Letters
A letter from Kosovo Dmitri* and his wife Daria* heard God’s call to serve while at a Baptist seminary in Prague. Over the past ten years, they’ve welcomed Action Teamers, learned to stay warm in dark Kosovo winters, and witnessed to Jesus’ love in deeds and words.
Dear friends, Both Daria and I studied at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague. We were considering what we would like to do, and I expressed the desire to do charity work in Kosovo. In 1999, there had been the war in Kosovo, and there were lots of wounds and a lot of need. As a native Serbian, I wanted to explore whether we could do something there. In our first house, we didn’t have proper carpets. It was just soil, covered with some cardboard and then carpet over the top. It was a year before we found our first building where we set up our centre. I was teaching English, and we ran classes mainly for preschool kids. We didn’t have insulation, but we had a very nice children’s playground that we built – it was the only one in the village and perfect for outreach. In wintertime we had to close it on several occasions. It was so cold that the water in the toilets was frozen. When we moved to our new building, we had to give up our playground, but we had central heating and we were much closer to the Roma community, which was very
beneficial and a blessing. But one of the biggest disappointments for me was that even after ten years, parents from a minority ethnic group decided to drop out because we had more Roma kids attending. When BMS World Mission teachers Robert* and Rose* arrived, they brought so much improvement. I could praise them for hours. I switched to being responsible for the administrative work. Daria was our legal representative, and also, in a sense, our boss: monitoring our budgets, finances, helping with the classes… We supervised Action Teams, which was a unique and amazing experience. The locals really appreciated that Action Teamers wanted to become part of their community. I would like to say thanks a lot. I spent seven years in Prague – it has so many beautiful things. But if I could turn back time and choose again whether I want seven years in Prague, or ten years in Kosovo, I would choose ten in Kosovo. Thank you, Dmitri BMS-supported worker, Kosovo *Names changed for security reasons.
www.bmsworldmission.org
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IT WAS SO COLD THAT THE WATER WAS FROZEN
