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Reconciliation with God and Man |
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Written by Bonnie Nelson
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Saturday, 21 October 2006 |
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What an amazing God we serve! In September, we attended the Peacemaker Ministries training and Annual Conference in Minneapolis. The first two days I (Bonnie) sat at a table with a woman from the former Yugoslavia, in a different region than Croatia. We started talking about Yugoslavia. Here is what she had to say, “(The people in our region), we are proud—proud of our history and independence. (Other people in another region), they are arrogant. They want to be seen as ‘somebody’. (In the Balkans) there is a culture of unforgiveness. Forgiveness must start in the church. It will take a long time. Over there it is not easy to even forgive little things let alone that it might be that your brother killed my brother and my brother raped your sister. That is not easy to forgive.” She and her husband, who are now living in Minnesota, are taking the Peacemaker material to their former Yugoslavian church this November.
In addition to three days of training in conflict coaching, marriage reconciliation, and teaching Peacemakers cross-culturally, we met people from all over the country and world who have a heart for Biblical peacemaking. We heard powerful messages on reconciliation. As ambassadors for Christ, God wants our reconciliation with Him to overflow into our relationships with others. We were reminded that the greatest conflict on earth is between God and sinners; true reconciliation begins with Christ.
Although we had taken some training with Peacemaker ministries in 2004 Steve Meeker, SEND’s Croatia leader and the director of the Croatian camping ministry, encouraged us to take more Peacemaker training. He has had many opportunities to use this material in Croatia. As we look toward our time in Croatia, we believe this material will be a blessing to us and the camp ministry, especially as the camp looks toward developing a one-year Christian and outdoor education program for Croatian and Central European believers. How wonderful to think that teaching Biblical peacemaking through the camp ministry could impact an entire region for Christ!
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