One of 3 countries included in the Balkans. Also are Bosnia Hercegovina and Macedonia. Kosovo is about the size of Maryland. Population 2,200,000. Capital: Prishtina; population: 500,000. Languages: Albanian, Serbian.

C&MA Mission: Entry in 1999.

Kosovo is a land steeped in history, conquest, war and, most of all faith. The Gospel first came to the Illyrian people, the ancestors of the modern Albanians, in the first century. Paul himself, in Romans 15 .19 says, “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum I’ve fully proclaimed the Gospel.”

Most Kosovars were Islamified over five hundred years of Ottoman Turkish rule. Most also remember that their ancestors were Christians. The twentieth century has returned biblical faith to this land.

Today, Kosovo has nearly forty churches and organizations as a part of the Kosovo Evangelical Protestant Church. Today, despite centuries of cultural domination by Catholic, Orthodox and Islamic influence, the evangelical Protestant community is recognized as one of the five historic faith communities in the small nation.

The Christian & Missionary Alliance entered Kosovo in 1999, immediately after the last bloody war. The team mission statement is: To see Albanian-speaking communities transformed by the Gospel through planting healthy churches and meeting the practical needs of people. To that end the C&MA team has focused on eastern Kosovo, a region that was completely unreached and unchurched. In 2002 the C&MA partnered with the Messiah Evangelical Fellowship, a church located in the capital city of Prishtina, to begin a joint church planting effort in the eastern city of Gjilan. In 2004 the Resurrection Center and Church opened and began “touching hearts through helping hands.”

Since 2004 the Resurrection Church and Center have been “influencing the influencers” at the local teachers’ college, blessing the community through a wide array of programs, presenting the Gospel in culturally relevant ways and seeing people come to faith in Jesus Christ. Here are some specific highlights:

• In the fall of 2009 our partner church launched the BILD church-based theological education program. Since Kosovo has no Bible schools of its own, leadership development is one of the major “choke-points” of church multiplication. The BILD program currently has nine participants from Gjillan and Prishtina. We are hoping that the pastors for the churches in Gjilan and Kamenica come from this program.

• Women are often an overlook population in Kosovo. Cultural commitments often keep them from fully participating in the life of the church. This last year we have taken the first steps towards the launch of a national women’s discipleship program called Entrust. The program was presented to and approved by the national church in the fall of 2009 and we hope to have the first facilitators training in June of 2010.

• Every year we help to distribute thousands of Samaritan’s Purse shoeboxes. This year we noticed a sign that our strategy of “influencing the influencers was working. While distributing shoeboxes in a fairly remote, mountain village Naim, the project organizer, was met by a young teacher. But she wasn’t a stranger. This young teacher greeted Naim with a warm smile, having come regularly to the Resurrection Center as a college student. She happily helped Naim set up the distribution of shoeboxes and Gospel booklets. The students that we’ve blessed, with whom we’ve shared Christ with, are now graduating and opening doors for us that we might not be able to open ourselves.

• Baptism in Kosovo is a very public act. Among Muslims there is no greater sign that one has decided to follow Christ than to be baptized in an open lake surrounded by one’s countryman. Last August thirteen local believers decided to follow the Lord in baptism in a nearby lake. This winter five more young men asked to be baptized immediately, wanting to be baptized in February!