Our journey to Kosovo starts with a testimony of God keeping the promises of His word. After getting saved, God showed me 2 verses that stuck in my heart my whole life.

I understood that it was God’s heart to save the whole world if they would accept Him. And I understood that He wanted to use His church to do it. After I got saved, I started to ask God for the heathen as my inheritance. I had felt the love, freedom, and security of Christ; I knew what His power could do, and I knew that the whole world was going to hell if they didn’t accept the gospel.

I started praying to God for open door and boldness to share the gospel with everyone I knew. I saw the gospel of Jesus Christ save people’s souls and the word of God change people’s lives. I knew that sharing God’s word with this world was the only thing I had passion to do in this life. It is the only thing that has importance to me.

So, I got discipled in my local church, I went through our Bible training institute, and God gave me the privilege of leading an addiction recovery ministry for a number of years (And man, we saw God save so many people in that ministry and change so many people’s lives!). Then, after my Bible education was over, my wife and I felt like God was calling us to the foreign field.

Meghan and I moved to Albania for a 1 year missionary internship and saw God’s faithfulness once again. We understood what God was saying when He said, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). We were so thankful to be used by God to be the first people to ever share the gospel with so many people! What an amazing honor and blessing it is to be the first one to share the good news to a dying soul! Over the course of the year, we saw God save so many people. We saw a church begin to develop, and most importantly, we saw Jesus get the glory and honor He deserves in a dark place.

After our 1 year internship was over, God opened our eyes to Kosovo. Kosovo is 90% ethnic Albanian. They speak a dialect of Albanian (that is good for us), but the thing that drew us in the most, was that Kosovo is 92% Muslim…….With a 0% evangelical growth rate. And after further on ground research, in the capitol of Prishtina (228,000 souls), there are only 4 evangelical churches with less than 40 people in each church. Dude, there is a great need in Kosovo. God is not willing that any perish. But those people need someone to share the gospel with them so they know how to be saved!

Well, everyone in the world told us that it was going to be hard, and that people were going to kick us out and yadda yadda yadda. We knew it was going to be hard, but through God’s word and the encouragement of our pastors, we put our faith in Jesus and his word and we went on our first survey trip to Prishtina, Kosovo. And man, let me tell you…….Let God be true and every man a liar! GOD DID EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY ABOVE ALL WE COULD ASK OR THINK!

We started sharing the gospel with students — there’s 45,000 students in the university of Prishtina. They wanted to hear about Christ. They had questions about the Bible, and they had never had anyone answer their questions about Jesus. Alot of the students said that if we started a Bible study, they would come to it! It was the exact opposite response that we expected!

The coolest part about it is that I begged God that He would give me just one friend in Prishtina that I could connect with, care for, and show Jesus to. Through a TRULY MIRACULOUS encounter, God sent me my friend — “Atdhe.” I was able to share the gospel with Atdhe, meet his family, pray with him multiple times, give him a Bible (He just finished reading the New Testament), and we are doing video calls now. Atdhe understands the gospel, but knows what it will cost him to confess that he is a Christian. Adthe believes in his heart, but I am begging God now that Atdhe would have the courage to confess Jesus with his mouth, regardless of the persecution that he will face. Also, Meghan made a great connection with a wonderful friend named Mirjeta. We had the opportunity to build a great friendship with her as well, and we got to share the gospel verse by verse with her.

It is clear that God loves the world, including Kosovo. And we are going to GO YE THEREFORE to Kosovo and trust His word to save souls and to build His church for His glory.

And Jesus Christ himself would have to walk through my front door and tell me otherwise.