For the first half of our month, my team has been traveling around Montenegro, meeting with different contacts, discovering ministries and being extremely blessed by the Montenegrin people. I wanted to give a little background of the country we have been living in so you can better understand what we have been experiencing this month.
Location: Montenegro is located in the Balkans, north of Greece and Albania, next to Serbia. It is on the coast of the Adriatic Sea and is a prime vacation spot for many European tourists.
Population: There are about 70,000 people in Montenegro, while there are only about 130-150 evangelical believers throughout the country.
People Groups: Croads (People from Croatia), Serbs, Montenegrin ( and no one likes each other.)
Major Cities: With only have 700,000 people in the whole city, there is no city which can be define has "big city" but the biggest city in Montenegro is the capital, Podgorica. There are about 120,000 people there and there are a few schools and university built throughout the city. Podgorica is very picturesque with a river running through it, tons of cafes and surrounded by mountains. The other famous cities in Montenegro are Herceg Novi, Budva and Kotor which are all within an hour of each other. These cities all lie on the coast of the Bay of Kotor and they are drop dead gorgeous. These beach cities are pretty small and quiet during the off season but during the summer this area gets around 1 million tourists a summer, people vacationing mainly from Russia and the UK.
Brief History: A brief good history lesson on the balkans would take at least two or three hours because everything here is really complicated but here is the highlights. The Balkans is a pretty hostile place and there are wars here every 50 years. There were 7 countries that use to form Yugoslavia: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Kosovo and Croatia. These countries don't really like each other and the tension between countries has become a tension between religions as well. Croatians are Catholics, many Bosnians and Kosvar are Muslim and Serbs are Eastern Orthodox. There is a lot of ethnic pride which plays into the way people treat each other throughout the Balkans. Though there is much more to this conflicts, this areas holds a lot of pride for their country yet a lot of hostility for the other people groups around them.
Why are we here: Our reason for coming to Montenegro was pretty simple. It was a natural place to travel to on our way to Bosnia. Monetengro is located directly between Kosovo and Bosnia so we thought it would be cool just to stay there for a little and see what The Lord had for us in Montenegro and we got WAY MORE than we expected. We have met some of the most passionate and inspiring Christians I have encountered. They have not only shared their heart for Montenegro but their heart for ministry, for following the will of God, for the importance of prayer and how the need to follow God when its hard or doesn't make sense.
Ministries we have found:
Coming into Montenegro, one of the biggest worries we had was finding housing. Monetengro runs on tourism and is hard to find any place under 12 dollars per person a night which is our whole budget. But God has blown us away with the hospitality we have been given. In Podgorica we met Pastor Jovica who has pastored the first evangelical church in Montenegro for the last 15 years. When we emailed him about meeting him, he automatically offered a place to stay for free and we were so blessed to live with him. We had two trailers for us all to sleep in, a bathroom, shower, kitchen and wifi. It was more than we could ask for. On top of that, we got to meet with him each morning and in these meetings he spoke so much life into our group, challenging us, encouraging us and sharing his passion about Montenegro. Pastor Jovica is from Serbia and he has faithfully followed his call to Montenegro, bringing his family with him. He was such a blessing to our group and we were a little jealous that we would not be styaing with him for the whole month.
Also in Podgorica, we met up with the other evangelical church, the Brethen Assembly, which really blessed my teammates who went. The Brethren and Pastor Jovica work closely together in Podgorica, trying to reach as many people as possible. We also met up with a group of students who worked with Campus Crusade in Montenegro which was so fun. We were able to trade stories, hear more about Montenegro and the challenges of pioneering ministries and get to talk to some Americans which was really fun! Will and Ryan also went to another city in Montengro, to meet with a missionary who works with Inter varsity in Montenegro.
For the last five days, we have been living with an American/British missionary couple on the Bay of Kotor. We have been working with them, speaking at their church, encouraging the believers and meeting some other missionaries in the area. We live about 30 minutes away from Kotor and Herceg Novi and we have been splitting our time between these two cities. Its an absolutely beautiful area but there are not many christians or missionaries here. Montenegro is a fairly new country but it is in desperate need of the gospel, the message of truth being spoken throughout this country.
Montenegro is an absolutely amazing place with Christians so dedicated to spread the news of Jesus and in this barely touched mission field, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done. As you all continue to pursue what The Lord has for your life, keep Montenegro in the back of your mind because it is an amazing place that needs the love of the father so desperately!
