Day one

Greetings from Hotel Kapistec in Skopje! After more than 24 hours of travel, we finally arrived at our destination around 11:30 Monday night. Tuesday morning we all awoke physically refreshed and ready to be spiritually refreshed. Nikola picked us up at 10 and drove us immediately up the mountainside to the St. Panteleimon Monastery and its gorgeous orthodox church which can be seen in the photo Jarrod posted at the very beginning of the blog. Built in 1164, it is certainly a beacon of church and art history. Lining the walls and ceiling were ancient murals of monastic monks, saints, Biblical characters, and several stories from Jesus' life.  With some palestrina-like music playing in the background, this was quite a setting.

While beholding this incredible place, Nikola began to tell us a little bit about the Christian community in Skopje and Macedonia as a whole.  This was quite fascinating as the community is quite unique. Nikola explained that, unlike many western civilizations, there has never been a true struggle between a liberal and fundamentalist view of liturgy. Therefore, there has never been any diversification of beliefs or convictions within the Christian community. While this may sound ideal on the surface, this lack of diversification has placed the orthodox church as the near sole option in Macedonia, and, overtime, made tradition its largest pillar. Further emphasizing this one mindedness, Nikola estimated that there are probably only 1,000 or so Catholics in Macedonia - a staggering number for the largest denomination in the world. Bringing the point home, Nikola also estimated that less than 1/8th of 1% of Skopje (less than 1,000) would call themselves evangelical, born-again Christians.

After explaining the Christian community, he explained what Soulcraft (the Church here) is trying to do. He clarified from his comments that bridging the gap between the orthodox church and the evangelical church is only one of many goals. The primary mission of Soulcraft is leading non-believers to a relationship with Jesus Christ.

After this discussion of the Macedonia Christian community, we ate some lunch atop the mountain (some chicken, pork, "hamburger", boar sausage, and potatoes). We then drove to a park for some group prayer time. After this we made our way down the mountain to a music hall where Soulcraft has held free public concerts in the past, and will continue to do so 10 or so times a year. This music hall was quite fascinating. It is owned by the Macedonian Army and was a venue for showing Communist propaganda films before the wall fell. It is now a hall where the Macedonian Philharmonic plays and Soulcraft will be holding events. We then drove onward to Nikola's office which is set up for strategic planning, prayer, and administrative duties.

After returning to the hotel for some rest, we went back out for an Italian dinner with attenders of Soulcraft, about half of whom spoke fluent english. Though it was rather late for us Americans (we got our food around 9), we had a nice time dining and meeting folk (or renewing friendships for Jarrod & Sara). It will be interesting learn more about everyone throughout the week. Jarrod took a couple of pics at dinner. No doubt he will post them later.

Thanks for your continuing support in prayer!