By Sherri Ens
2004
As you may remember, I am working on a “church planting” team on the eastern edge of the capital city Skopje. The people living in the center of town refer to us as “the hicks”. So we really are on the outskirts. Our goal is to see at least one house church in each of the next twelve or so villages to the east in the next several years.
With that in mind, we now have two weekly home Bible studies with families and one area where we do separate men’s and women’s groups. In all these areas we also have kid’s classes.
It has been such a blessing to see how God has been working in people’s lives.
One Bible study is held with three couples who all became believers last year. They and their children continue to grow in their faith and it’s exciting to see them sharing with their friends and relatives and bringing them to the classes. I have the blessing of meeting weekly with one family, a couple and their son, for a teaching time. It started with just the wife and me, but it’s a small home and with the husband and son sitting in the same room, they just joined in. It’s been fantastic to see them praying together as a family.
Another Bible study is in another couple’s home. She made a profession of faith over six years ago, making her the most mature believer in the area. They host the study and invite their friends and family. It’s an ever changing group that God works through to reach others. This wife also leads our monthly women’s outeach.
The third area we work in is an incredibly poor area. We have done food distributions there with the assistance of Samaritan’s Purse for the past five years. Two years ago, the men asked why they couldn’t have their own Bible study. The men have now been meeting every Sunday night for the past two years. So we thought maybe the women would like to participate. We’ve started a study with them, telling stories through the Bible to help them understand the character of God and the foundations of salvation. Because many of these people are uneducated, we’re taking our time really making sure they remember all the details, so they’ll have a Bible in their minds and we trust in their hearts. This is our most trying area, as none of the women at this point are believers, and we see constant gossiping and back-biting. Yet they continue to come, wanting to learn more. Pray that they would truly understand and believe and be changed.
