Marija Simonović shares about a recent Montenegro youth trip to the Mission Net conference in Germany:
Hello everybody,
We made it!!! And first of all we want you to know how grateful we are to the God of all nations for this opportunity, and everyone who gave support, financial and spiritual. We are confident that we had great prayer support while we were traveling and being there. Yes there were many obstacles, we traveled there for 40 hours instead of 20 but, all in all, it was an awesome experience.
There are no words to describe this feeling of standing in the crowd of over 3,000 other young Christians, it was heaven like! Our group from Montenegro was one of over 50 nations that was present and we were 14. Tim (an Operation Mobilization worker and temporary youth group leader in our church), myself (I help with the youth and was responsible for this event in particular due to Violeta being absent), four people from Nikšić, two young man from Bijelo Polje (up north of Montenegro), a girl from Bar and 5 youth from Podgorica. We also had so much fun!
I know I could share the whole list of things with you but here are some highlights from our youth:
“Highlight of the conference would definitely be worshiping together as well as evening sermons!“ Bogdan, 16.
“I loved that we had a Montenegro stand on the European street, it was so great to represent our small country!“ Bojan 17.
“One of the things that stood out was definitely the global village [this was a simulation of a missionary journey]. It made me think a lot and I learned so much! I actually learned a lot from this whole event. I think God gave us the big picture trough small segments.” Biljana 28.
“For me worship was so amazing, the best!“ Vlado 16.
“Highlight was meeting this guy Igor from Macedonia who gave me such great ideas of how to share gospel through sports!“ Marko 21.
“There were a lot of great things, the global village was so good, worship was great and meeting so many different people from all over was amazing.“ Kristina 19.
“It was so good to meet so many Christians just through playing basketball together, and worship was amazing!“ Rade 16.
We also asked them to share if they had any “God moments“ and things that touched their hearts in a special way so here is some of that as well.
“For me the entire Mission Net conference began differently. Even though I was suppose to be a regular participant I ended up having few leadership responsibilities. I realized that God has given me some of those talents and that we do need each other. Last night there was another thing that really touched my heart, if we don’t share the Gospel here were we are right now, we will hardly do it anywhere else.“ Jelena 26.
“Before going to this conference I was caught in some kind of “spiritual“ routine. And it seemed like I didn’t care much. But after the first night, after the sermon “The way, the truth and the life“ I felt woken up in a spiritual sense. It helped me realize how much the Word of God coming from our mouth can help others. We have the time it only depends how we spend it! It has encouraged me to be the example to people around me with things I do and say.“ Andjela S. 18.
“Before Mission Net I thought I had my life and future figured out and I tried to do it my way but it didn’t seem to work. After being there, being in a situation in global village I realized what God wanted from me. Now I know that he will always show me the way!“ Jovana 18.
“Words of the song “Bless the Lord oh my soul“ really touched me the first night. Also all the numbers of people that haven’t heard the Gospel were really surprising and I realized how much we just have to do it, share the News!“ Andjela M. 16.
In closing, I want to give you my perspective. I am 25, married and I have 18 month old son. I am fairly new in all of this, so being responsible for many young adults abroad was a little scary but humbling. There were things I could help with but there were things that were totally out of my control (like traveling for so long). Also I was a bit judged in this culture for leaving my family behind and doing this. On the third day my body gave up on me as well (I have discus hernia and was never in such a pain that I couldn’t move until that day. I was taken care of by the medical team but they also sent me to the local hospital and after receiving lots of painkillers I was all better.)
All of this made me realize that above all He was the one in control. I still wanted to live that missionary life style I kept hearing about, but at this point I was questioning if I was doing it in the right way. The answer came I believe from above but through my lovely husband, he called the next day reassuring me I was in the right place doing what we both committed to. It made me think how great it was to serve the Lord and not just alone but with and through my family.
Today I wonder – who am I, who am I that the Lord of all this earth would use me for His glory – but He does and not because I am deserving of it but because He is so merciful and His glory is so, so great!
Thank you once again for making this happen and may God abundantly bless you all,
On behalf of the group Marija Simonović
