The bullet holes in the building next door

As I sit here in this third floor apartment alone thinking and devoting, I just looked out the window as I heard some birds singing and I noticed the bullet holes in the building next door. I was wondering what this place must have been like 10 years ago when the fighting was most intense? I wonder who was in that apartment when someone took an automatic weapon and fired it at their window with the hope of killing someone inside?

I have noticed that many of the buildings here still bear evidence of gunfire and a few of them even bear evidence of mortar fire. Here is a photo I took last week in Bosnia which shows the kind of destruction I am talking about.



Of course we Westerners ooh and aah in amazement when we see things like this but there were people dying in these buildings during the war. This was not a movie.

Nor or things miraculously healed when a political agreement brings an end to the fighting and dying. A couple of weeks ago I got horrendously lost here in Croatia and there are almost NO road signs, and I stopped the car several times and asked people (yes real men ask for directions) if the road I was on was the road to Belgrade? Most just turned around and walked the other direction when I mentioned Belgrade. One man yelled at me incredulously, "Belgrade!???" and then stomped off. Not a single person was willing to tell me if I was headed in the right direction or not. And I instantly became the enemy when I said the word Belgrade and it became known that I was headed that way.

What does the Gospel offer these folks and who will give it to them? How will they hear without a preach, and how shall they preach unless they be sent? Will the preacher be able to live in a place that neither appreciates him nor wants him?