Living by the spirit’s power is something that brings up very broad ideas and thoughts. I have looked at the community here in Sarajevo and also Mostar which is 80% Muslim I have seen lots of similarities between their community and what I see in Churches back in America which can either lead one to think well all religions are equally true or all religions are equally false. The closeness of both faiths and seeing a lot of sameness has weighed upon me quite a bit. I feel that I do not possess much that could distinguish me from them or have anything that would be attractive about the Christian faith. It seems that we must go beyond our empty religious practices and really let the Spirit move in ways that will be completely beyond the similarities we see.
Because of this environment, I will say that I have struggled with how to be effective in the area of forming relationships. For me, we are not here long enough to do the effective work that the people here are involved in. I knew that we can’t be directly involved but can give lift to those that can. Just focusing on prayer and giving lift to those who are here long-term is what we must focus on.
I was told one day during a prayer walk that when the Ottoman Turks conquered this area around Sarajevo the Imams went up to the hills around the city and prayed that this city would fully submit to Allah. The years that followed have been years of spiritual slavery that persist up to the present and there is quite a lot of opposition to the gospel here. So when we pray around the city and at certain locations it is us undoing what has been done by Islam centuries prior. We are beginning to free this place of its darkness and slavery by communing with almighty God and being a part of what he is doing. On another day, my team went up to a fortress on a hillside and prayed over the city just like the Imams did. Only this time it was to the living God. Right now this the best course of action to take here along with forming long-term relationships with people and eventually influence them to turn to Jesus. This is not the place for preaching the gospel right off the bat because nearly no one will listen here with that approach. For the people that are missionaries here and local ministers it is a time-consuming and slow process what I previously mentioned.
I would like to close the blog with this reminder to people in churches back home. This place often gets overlooked when it comes to missions and it really needs missionaries. Bosnia falls into the middle area between very developed and very poor because it is neither. Most missionaries go to either of the former places but overlook the middle ground that Bosnia falls into as a second-world nation. I’m very fortunate to get to see this place.
