Month 7. Eastern Europe. Three awesome teams together. This month was set up to be pretty awesome. And it didn’t disappoint. We were told that our ministry for the month would be with a church working out of a coffee shop. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what happened was definitely not it.
The first two days of ministry we worked a few hours out of a coffee shop giving away coffee and trying to start conversations with people. Oh and by coffee I mean instant Nescafé, and no one wanted to talk to us. It was super awkward and we weren’t really sure what our month was going to be like. But when we showed up for day three of work, the coffee shop was closed for renovation. For the rest of the month. Our ministry turned into a month of ATL, ask the lord.
We were in Kotor, Montenegro which is a pretty popular tourist destination. They have a beautiful old city full of restaurants and little shops. But we came during off season, and no one was there. It was perfect. We did shopping ministry as we called it, where we made friends with all of the bored shop owners. The goal was to make friends, invite them to church, and tell them about Jesus. In a country of about 600,000 people, there are less than 200 Christians.
We spent the month doing prayer walks, making friends, and relying on God to do the rest. And it was hard! Not having set ministry hours led to feelings of guilt for not doing enough one week, and the next week I didn’t want to do anything. People weren’t the most welcoming or friendly so we all had to bust down some walls to make the few friends we did have. We did a showing of the Jesus Film and flyered the heck out of the city. We were ecstatic to see about 50 people turn out.
To fight complacency, we tried to take risks. We had a dozen awkward conversations and prayed for healing over people when it didn’t happen. We were suppose to pray bold prayers, and in a country filled with closed off people, my bold prayer was to share the gospel with a person I met. It happened the night of the Jesus Film showing when I felt God really pressing me to go invite some people hanging out in the hostel. It was awkward and great, and
I began to believe that God wants to use me even more than I want to be used myself.
While ministry was hard this month, the rest of life was easy. Each team had a two bedroom apartment right on the water. We spent our days surrounded by some gorgeous scenery. Being in colder weather was fun even though that meant no one sold ice cream. We spent our off days exploring new places, hiking up to a castle, sailing on the bay, and once we border hopped to Croatia for the day.
It was a pretty good month. Not having set ministry wasn’t ideal for most of us, but it was awesome to see how God showed up in the daily things. It was a different way of connecting with God and seeing him move in a country. It was a lot like how I imagine home to be, normal but also not at all. I’m realizing more and more that all God is really asking me to do to is show up. Pray scary prayers, and then leave room for God to show up.
