The Crew in Crna Gora

After the last post becoming an overview of the 2011 UCCF Summer Team to Montenegro, I thought I'd write one with a few more specifics about some of the people we met.
(Note: the people mentioned are in no way my favourites, they just give you a bit of an insight into the situation and the task. Also, names have been removed for personal reasons)

Let's begin with Danijel.

Danijel was a staff worker in Serbia with EUS, but took on the task of pioneering the work in Montenegro (more info here). When I first met Danijel, in summer 2010, he was due to become a father for the first time at any moment! His wife, Martina, has since given birth to a wonderful and incredibly cute little girl. There are many things I could say about Danijel. He is great inspiration. He perseveres in a very difficult climate for the proclamation of the gospel, as mentioned in yesterday's post, but not only that, he does it with joy. He and Pete Stonelake, a British guy who originally lectured out in Niksic but now works freelance, regularly meet up with students, help them learn English, and generally build friendships to help break down barriers to the message of Jesus. They are both gifted with the ability to naturally get along with people. I am sure that many times they feel despondent and want to give up, but the conviction that people need a relationship with Jesus drives them on. They along with local church which has been established for 15 years are seeking to be a light in dark place, salt and light in their community. But it's tough work with very little obvious fruit. They are living, breathing examples of faithful gospel ministers. I'm sure they'd value your prayers.

Here are a few people we met on camp this year, but I am sure you could replicate very similar stories many times over across the country:

The first is A. A is a young girl who we met for the first time this year, but is good friends with a one of the girls from the church. Firstly, she nearly didn’t come to the camp. The, when on camp, nearly didn’t attend the evangelistic talk and Bible studies. Why? Because her father is a priest in an orthodox monestry and she didn’t want to upset him. Over the course of the camp a few people had some good conversations with her, we hope more opportunities will arise for her to hear about Jesus. She left camp saying she had loved it so much she didn’t want to go home!

The second is B. B is the brother of a girl we met last year in the local church called D. She is a believer, B isn’t and neither are their parents. But their parents love the influence the church has had on their kids so are happy for them to do anything with them. Please pray that B, who can be quite quiet, will have further conversations with Danijel. They are good friends and B has been thinking a lot about life after death, what happens and how a person can be sure of going to heaven.

The third is C. C lives in a coastal town which has no established evangelical church. It’s thought there may be up to 5 believers in the area. The camp was great for C, she really came out of her shell and we think the gospel content was a great foundation for her. As far as I know she doesn’t often get fellowship with other believers. Her parents are not keen on her being an evangelical Christian but allowed her to come to the camp because relatives of Martina (Danijel’s wife) live next door and they trust Martina.

Wonderful mission, lovely people, much to pray about!

Lessons from the Black Mountain country

What do you do when you get a chance to go and partner with brothers and sisters in Christ on mission in the least evangelised country in Europe?
You go of course!!!
That's exactly what I have had the privilege of doing for the past 2 summers.
My colleague, Lensa, and I have taken 6 students from the CUs belonging to the NE and Yorkshire region of the UK to a little town called Niksic in the beautiful, rugged mountains of Montenegro.

Our aim: to help reach students with the good news of Jesus.
Our plan: to run and English and Bible camp for 5 days as well as some little events in and around the city building relationships in the week prior to the camp.
Our partners: EUS Serbia/Montenegro and the local churches.

(Check out IFES, UCCF for more information on the work worldwide and in the UK)

Danijel and Pete are two guys who are plugging away with conversation classes and general relationship building to try to make Christ know to students. They are committed to the only local evangelical church in the city and their perseverance is a wonderful thing to witness and a challenge to my weak faith. It was a privilege to work alongside them. Danijel is the first and only staff worker in the country.

The country has only been independent for a short while and the history, both politically and religiously, makes it a tough place to be an evangelical Christian. Most people are nominally Orthodox from a religious point of view. They believe they have the history and tradition and therefore as Protestants, not only did we come out of the Catholic church, but we have less history and less tradition so why should they listen to anything we say. So they prevailing attitude is the evangelicals are a cult and so are treated with suspicion or apathy.

What we did this year was build on the work of the previous summer. Further relationship building, but also some sport on the university campus with anyone who happened to fancy a bit of football or basketball as well as an acoustic cafe in a local coffee shop took place in week 1.
This was really helpful and although none of the contacts made came to the camp, we really benefitted from meeting people and getting to know a bit about the culture.We sought to serve the local church wherever we could too through participating in Sunday services as well as through moving a whole load of gospels from storage into the church.

The camp was awesome. The students lead English lessons at 3 different levels, Lensa and I did evangelistic talks and the students followed those up by leading discussion groups. We also had plenty of fun playing sport, teaching the locals how to Ceilidh and learning some traditional Montenegrin dancing. There is also an hilarious video of our team and their tribute song at the talent evening, I'll try find a link for it!

A few encouragements and challenges:

1. The local student believers whom we met in 2010 had all grown in their faith and it was wonderful to see that God had been faithful in keeping them.

2. Some local believers really have no support day by day because their town or village doesn't have a church and they cant travel to 1 of the 3 evangelical churches in the country or because their parents are not happy about their new found faith in Jesus.

3. Students in Montenegro ask similar questions to students in the UK due to the world becoming a global city through the internet and other technological advancements.

4. The impact the camp had on a couple of individuals made it all worthwhile. One girl, not a follower of Jesus, said she didn't want to go because she had loved it so much.

There is so much more to say, but this post is already huge! I pray that the foundations of partnership laid, and contacts made, will bear fruit in the awesome plan of God to bring many people to know and love Jesus.

Missionary God

Check out this great new video from UCCF about mission. We have wonderful God who is a missionary. He seeks us. He wants to reconcile people to Himself. The love within the Trinity; Father, Son and Hoy Spirit, flows outwards. It is because God is love that He seeks after us, that's why Jesus came to save us and that's the glorious message Christians have to proclaim to the world around us. He wants us to know His love. He wants to adopt sons and daughters from every nation, tribe and language. AWESOME!!!

http://www.uccf.org.uk/media/missionary-god.htm



Oh, and see if you notice anyone you know?!?!