(Our team of Macedonians, Germans, Russians, and Americans.)
For the majority of the month of August, our ministry has focused on a reconciliation project spearheaded by church groups from Germany and Russia. Their goal in Macedonia was to restore and honor the memory of the Jews, specifically in Bitola, Macedonia. On August 10th, all our labor culminated in a memorial ceremony in the town square. It was a powerful night…
(Our Russian friend, Roman, performing some Christian Rap in Russian.)
The evening was filled with song… One of our Russian friends rapped a few Christian songs. It was entertaining and invigorating! We then sang several worship songs with our German friends, in German, Hebrew, and English. (Chris Tomlin’s work has truly circled the globe!)
(Flag waving!)
All the while, the flags of each nation were waved… Macedonia, Germany, Russia, America… It was a time of unity! We were unified as a Christian group on behalf of the Jews…. The Jews who were stolen from this city, sent to die in the camps, without a final resting place and no descendants left to remember them… Without anyone to tend to the graves and memory of their ancestors resting in the cemetery…
(A view into the cemetery.)
In the midst of everything, we set up the blocks of wood that we had spent our first week chopping. Each wood block represented a human life… It was quite surreal to stand them on end… I found myself being very careful with each one, almost thinking it sacred, thinking of the human life I’ll never know that it stood for…
The visual of the 3,380 blocks of wood was sobering… Onlookers in the square joined us in standing them on end. Wow.
At the end of the evening as we packed everything up to leave, I noticed tears running down the cheeks of one of my new German friends. Later, I asked her how she was doing with everything… She said that it was difficult to see what her ancestors did… She felt guilty for the acts of generations before her… Whoa.
There is nothing that we can do to fully rectify what happened years ago. Lives were lost, families shattered, a people targeted for death…
However, we can remember them through our actions…
(A rose from the garden in the church yard.)
We can seek to honor their place in history by vowing never to forget what happened. Europe for certain will not forget, but we must also work to keep their memory alive through our history books.
We can reach out a helping hand of kindness to our neighbor, no matter who they are or what they are like…
We can stand with and pray for Israel… God chose them as His own and has blessed the whole World through their Seed, Jesus Christ the Messiah!
God said to Abraham,
“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12:3 –
(Plaque at the entrance of the cemetery.)
(Plaque at the entrance of the cemetery, reading, “The restoration of this portal was jointly funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia and the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad with gratitude by the staff of the N.U. Institute and Museum, and the citizens of Bitola.” March 2009)
