Halfway into this year’s mission in Northern Macedonia for me and Jan, we have seen how God has opened doors for us to equip the next generation of leaders and see people receive Jesus. But the absolute highlight of this past autumn term came as a total surprise from the Lord.
It all started when the eldest son of two brothers in a church-planting family in Skopje came back home to Macedonia unexpectedly. Jan and I, who hardly knew their son Ilija, immediately realised that we had to invite him to our Youth conference in Uppsala, which was to start the following week. Ilija chose to come along despite being a little hesitant about the decision. During the conference, something happens to Ilija. The moment he enters the church hall during the opening night worship, he raises his hands and chooses to give his life to Jesus. He also receives the baptism of the Spirit and is filled with a whole new peace and joy, which Jan and I noticed even though we had only known him for a few days. Once we are back in Skopje and the parents see the difference in their son, we begin to understand what an amazing miracle God had done.
In fact, in his early teens, Ilija had been in a serious accident in which his body was totally burnt and even led to him being dead for 45 minutes before he miraculously came back to life. Although he was brought back to life, the accident left him with great scars, not only physically but also psychologically, which led him to turn away from God. This eventually led to a drug addiction that started with cannabis but ended with multiple overdoses of mixed drugs containing crack, methamphetamine, heroin and more. Eventually, he was hospitalised in a psychiatric hospital in Zagreb when his parents realised that their son’s life had gone completely off the rails. So they called him home, while he himself realised that he would die in Zagreb if he stayed. Once home, he met me and Jan.
With tears in their eyes, the family also told us that when they attended the last European Conference, it was during one of the meetings that the younger brother burst into a prayer saying ‘I want my brother back’.
When Jan and I heard the whole story after Ilija’s decision to follow Jesus, we both realised what a miracle this was and that it wasn’t because of anything remarkable we had done, but just obeying God’s voice to go to Macedonia. But also how this became a testimony to the whole family of God’s faithfulness as Ilija was saved in the same place where his brother in desperation asked the Lord to bring his brother back.
Today, Ilija is growing daily in character and maturity since he has started to accompany me and Jan as an interpreter while boldly sharing his testimony. He has also decided to start Bible school in Uppsala this autumn and is very much looking forward to coming back to Uppsala where he met Jesus.
/Samuel Thoor,
Missionary in North Macedonia
