IMM at work in North Macedonia
New partnership for the Miners Mission to work together with the Transform Europe Network (TEN) to support outreach to miners and their families in, North Macedonia.
| Following the work that the IMM has been involved in developing through supporting Christian outreach to mining communities in both Romania and the Ukraine, the General Secretary has been knocking on doors to extend the ministry into other countries of Eastern Europe. Several possible opportunities had been considered but recently in 2021 a partnership has been agreed for the Miners Mission to work together with the Transform Europe Network (TEN) to support a new outreach to miners and their families in North Macedonia. |
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North Macedonia is a small landlocked country, just a little larger than Wales lying to the north of Greece. Until 1991 is was the most southern state of the country of Yugoslavia but gained peaceful independence in 1991. On the south eastern side of the country is the town of Shtip where there is a well established Evangelical Church. The senior pastor, Petre Petrov, felt led by God to plant a church in Radoviš, some 30 kilometers south east of Shtip.
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Robert Salmanov was saved out of a background of addiction to alcohol through the Evangelical Church of Shtip. He was disciplined and trained by the church and in time became an elder of the Shtip church. In summer 2020 Robert, with his wife Krasi and their son David felt the call of God and moved to Radoviš to start holding meetings, some of which took place in the local library. On 7th March this year, after much prayer and led by God, Robert opened the Evangelical Church in a rented building.
Their vision, goal and plans are for everyone in the town to be reached with the Gospel. By God's providence here in Radoviš there is a copper mine, and this is now where we want to reach the miners with the Gospel. We have already started - led by God - to contact the miners with the Gospel, as most men in Radoviš work at the Bučim mine |
About 15km from Radoviš is situated the Bučim open-cast copper mine, where on and off over a period of 40 years copper (and also a little gold) have been extracted. The bulk of the people employed in the mine live in Radoviš, currently about 700. This mine is now well established and the Borov Dol mine nearby has been purchased by the same company and opened in 2020. It is anticipated that in time some 1,300 miners will be employed in total.
So together with their families, there will be a large percentage of miners living in in Radoviš.
Please pray for this new venture the Robert and Krasi will be able to attract people to the church. It is their prayer that “God will open the door to reach miners and their families in a wonderful way”.
