My first two weeks of the World Race have been spent in Belgrade, the capital and bustling center of Serbia. My team and I are partnered with a local woman of God who has the burning passion of a thousand suns living inside her. Our main focus this month is evangelism – something I’ve hardly dipped my toes in before the last 14 days and, subsequently, something terrifyingly foreign. The people of Serbia are broken and hurt by the many decades of the Orthodox church taking their money and abusing its power, causing many to be turned off by religion in general.
Ministry for team Galilee looks nothing like I imagined; most days we take the 26 bus up to the city centre, the mall, the park, the beach – anywhere we feel the Lord calling us to go for the day to meet people to share conversation with. We spend an average of 40 minutes on the bus each day – some days less and some days more. Most of those rides I like to just blend in; pretend I’m a local and hide my accent. It seems like anytime someone realizes we’re Americans their face turns to a scowl and evil eyes emerge all around. For a while I decided I’d rather keep to myself and avoid a scene than offer small talk to a stranger.
The struggles we’ve had with the language barrier are an entirely different grind – my teammates say I’m the most well-versed at speaking Serbian but that’s still not saying much. I spend most of my bus rides with my nose in a dictionary and for a while felt I’d offend anyone I tried to compliment – at least, until the day I met Jesus on the bus.
We were headed home from a day evangelizing in the city centre. The 26 pulled up beside the crowded bus stop and opened its doors. I hopped up into the rear entry closest to us and grabbed a seat next to a woman who was reading, fanning herself with a dainty paper fan to replace the lack of air conditioning in the stuffy transit.
Our mindset for the last couple of weeks has been to always be “on” – on the lookout for people we can approach, start a conversation with, invite to our gospel concert (which was a grand success!) and just love on. Every step we take, we’re looking to let the Lord use us as vessels to speak truth and life into anyone – even strangers on a bus. Remembering this mindset and dreading rejection, I was hesitant to say hello to the woman sitting beside me until her out-of-control fanning hit me in the side of the head.
“Izvinite,” she said with a giggle, as she turned back to her reading.
Ok, this is my chance. She knows I exist, and that I’m easygoing. I looked her over in search of something I could compliment – her book, her bookmark, her sweater, her fan – yes! Hey! I like her fan.
“Ciao, volim… fan,” I said, pointing to her fan. She glanced at me with a smile and told me the Serbian translation for ‘fan’ (that I don’t remember.) We giggled for a minute and she turned back to her book. I decided we were friends enough at this point to give her a flyer inviting her to our concert. She gracefully accepted and kept reading.
Moments later we were pulling up to our stop so I turned to say goodbye; the woman extended her fan to me with giving eyes and with an exchange of mixed up words, she told me to keep it. I was dumbfounded – I stepped away from her and off the bus still locking eyes as the doors closed and the bus drifted away.
I had just tried to love a stranger by complimenting her fan and she, in turn, so willingly gave it away. It was HOT that day – it’s not like she didn’t need it any longer and decided to just give it up. She made a sacrifice out of joy and blessed a stranger who was completely stunned at the role reversal that just happened to her.
I’m learning that being selfless and giving out of love is crucial when living in community. It’s no easy task living with six other women with whom you’ve spent a total of 28 non-consecutive days. We have disagreements, it’s really hard to get to know each other, we have nothing in common; except the love of Christ and the strength of the Lord running through our veins, and that’s enough.
What a blessing to know Jesus was on the bus that day, and that He wanted to bless me through a dainty old fan and a Serbian woman’s kindness.
