Bosnia is a beautiful country!

It is also a heartbreaking and heart-broken country. About half the population considers themselves either Catholic or Orthodox—and they keep separate from each other. The other half is Muslim. Islam was introduced to the region by the Ottoman Empire many hundreds of years before. It was these three factions that fought a bloody civil war in the 1990’s. They now maintain a fairly stable peace, but with surprisingly hard lines drawn between them.

The people were described as friendly, but suspicious of outsiders.

Rachel, George and I just returned from a week among them. And it was sad to think that two factions should know the love of Christ and extend it in the Gospel toward the third. But they don’t know the love of God; they are steeped in tradition that has become inextricably entwined into their cultural identity. They don’t seek to know Christ; they labor to preserve their culture.

We weren’t actually there to spend time with Bosnians. We were there to visit two of our Chinese “daughters” from our last stint in China. They have both found work at an international high school with a unique burden for the kids of Chinese house church pastors. Lily teaches biology and other science classes, while Rebecca is learning the ropes of a dorm mom.

When Rebecca joined Lily, we joked with them that we’d have to go visit them! We actually checked prices and found that February was a cheap month, only slightly more expensive than visiting Timothy in the Dominican Republic. So we felt like we had to make good on our offer!

Turns out, the school was willing to pay for all three of us to visit, because Lily and Rebecca had been singing our praises to the leadership. They were curious to meet us, because they recognized their need for a campus pastor. And we might fill the bill, being able to serve both the Western teachers and Chinese staff and students.

So off we went!

All three of us were surprised at how easily we fit back into a Chinese context—even in an non-Chinese country! But Bosnia felt familiar, bringing back memories of our first years in China. The little town where the school sits reminded me of my first summer trip to China, traveling in a more rural province, with rugged mountains and charcoal cooking and heating fires. And clouds and rain. That part wasn’t my favorite, but that was the weather during much of that first summer in China.

The staff was hungry for the guidance and wisdom of an older couple. The students were responsive to Scriptural truth. I had two opportunities to teach, speaking from 2 Corinthians 4 in Wednesday chapel and 2 Corinthians 5 for the weekend worship service. We also had an open-topic “dorm night” with the students, where they could ask anything they wanted. And lots of time spent with the Student Life staff, talking life and family and some very hard pasts experiences and the fallout they’re still living today.

On the last business day there, we began talking about the possibility of our serving there. We’re very open to it!

But then word came that someone had accused the school’s founder of money laundering, that the school was a front for said laundering. It isn’t. It’s real teachers and real students doing real school. But the government decided to begin a careful review of all the school records and finances. It seems the Chinese government may have been behind it, as they froze the founder’s assets in China and word was they would be pressuring the Bosnian government to detain him and his family. The founder just happened to be out of country at an international conference at the time, and his family decided it would be best for them to join him.

So almost as soon as we felt we’d found a place near and dear to our hearts, it was thrown into complete disarray.

We invite you to pray for the school, for the founder, for the staff, teachers and students. Their lives and futures have been upended. Pray that clarity would quickly return, that peace would reign even as the enemy seeks to overthrow their good work. It is impossible for man, but not the least bit difficult for the Lord, but ask also that China would drop its attack and release the founder’s funds, which are the school’s funds. Or that God would supply their needs from an entirely new source, and quickly.

We would gladly join them and help them to raise up multitudes of new laborers for China’s harvest field. Pray also for us, that we would understand the Lord’s will for us in regard to this school.