By Lanny Tucker of Eastern European Missions Submitted by Ken Murrell Depew Church of Christ
The Depew Church of Christ recently hosted Lanny Tucker of Eastern European Missions, who shared many exciting stories about providing free Bibles in people’s heart languages with us, including this one: In May 2023, I had the privilege of traveling to Serbia to meet some of our ministry partners distributing Bibles. Drasko Djenovic, our Serbian co-worker guided us to meet nine ministry partners working for Christ in a culture where about 85% practice a very nominal Orthodox faith.
Most Serbians do not read a Bible if they own one at all and typically attend worship services once or twice a year. Many Serbians celebrate Christmas and Easter but, if asked, they could not tell you that these holidays celebrate Christ’s birth and resurrection!
Drasko often reminded us that Serbia has seven million people but only 0.2% of them (less than 14,000) are Protestant Christians. This small minority is finding ways to link arms and work together as much as possible so more people will come to know Christ and have a relationship with him.
One bright spot in Serbia was meeting Rama, a church leader among the Roma people. Roma people are sprinkled across many countries in Europe and are typically poor, less educated, and marginalized by the mainstream population.
Despite the discriminatory culture, Rama has helped plant seven churches now with about one thousand members in southern Serbia. Rama was a Spirit-filled man who would not quit smiling and had an incredibly peace-filled spirit. He humbly thanked us, multiple times, for the Bibles Eastern European Mission has provided in their own Roma dialect.
As we learned about his family, Rama was extremely proud of his hard-working son who, against the odds, was hired to work in a Serbian factory. Roma are typically relegated to the least desirable jobs, such as working to harvest fields by hand or cleaning toilets.
Rama was an amazingly humble man. We did not realize that — by Serbian standards — we were honoring him by simply inviting him to eat with us in a public restaurant. Roma are like modern-day Samaritans, yet this man is leading a movement of discipling churches among his people in an otherwise resistant culture.
We asked Rama how they have had such growth. He said, “Unity, discipleship, and church planting— these are the three things our churches are focused on.” May God’s kingdom come and his will be done in Serbia as it is in heaven!