Maintain a ministry Eastern Europe –Gift code PS1

“I was a body builder, in the gym, lifting weights,” says Mimi, remembering how he became a Christian, nearly 30 years ago. “A friend there invited me and another man to go to church. It was a Baptist church, in Leskovac, where I am now the pastor.

“At the same time I started to attend the Orthodox Church. The priest said the Baptist church was a sect, and I asked myself if I was on the wrong path. Listening to a sermon, these words from the gospel of John touched me, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” and I realised that there was no way to be saved but by Jesus.

“I had a feeling of sin, a burden. I wanted to be forgiven. Then I understood it was not the church but only Jesus who could forgive my sin. Only God could do this.”

Working as a mechanic in the military, Mimi supported himself while studying theology at Novi Sad and then did mission work in Montenegro where he met his wife Sladjana. Later he studied at the Balkan Theological Seminary in Nis and took up the pastorate of the Baptist Church in Leskovac, although the congregation is too small to offer him a salary.

During the week Mimi now drives a taxi to support his family, but at the same time he is working to plant a church in Vranje, an unevangelised town of 70,000. “Of the ethnic Serb population, I know of only two believers,” he says. “I share my testimony with people I meet and my wife also has many contacts and together we visit people in their homes, to tell them about Jesus.”

Now Mimi receives help from Blythswood’s pastor support scheme, so that he can spend less time behind the wheel of his taxi and more sharing the gospel with people he meets.