December 2018

     I recall my first time in Sarajevo, which was in a December month, just after the Balkan wars ceased about two decades ago. At that time looking through the church window I could see the winter haze covering downtown while smoke plumes pierced upward through the mist. Smoke from open fires in window-less buildings and apartment-towers heavily damaged by the years of war, now occupied by Roma (stateless and lost in their birth-country) looking for shelter in those war ravaged homes and for warmth from open fires in this once winter olympics hosting city.

     The houses further up the street had not been cleared of explosives and the church had the vision – once authorities ‘cleared’ a house – to prepare one room (painting/ stove/ sanitation), so that refugees, (who had fled the dangerous and hopeless years-long sniper siege), could actually return home. I was there to prepare for a IM Discovery team the following summer, to help the church implement that vision. The team also built a children’s play ground. A person passing by the church commented that that was the best thing happening in years. A safe space for kids to play.

     Later we had Marcia, a volunteer doing ‘mercy-ministries’ there. After the news-cameras of the Balkan-wars left, it was ‘out of sight – out of heart’, the Balkan as a mission field became forgotten by mission organisations. I was told of only 2 know Evangelical believers in Montenegro, and ‘0’ (zero) believers known east of the long stretched river Drina, where a million people live in rural, remote mountainous stretched out areas. As the BIG ‘Yugoslav-war’ (or Balkan-Wars) refugee theme faded in the early 2000s and thousands of people in ‘refugee’ camps – stateless in their own countries – became forgotten, Marcia let them know that they were not a forgotten number but a person loved by Jesus Christ, and listened to their stories.

     We had volunteers involved with other ministries of Sarajevo’s Baptist Church over the years. Even this very year a precious volunteer couple went there to reach out to refugees, and made friends with them overnight by singing christian songs with guitar and love, being a channel of God’s presence and meeting God in this place. Currently refugees from the Middle East are stuck at the borders of ‘Fortress-Europe’ and shunned (even beaten) by border officials. In Bosnia they are tolerated, many Bosnians know what it means to flee for war. The pastor shared that he was a refugee himself in the Balkan wars and felt for those migrants in search of safety for better life perspectives in a world of violence and economic unequally, both causing people to flee or rebel with more violence.

     Today Sarajevo looks much different from 20 years ago.The Baptist churches have doubled and have a few mission points. With the help of volunteers Christian love is penetrating the neighbourhoods of the churches and the society, like salt flavours the food.

     Jesus says: ‘you ARE the salt ..’ It means with Jesus in our hearts we will bring flavor and preservation: preserve society, work with reconciliation and economic Justice. People with the Prince of Peace in their hearts preserve the communities, neighbourhoods, societies and nations.

     Thank you for your prayers and partnership in ministry.

     Greetings and Blessings from Prague,     

                               Pieter & Nora Kalkman