Worldwide Family Activity Report - Special Issue on Former Yugoslavia
FAR003c - GP
August 1994 by The Family, Zurich, Switzerland
The Family
Making a Difference!
HEALING HEARTS IN THE WAR-TORN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Part 3a
As our story continues, three more volunteers from The Family have joined eight Family missionaries in Croatia, in the area bordering the war zone in Bosnia. Their mission: "to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." (See Luke 4:18,19.) Here are a few of their recent witnessing experiences, as told by Joseph Eastman:
Christian soldier joins Family's witness
Don, at 36, is one of the oldest Canadian soldiers with the U.N. peacekeeping force on duty in Bosnia. Most of them were ordered there by their government, but Don volunteered. He is a Christian, and felt the Lord was calling him to witness to the other soldiers in Bosnia. He comes to Makarska when he is off duty, and visits us regularly for fellowship whenever he is in town.
The Family has produced a series of colour posters with Bible-based backing texts which convey God's love, offer comfort and hope, tell of Heaven to come and explain the plan of salvation. Don now distributes Family posters wherever he goes, including to soldiers of all three warring factions right on the front lines! In Bosnia, Serb, Croatian and Muslim women and children often approach the U.N. troops, asking for help. The soldiers give them food or things for the children. Now Don also gives them posters. Don is like an extra man on our team--one who can go where we can't yet go. God bless him!
On the road to Dubrovnik
While driving to Dubrovnik we repeatedly prayed for protection from snipers, bombs, etc. At one point we pulled off the road and rested a few minutes. We later found out that land mines line both sides of that stretch of the road. We could have easily gone over one. Thank God for the saving power of prayer!
During one of our rest stops, we met an elderly Croation and a Dutchman, who had immigrated here in more peaceful times. When we began witnessing to them, they called their wives. Standing in the field in front of their rebuilt home, they all humbly folded their hands, bowed heads and asked Jesus to come into their hearts. All four were in tears. We also prayed with them that the Lord would keep them safe and bring peace to their land. As we drove off, they stood in the road waving until we were out of sight.
As we continued south, we overtook a convoy of Belgian U.N. peacekeepers who had stopped to refuel. They invited us to their depot a few kilometres down the road. There we witnessed to them for about an hour, and twelve of them prayed to receive the Lord with us. Praise the Lord!
Back in Makarska
When we returned from our scouting trip to Dubrovnik, a couple of Canadian soldiers came looking for Mike, one of the young adults on our team. Mike didn't recognise them and was quite surprised that they knew so much about him. The soldiers explained that in their platoon "everybody talks about The Family and your witnessing."
Several days ago team members Peace and Sara returned home with this story:
"At a nearby refugee camp we met a Muslim woman from Sarajevo who asked if we were the people distributing the `Somebody Loves You' tract. When we answered `yes', she invited us into her house for Bosnian coffee. Then she explained that she had received a copy of this tract a few days earlier. Upon returning home she found her son playing with a group of neighbourhood children. She read the tract to all of them, after which they all wanted a copy of their own. Since she only had one copy and didn't know where to get more, all of the children wrote down the words in their notebooks.
"This woman asked us for more copies of the tract to give to her friends, so we gave her a whole stack! Then we sang a few songs for her and her husband and their little boy. `Look,' the wife said after one song, `your songs have touched me and given me goose bumps all over!'"
When Sara and Peace visited this family again yesterday, the woman had already given out all the tracts, and asked for more of our literature to distribute to friends and acquaintances. This time they gave her some "Peace in the Midst of the Storm" posters. Right away she called over a sweet little refugee girl, gave her a poster and told her, "Here, this is for you. When you're done reading it, give it to your mommy and daddy to read also. It's very important!"
She also explained that she and her husband had begun reading the Bible, so Peace showed her the Book of John and explained that the Gospels are the best place to start when first becoming familiar with the Bible.
"Life isn't as easy for us as it was before the war," she said, "but nevertheless we are very thankful to be alive and have found faith.--And now we even have the friendship of The Family!"
Thank you for your prayers and financial support for our ministry here. Both are very much needed and appreciated!
SOMEBODY LOVES YOU!
Somebody loves you and wants you to know,
Longs to be with you wherever you go;
Somebody loves you and right from the start,
Somebody wants to come into your heart!
Yes, Somebody loves you and for that reason has just sent you this little message! Somebody loves you and really wants to make you happy! We all want to be loved and to love someone, and Love is the greatest thing on Earth to most of us! The beauties of all Creation were put here because of Love!--The grass, the trees, the flowers, the glorious sunsets, the romantic moonlit starry nights, the wonderful animals. Even our pets understand love and cannot really live without love, and sometimes even die of grief.
We too desperately need love and are sometimes dying of grief without love, because we all need love and need to love someone. That's why we were put here and that's what we're here for, because Somebody loves us and wants us to be happy, to love and be loved, to enjoy all of the good things in life and to have enough of everything. But why is there so much sadness and suffering in the World?--So much evil, ugliness, hardship, and death? Why can't it all be wonderful and beautiful and good and pleasant and pleasurable?
Well, it was made to be that way in the Beginning. But man chose to be selfish, unloving and unkind, and to go his own way, far from the Paradise of our original Creation. We have each had a part in bringing misery into the World. Let's be honest. Haven't we all been bad sometimes? Haven't we all done things that we know are wrong, and that we now can't undo? Love could heal so many wounds, restore so many hearts to happiness, ease so much pain and suffering, and avert so much death, but selfishness, greed, thoughtlessness, and stubbornness constantly cause most of the sorrows of the World, including our own.
We have spoiled the Paradise on Earth that was put here for us to enjoy. We have ruined it with hate, greed, violence, pain, wars and death. But Someone wants to save you from it, and some day out of it, and even now keep you from many of these things, and give you joy, peace, pleasure and happiness, and most of all Love!--Love for Him, for others and even for yourself! He's the Giver of all good, the God of Love, a loving God, for He is Love. Yes, there is Someone who loves you!--Who had such great Love for you that He gave His Life to save yours! "There's no greater Love than this, that a Man lay down His life for His friends!"--John 15:13. And He did that for you, to pay for your sins and give you His Love and forgiveness.
He just wants you to turn to Him and be sorry and receive and believe in Him and be thankful for His goodness to you, and try to love and do good to others as He has done for you, as He wishes to do for you, and as He will do for you in an even greater measure in a wonderful Future when He comes to take you into His Heavenly Kingdom. He will then take over the Earth and rule with righteousness, Love, mercy, goodness and kindness, and will stop all wars, hatred, and lack of Love and create a wonderful glorious Kingdom of Love here on Earth for us all to enjoy forever!
Just ask this wonderful Somebody who loves you to come into your heart, and He will wipe away your tears and cause your pains of loneliness, rejection, fear and confusion to cease and give you a wonderful life of Love that lasts forever! Will you ask Jesus to come into your heart today?--God's Son of Love, the sign of His Love, His Own Son who was sent to Earth to show us His Love, but whom evil people persecuted, and crucified! Thank God He rose again and went to Heaven to be with His Father of Love, and now is with us with His loving Motherly Holy Spirit! Just think, God's Own loving Son died for you that you might live! He wants you to be happy, I want you to be happy, we all want you to be happy! There are many of us who love you, and can help you if you'll just turn to Him and towards those who love you. You can do it right now by praying this little prayer:
"Dear Heavenly Father, please forgive me for the wrongs that I have done! I'm sorry, and I want to receive You into my heart through the Love of Your Son, Jesus. Help me to love You and others so that I can be happy and make others happy. Teach me more about You from Your wonderful Book, the Bible. In the name of Jesus, Your Son, amen."
If you've said that prayer with sincerity and honesty, Jesus has come into your heart, because He's promised to do so! He said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone will open the door I will come in and have loving fellowship with them."--Revelation 3:20. If you haven't, do it now before it's too late! God bless and keep you and make you a blessing!
--Your loving Family
(To be continued.)
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family