We had 2 days left in Albania and I had no idea what country I was headed to next. I heard whispers that going to Romania for month 2 was going to change, I even heard rumours that Bulgaria would be the next country. But Serbia was NOT on my radar. 10 days into my stay there I began realizing that Serbia is exactly where I needed to be this month because Serbia is bigger for me than I could have imagined.
I'm very much falling in love with this country. The countryside is blanketed with fields of sunflowers (which are my favorite flower)
[Photo credit to Laura Quam.]
They are the world's largest producer of raspberries (delicious)
[The peaches were wonderful as well…and the French toast that is also visible here]
They have hamburgers the size of my face (and you can get them stuffed with cheese).
[The dalek is there to give a size comparison. He is about 2 inches tall. Also, this burger is smaller than the norm]
The people are friendly, wait until the last minute to do everything, love football (the sport Americans refer to as soccer), love learning languages, and are very upfront/straightforward. As small as many of these things are in the grand scheme of things, this place feels like home to me, which really isn't too far off the mark (my great grandfather was 100% Serb, and proud of it). This is a place where I feel like I can find myself.
But this is also a place of darkness. Serbians are mostly Orthodox Christians, but if you really observe them, they have committed to tradition and idolatry; they have not committed to God. The few Christian churches we have encountered are small, but the people are passionate about their saviour. And two people with whom we have had good conversations, completely unconnected conversations, both mentioned how they need committed people to come to Serbia. They need people who love God and are willing to sacrifice everything for the Serbian people, even if they see little of tangible results.
God used those conversations to wake me up. In my team's first conversation with the first contact we found he talked about really wanting/needing full time missionaries who were willing to come to Serbia for an extended amount of time. He talked about how dark the country was and described the difficulties the church faced. I loved experiencing Serbian culture, and after this conversation as I was praying for the people to open their eyes and truly see God a love for these people, my people, came over me. It confused me more than anything, and I kept my mouth shut about it until I could process and pray about it. Later we went to a prayer meeting at the Baptist church in Niš, and while we were there one of the men started talking about how if we feel called, or at least had no plans for after the Race that we should consider coming back to Serbia because they need committed Christians. He kept talking like that for a few minutes, and I'm freaking out in my head because it sounded like confirmation to me, and no one else knew about what was happening in my head earlier. Talk about intimidating. But hearing the stories about trials and overcoming and how God was working, I felt like my life has done very little.
My team came to Serbia to find unsung heroes and share their stories, and we found churches who were struggling but trusting God at every turn, and their stories deserve to be shared. God brought me to Serbia to join their team and be a part of their story. I have no idea what this would look like, but I have 9 months before I'm free to do much of anything about it anyways. Until then, Allons-y!
