Bread and Wine

This was taken at the old military fort that overlooks Sarajevo, which was used to bomb the city during the war.

      

There she stood with large, warm, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks.

“All of this time I’ve been standing beside her, mourning with her, as if she were dead,” she said to us after service.  She was talking about Sarajevo, the city that she loved.

   

      The woman standing before us was a long-term missionary serving in Sarajevo, Bosnia.  She spoke to us of how she had been caught up in the spirit of mourning that hangs heavily in the air over the city.  She had become weary from years of ministering to a generation of people scarred by war.  A people who believe that the war is not over, but that it’s just not happening now, and who daily relive past horrors in their hearts and minds.  A people who walk around as if they were unable to awaken from the nightmare of a deep sleep.       

    

     The night before we met this woman, the Lord spoke to us about all of these things.  We were in our room settling in for the night.  It was a warm cozy room on the top floor of a church, nestled into the hillside.  Adam was reading Mark chapter six when he was overcome with excitement.

“Chris, I think God is showing me something about Sarajevo! Come read this!” 
 There we sat, together, reading and praying.

     The story before us was about a twelve-year-old girl; which ironically had been the number of years that had pasted since the Bosnian war had ended.  In the story the girl had been presumed dead.  Mourning was in full swing, people were crying and wailing loudly.  They even laughed at Jesus when he said that she was only asleep.  Then he took the girls parents into her room, held her hand, and told her to get up.  Immediately she arose and Jesus told them to give her something to eat.

    

     That night the Lord spoke into our hearts that Sarajevo, like the girl, had been presumed dead.  Although many were mourning for her, she was not dead, only asleep.  They were a generation who were walking around in a daydream needing to be called out from their slumber.  A generation who was in desperate need of something to eat, in need of the bread of life and cup of salvation.

-Just one of many moments we experienced while on outreach with our DTS in 2007.