Tuesday, 3 August 2004
Macedonia 2004
Hazel Southam, then Editor of the Baptist Times, came with us to cover part of the Luis Palau Mission to Macedonia.
Alan Heavey was the evangelist to the capital
city, Skopje.
This is the article in full and we are grateful
to Hazel and the Baptist Times for it’s inclusion.
Front page article in “The Baptist Times”
Written by: Hazel Southam, Editor, The Baptist Times
Web site: www.baptisttimes.co.uk
Photo Credit: Canko Cvetanovski
IT’S SUNDAY morning in a plush hotel in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, and middle-aged housewife Darka Bobdanova [sic] is wiping blue tears from her face, because her life’s been changed.
Most things about Darka are blue: her jacket, her top, her dangly earrings, her eye shadow and mascara. And so now her tears are blue, but her smile is radiant. She’s standing in front of a blue stage, hugging just about everyone. She has just become a Christian.
Two days earlier, also dressed in blue, Darka was not smiling. She was furious. She had attended a ladies’ coffee morning in Skopje. After hearing the Christian message delivered by British Baptist evangelist, Alan Heavey (53), she had not just one bone, but a whole skeleton to pick with him.
She was a good person, she said. Why wasn’t that enough for her to go to heaven? How come a murderer could go too if he repented of his sins and believed in Christ? It simply wasn’t fair. Alan Heavey agreed. It wasn’t fair, but that was the way it was, and that’s where the grace of God came in. That is why he was spending ten days in Macedonia talking about Christ.
Darka changed her mind in the space of two days. And she wasn’t the only one, over ten days more than 1,100 people committed their lives to Christ. And in so doing they nearly doubled the number of evangelical Christians in this former Yugoslavian state.
This all came about because four British Christians teamed up to visit Macedonia and preach the Gospel there.
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia nestles between mountain ranges, with Albania on one side, Kosovo on the next and Greece below. It was spared the inter-ethnic violence that raged across the Balkans in the 1990s. But, nearly ten years after the break up of the former Yugoslavia, rebels staged an uprising in Macedonia in 2001, demanding greater rights for the ethnic Albanian minority.
The conflict set off a wave of trouble across the fledgling state. Three years later people are still displaced – essentially homeless - within the country.
The economy is shot to bits. There is 40 per cent unemployment. The average annual income is US$1,710.00
Macedonia is also a country divided along ethnic lines. Sixty five per cent of the population is Macedonian, 25 per cent Albanian and the remaining 10 per cent are largely Roma gypsies. In Skopje the divisions between the communities are clear. Macedonians live on one side of the river, Albanians on the other and beyond them, in run-down semi-built houses, live the Roma.
The 10-day mission is being run under the auspices of the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association, and is to all sectors of the community. In ten days not only did all three races hear the Gospel, but so did women, taxi drivers, medics, lawyers and illiterate Roma children living in outlying villages.
The organization has a vision to evangelise the former Eastern bloc. Missions have already taken place in Albania and Montenegro, and one is planned for Bulgaria.
‘We’re certain that this is where God wants us to be,’ says John Grant (62), the director of the mission and a member of High Town Baptist Church, Luton. ‘It’s pioneering stuff and it’s great fun, because we are welcomed with open arms. Many of these countries have had the big evangelists, yet years later the Church hasn’t increased. The people needed something that was culturally appropriate.’
That comes in the form of meals, teas, coffee mornings, bringing groups of people together who either work or live together. It’s easy going. Alan Heavey, an evangelist and member of Stopsley Baptist Church, gives a talk, and then leads people in a prayer. Local Christians sing a few songs, and that’s about it.
It all takes place in hotel restaurants, because for most people, entering an evangelical church would be unthinkable, ‘letting the family down’ according to John. The reason is simple: evangelicals are viewed as a sect in Macedonia. Despite the fact that the former President of the country, Boris Trajkovski, was an avowed evangelical, they have little credibility and are viewed with suspicion. So the events are held in places that it’s easy for people to enter.
So a meeting for Albanians is held in the Albanian quarter of Skopje in a swanky restaurant on the seventh floor of an equally swanky hotel. Beautiful, well-dressed people sit at tables around a swimming pool dotted with water lilies.
An afternoon meal for Roma gypsies is held in the Roma region in and old people’s day centre, and attended largely by the local elderly folk.
Taxi drivers flock to a meeting in a hotel restaurant between their busy shifts of rush hour and lunch hour.
Alan Heavey’s message varies little from talk to talk. He tells the story of the lost sheep, goes back to the Garden of Eden, talks about sin, then swiftly onto Jesus and the cross, and what that’s all about. Then he gives people a choice: heaven or hell? Life or death? He’s a jokey, Keith Chegwin-style character, who bounces around the stage with enormous energy and enthusiasm. He walks on stage carrying an umbrella, because although it’s June, it’s pouring with rain in Skopje. But he takes no prisoners.
Back at the hotel, where Darka committed her life to Christ, this is what he’s saying, ‘Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.”
‘Some people think, “Well, I’m a good person. I don’t do anything wrong. And so I’m bound to go to heaven. After all, why shouldn’t I?” God’s a holy God. God’s an awesome God. Who do you think He is? Yes, God loves you and me. Who else do you know who would die for you on a cross?
‘Some people think if they go to a church, they will go to heaven. It’s good to go to church, but it won’t get you to heaven.
‘Some people think that talking to a man will get you to heaven. No. Some people think that being baptized as a baby will get you to heaven. No.’
And he lays it on the line about hell: he describes a hot, sulphur lake that is the final resting place of those who don’t know Christ. I ask him if this isn’t a bit heavy, too frightening for people? ‘I don’t think it’s scaring them,’ he says. ‘It’s just telling them the truth. If they hear the truth, they have a decision to make. If you explain about the positives of Christ and then explain about Christ coming back…it’s not scary.’
The Revd Bore Blazevski of God’s Voice Baptist Church in Skopje, is convinced that the message that the British team have brought, has worked. And he’s thrilled. This is the first time in the Churches’ 120-year-history, that all ten churches have worked together.
‘It means a lot for the churches to have this mission,’ he says. ‘These events are massive. I hope that we won’t any longer have an excuse for not doing any [mission] work. We now have so many contacts. There are so many people to counsel and pray for.
‘We’ve got plenty of work. It should be a burden, but we call it a sweet burden. It’s a great joy.’
His wife, Rule, agrees. ‘I feel very lucky when I see people become Christians. It’s a good joy that I cannot explain.
‘It’s a good opportunity for people here to hear about Jesus,’ she adds. ‘Everyone has one life. But before, people didn’t think about the Bible because everything was good in their lives. They didn’t need God.
‘But now people need Him because life is difficult.’
At a women’s coffee morning, 30 people make a first-time commitment to God. They include a mother and daughter. The mother is divorced, saddened by the loss of her marriage. Her daughter, who preferred not to be named, said, ‘My mother and I have accepted Christ, but I don’t know why my life and my family’s life is so miserable. I think that God will show me the way.’
Though there is much rejoicing, there is also a great sense of realism among the new converts. Life is hard. Coming to faith is not a palliative. It does not provide all the answers.
At a smart dinner for lawyers, one solicitor said, ‘This was interesting, but I need some more time to think about this. When confronted with these teachings, I am put in something of a dilemma.’
The mission culminates at the Hotel Alexander Palace in Skopje, at a rally that over 1,000 people attend. More than 60 make their way to an altar call at the end – including Darka.
This final meeting features one of the most poignant moments of the whole week: a video is shown of former President, Boris Trajkovski, speaking to Macedonia’s pastors.
He said, ‘Everything I have is as nothing compared with the Word. I am complete in the Lord and I tell that to everyone. I tell all of you that in my personal life there’s nothing more important than knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest truth is that even the kings and the lords will bow down before God.’
On February 17 this year, Mr Trajkovski met with the Macedonian pastors. He wanted, he said, to meet with them on a monthly basis, to pray for the nation, for the pastors’ work and for himself. Ten days later he was killed in an air crash in Bosnia.
As the home video was played in Hotel Alexander Palace, people wept openly, and as the former President declared his faith, they cheered and applauded. This was a man whose faith has become something that others aspire to. No wonder then that so many went forward to receive Christ.
The British team are realistic, seeing their work much like the Parable of the Sower: not everyone who comes forward will necessarily stay the course, but they’ve all heard the word of God for the first time.
Two financial planners, who run their own company in St Alban’s, have left the comfort of their Home Counties homes, and joined the team. Graham Cleveland (40) from St Andrew’s Chorleywood, and Jon Cobb (41) from Stopsley Baptist Church, are excited about what they’ve seen and experienced in Macedonia. They have led missions (for the first time) to groups of Roma gypsies, villagers and people in the nearby town of Veles. In one day, over 180 people made commitments of faith.
‘The experience of sharing the Gospel is just way, way outside my comfort zone,’ says Jon. ‘And it’s been fantastic. I’m conscious of the Parable of the Sower, but I know that for many people, the penny really did drop.
‘Nonetheless, you can still hear Satan saying, “These people didn’t know what they were doing. If you’d asked them if they wanted to support Portsmouth Football Club they’d have put their hands up.”’
But he’s still excited. ‘I’ve never led 99 people to the Lord in one day before,’ he says and beams.
Graham agrees, saying, ‘Yesterday, 182 people came to Christ in one day. It’s just so incredibly humbling. I felt so weak, and yet God was strong.’
Alan Heavey is convinced that the model of low-key evangelism appealing to specific groups in a comfortable setting is the perfect way to reach people. And he wants Baptists back home in the UK to catch this vision: after all, if it can happen in Macedonia, then why not in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
‘People don’t believe evangelism works,’ he says. ‘But over here, we’ve seen that it does. If we’re seeing it here, then are you really telling me that a similar thing won’t happen at home?’
The problem is one of attitude, he believes. ‘People see evangelism as something a little bit strange,’ he says. “Often in a church, evangelism is a secondary item. We are too busy with good works, which of course, are wonderful. However, raw evangelism is only done by a few people, and I wonder why?
‘What’s happened here has been extraordinary, and yet it’s based on God’s promises. He says that if we lift Jesus up, He will draw people to Him. Why should we be amazed? But because we come from a western culture that sees evangelism as something that we don’t do unless it’s with good works, then that’s how we react.
‘Here, we’ve brought people nothing except for the Gospel and they have responded.’
For Darka Bobdanova, the debate about mission, evangelism, and good works is immaterial. Her life’s been changed. She’s right at the beginning of learning about Christ. The local church will help her. But she doesn’t even really know that yet. All she knows is that she’s been given something immeasurably wonderful. It doesn’t matter that it’s still raining torrentially outside. Her world’s full of sunshine.
