Month 10… I don’t know where the time has gone. What I do know is this month my team has the pleasure to be doing ministry in Bosnia: a war-torn nation, home of the “European Jerusalem”, divided by religion and ethnicity, home of the 1984 winter Olympics, beautiful landscape and so much more. I knew very little about Bosnia before we started preparing to come a couple weeks ago.
However, when we got here everything quickly changed. No longer were these things I was reading in a book or on Wikipedia, but these were real life things and I was experiencing them. One of the first things I noticed within hours of crossing the border into Bosnia is just how spiritually heavy this country is, probably the heaviest spiritually I’ve felt on the Race, and that includes countries like India, Nepal, and Thailand that are notorious for the strongholds that Satan has in those nations and the depravity that comes out of it. Bosnia was different; natural beauty, blessed by God’s creativity, but so dark, so heavy, and I wasn’t sure why. I wrote a couple notecards (they are my new favorite thing, small and durable, always handy… and great bookmarks) as we were driving around the first couple days and this is what they said…
Bosnia – hard work… Beauty from plainness (entering it’s the same old, same old in comparison to other countries and scenary, literally plains and fields too)… beauty from ashes (the war in the 90s and other skirmishes since then along with the floods in 2014), normalcy, routine, life cycle, spiritual fog, crumbling ruins, faded glory, unfinished, don’t get lost in the forest… don’t miss the trees through the forest. Values death… but what about life? This place makes me sad, there’s so much beauty, such potential, God’s creativity shines, but the people are dead, it feels dead, it feels sad. I feel sad, broken for this country, this city, these people.
Bosnia
a place of natural beauty, unknown beauty, even Catholic beauty (lots of neat cathedrals and some tall bell towers)
but covered by a veil of darkness
Satan has such strongholds here
Religion, drunkenness, purposelessness
Hatred, envy, false religion, apathy, selfishness
Fighting, disunity, division, so many…
They weigh heavy on me, burdens that aren’t mine to carry
Chains that can’t bind me but attempt to restrict me.
God clearly blessed this country but it has lost sight of peace, hope, love, identity.
The crumbling buildings from wars are merely a metaphor, a symbol,
For all that was and is crumbling within,
Before wars were even a possibility.
Some Scripture to pray over Bosnia from Isaiah…
“Bring good news to the poor
Proclaim liberty to the captives
Give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes
Oil of gladness instead of mourning
Garment of praise instead of a faint spirit
Oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that HE may be glorified
Build up ancient ruins… raise up the former devastations
Repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations”
“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called “My Delight Is In Her”, and your land “Married”, for the Lord delights in you.
They shall be called “The Holy People”, “The Redeemed of the Lord”; and you shall be called “Sought Out”, “A City Not Forsaken”.
“I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls “Salvation”, and your gates “Praise”.
Will you join me in praying for Bosnia, praying for this beautiful land and these beautiful people. Will you reflect on the darkness that I feel here and pray for light to shine. Will you pray for all who come to visit, all whom my team runs into that we may make eternal impacts in peoples’ lives? Will you pray that all the strongholds of the devil in Bosnia will be broken and Christ’s Truth will reign? There is much to pray over, but one prayer at a time and walls will come on down.
