Testimony of Conversion

I was born in a small village in North Macedonia, to an Eastern Orthodox father and a Methodist mother. I have two older siblings, a sister and a brother. As is the culture in this part of the Balkans, we lived in the same house with my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was a nominal member of the Orthodox church, yet a committed communist, and my father used to gamble a lot and was never around much. Over the years, my mother started attending the church she was born into (the Methodist church at the time was committed to preaching the Gospel, and there was a real spiritual awakening in our part of the country at the time. My mother soon became a Christian and she often secretly took me to various church meetings where I could hear the Gospel as a child. My father and grandfather even allowed me to go to Sunday school since other Orthodox children went too. I liked going there. I was drawn to the Gospel as a child, I knew why Jesus came, that he died for my sins and that and I should repent and believe in him. But as I grew older, in my teenage and young adult years, the world became tempting for me. My father’s gambling problem got worse, to the point that we barely had any money to live on, and my way of “dealing” with these problems was spending time with bad company, getting drunk. This became my daily life, although I was constantly tormented by guilt and awareness that the life I was leading was depressing and that I was sinning against God. My mother never gave up praying for me; she would always give me little notes with Bible verses and hold prayer meetings for me at church. Around this time God miraculously saved my father – he learned the Gospel through a man who came to his workshop, and he repented, quit gambling, smoking and going to local pubs. He was all of a sudden interested in listening to the word ofGod, Bible reading and talking about Christ. Prayer meetings, small groups and worship nights were now held in our house. Even though I saw all this and al the change in my family, I was still reluctant to give my life to Jesus. Soon after this I met an old friend, who was now a newly converted Christian, who invited me to go to a Christian camp for college students (even though I wasn’t a student). I chose to go. I was directly invited to repent and believe in Jesus there. I knew at that moment that, if I accepted the call, I was going to lose my friends, my girlfriend was going to leave me, that life was never going to be the same. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. It was the greatest struggle I have ever experienced in my life. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest, that’s how much of a struggle was going on inside of me. At one point the Holy Spirit opened my heart and gave me faith alone, I stood up tall and loudly said, “I want to be a child of God. I repent of my sins. I want to follow Christ and never look back”. For the first time in my life, I felt free and fulfilled, and other Christians at the camp shared this love and joy with me. When I came home, I told my mother and father that I became aChristian; they were both overjoyed. My mother had faithfully prayed for me all that week. And just like I said, by Gods mercy, I never looked back. Though I was tempted to keep spending time with my old friends, I committed myself to Christian growth through prayer, Bible reading, listening to the Word, spending time with Christians. For the first time, I had a new life in Christ where there is no more condemnation, and losing my life from before was worth it. I now had life in abundance and hope of eternal life! Al glory to God, Hallelujah!

Call to Ministry

I was baptized in 2009, shortly after my conversion, and, by God’s grace, I kept that zeal for him and his word. God led the way in this way because my longing for a deeper acquaintance with him and his word was great. And that’s how I met representatives from the Bible school from Belgrade, who visited our church with students who witnessed in the school, and I knew that I should go and enroll. We also prayed for the consent and recognition of the pastor and the church to go to school, and so I went to Belgrade. I started Bible school, I finished one year, and I prayed, God, I want to serve you; please show me where and how you want me to be useful to you. The director not long after that invited me to serve in the Bible school to help him in his ministry by working with students, leading mission trips, visiting different churches where I would preach, and do pastoral care with students. I really knew that this was the answer to prayer for me, so I accepted this call. I was in the Bible School for a total of 5 years. There I met my wife, who came to work as a translator.