It has been said
that a journey begins with the first step; and so our journey back to Balkans
began with the first step, the first flight.
After 36 hours of
travelling (including delays & layovers) via NYC, Amsterdam and Paris, we
finally reached our first Balkan destination: Zagreb. This city
of one million inhabitants is the capital of the nation of
Croatia, which has four million citizens in total. While the
Roman Catholic faith is the predominate religion, it is estimated that 8,000
Protestant/Evangelical believers are spread across the land.
We spent our first
full day meeting with several church leaders, all of whom are originally from
Bosnia, but who for many years have lived and served the Lord
here in Croatia. Our relationship, our friendship, with most of
them has held firm for nearly 27 years, and we are encouraged by their levels of
commitment, sacrifice and faithfulness to seeing the Balkan region changed by
the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We finished the
day meeting with Marina, a lady from Sarajevo, who is visiting
friends in Zagreb. Marina became a believer in Christ back in
1988. She was one of a group of physically handicapped people who lived in a
retirement home in Sarajevo, though she was a young lady at the
time, and became a believer in Christ through a Bible study we had started at
the facility. She has held on to faith in Christ, even through the hardships of
the Bosnian War (1992-1995) when she was shot by sniper fire and faced
starvation, and now through many years of spiritual isolation. We rejoiced in
seeing her, and she rejoiced in the news that we would once again be moving to
Sarajevo and starting again a church.
Seeing Marina was
a reminder that God has an inheritance in Bosnia, and that every soul deserves
the opportunity to make a decision for Christ. But if no one goes and shares His
love with them, how are they able to respond? Ministry is rather simple if we
were to take time to think about it.
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