About a month ago we finished a fantastic summit in Albania where all the European leaders of the Word of Life network gathered for a few days of fellowship, relaxation and worship. Immediately after the summit, Jan and I welcomed Tobias and Rediet Mannehed to preach and serve on the following Sunday in the churches in Macedonia that we work with.
Jan and Rediet stuck to the congregations in Skopje while Tobias and I went to the countryside. This was going to be exciting because preaching in the countryside meant we would be part of Jimmy’s ministry.
Jan and I met Jimmy in early autumn and immediately started serving in his churches. Jimmy is originally from Nigeria but came to Yugoslavia as an exchange student in the 70s to get as far away from his Baptist parents as possible – so atheistic communist Yugoslavia seemed like a good option to get away from Jesus. But against all odds, Jimmy came back to faith, which then led to the growth of a ministry. God had then begun to speak to Jimmy about leaving the 99 sheep and going to the lost sheep, which he immediately understood pointed to the unreached villages in the countryside.
Now Tobias and I were out among the villages, serving four different church services in four different villages in one afternoon! While we were serving, we got to see what some of the churches looked like. In most cases the church hall is no bigger than a bus shelter, and in one of the churches the only members were two elderly men Jimmy had once shared the gospel with after picking up a hitchhiker along the road.
After three services we arrived in the small village of Vinica. We entered a crowded living room with Roma, Turks, Macedonians and Albanians of all ages packed tightly along the walls. I had never seen such a large and diverse group of people come to a meeting in Macedonia before. Tobias then started preaching about hearing from God. At the same time, the Holy Spirit began to remind me to be led by the Spirit and obey what He tells us to do. So when the sermon was over, I felt that we were going to sing a song of praise even though we had no instruments or other worship leaders present.
Immediately after the worship, I invited everyone to wait for God to speak to them based on the message Tobias preached. Then we started to pray for each other. We laid hands and prayed for each one in full expectation that God would speak to them. I have never seen such hunger and expectation in Macedonia. We prayed for the sick and healthy, young and old. I was particularly surprised when we came to an elderly lady covered with a hijab for whom we had to pray. She wasn’t open to confessing Jesus as Lord yet, but her hunger for more of God had driven her to the meeting that night. We couldn’t verify if people had been healed or received anything special that night, but Jimmy called me up the next day very excited about what he had heard from the church members, that signs and wonders had happened in their midst. I realised then that if I had not followed the Holy Spirit’s directive that night, the hunger, expectation and faith in God would not have been the same.
/Samuel Thoor, Missionary North Macedonia
