. 

Another critical municipality is Sabac, in western Serbia (around 120 thousand people). It is close to the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the great danger is that the river Sava overflows during the night and tomorrow and endangers a huge population. At this point, over 3000 volunteers are traveling towards Sabac from all over Serbia to help the exhausted police forces, the army, the firemen fill the sand bags and try to stop the river overflowing.

Very difficult situation is in other towns like Lazarevac, Valjevo, Paraćin, Smederevska Palanka, Svilajnac, Petrovac na Mlavi. Majority of these towns don't have water or electricity or both.

For a small and financially struggling country like Serbia, this sort of thing has a Katrina-like impact:-(.

We would be thankful to you to pray for the following: 

• That God prevents rivers from more overflowing and the rainfall stops (especially it is critical for the town of Sabac and Obrenovac tonight), but also others.
• That all the people are safely evacuated, with no more casualties.
• That enough funds are raised in near future to make up for the losses people faced and these are huge (some are left without everything as their houses are lost in landslides and land, as their only source of income, is flooded). 
• For enough food, clothes, blankets and other needed items for thousands who are placed in schools, hospitals, hotels and other premises until the crisis is over.
• For enough technical equipment to help pump the water from the flooded houses all over Serbia (EU, Russia, Israel already sent some help).
  
• That God protects us from infections (in water and in food) due to animal decomposition which is currently underway.
• All the crops in the flooded areas are completely devastated, which will hugely impact fragile Serbian economy. Pray for God's miracle and grace in this area and for complete restoration.
  
• The flooding of bigger rivers is to be expected, so pray for the protection of rivers Sava and Danube. 
  
• It will take months for people to be able to start living normally, pray for God's mercy and protection and wisdom of the government officials in how to help and what to do. The damage is probably millions of euros. 
  

Following are some links showing a dramatic situation: 
This one is with Serbian comments from the Serbian national broadcaster Prva TV:  http://www.prva.rs/web-tv/info/exploziv/12005/exploziv---16052014/34911/potop.html   
This one is from the foreign media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlY8UbF99tI

We also attach few photos. 

Feel free to share this email with your churches, home groups, forward to your friends and cover us in prayers:-). Thank you so much for your support. It is priceless.  

God bless you, 

Jelena