Come over into Macedonia

Today we are in Macedonia, and honestly I must say that I expected something a whole lot different that what we are getting. I don't know what the typical American thinks about Macedonia, but I have been pleasantly suprised with our experience so far here. When we arrived, I first noticed that there appeared to be a lot of Islamic influence here. I was right. The pastor here told us that Macedonia is the most Islamic country in Europe. Not only are they the most Islamic country, but they are not content to remain at the levels they are at. "Somewhere" is pouring huge amounts of money into Europe and especially into Macedonia to further the Islamic religion. Here is a striking and scary statistic. Look at how small Macedonia is and then consider that in the last year, the muslims have built 164 new mosques in Macedonia alone.

Then he told us something that was painful to hear, but perhaps it is worth passing along. This pastor is in charge of one of the biggest and most influential relief agencies in this part of the world. During the word in Kosovo, his organization was the only organization that managed to work with both the Serbs and the Albanians--although some people hated them for this. He told us that most of the aid that was sent to Indonesia after the Tsunami came from Christian churches. The people were obviously in great need, so this was wonderful that so many Christians gave to this need. The problem is... while Christians were giving so heavily to help the devastated people of Indonesia, the government of Indonesia built a enormously expensive mosque in Sarajevo. The pastor said it is a beautiful mosque in downtown Sarajevo and it is a greenish color. I said it sounds to me like it's the color of money..

The pastor we are staying with is president of the Evangelical church here in Macedonia. In the last 20 or so years, they are averaging about 2 new churches a year. It's not that they aren't trying, but the Islamic countries are literally pouring all their resources into the spread of their faith.

When I thought of Macedonia, I thought of dirt roads, donkeys and hay wagons, people working in fields and basically a lot of what I saw in Romania or Moldova. Frankly, I thought it would be worse than what we saw there. Instead, I have seen very little of these things. The roads are nice compared to Romania and we were in on interstate type highway part of the way here today. Although we did see some of the rural way of life, here in the capital city of Skopje, it is a fairly modern city. It has even more of the feel of an eastern or Turkish type of city than even Bulgaria. I guess the presence of so many muslims makes it seem more like the middle east also.

When we arrived, we were greeted by very friendly people and went out to eat at a restauant with some great (although somewhat unusual) items. We were stuffed and then the pastor said we were going out to another restaurant for dessert. We enjoyed kiwi ice cream which none of us had ever had before. Macedonia grows lots of kiwis and sells them by the kilogram in the markets. I thought kiwis were only grown in Australia and New Zealand--dumb American again!

Although there is a very modern city, we see here again the anomaly of cities that we have seen so often here--wealth and western stores, restaurants, and business and abject poverty on the other side of the street. In our directions to the capital city here, the pastor had given us specific directions to go around one city and not to go into it. We obeyed his directions and quickly saw why. As we pulled on to the bypass of the city, I glanced to the side and saw horrific housing like I haven't seen in a very long time if ever. The houses were decrepit pieces of junk piled together and people were living in garbage all over the place. I could only see it for a few seconds because the government had conveniently built a wall to hide it from the view of the main road.

When we got to Skopje, we never saw any housing like we saw in other places, but there were still plenty of people begging. At one traffic light, children came out and got in front of our van and beside it, calling to us and wanting money or food. When the traffic light changed, they moved and we went on. I would guess the oldest child to have been 8-10 years old. At another stop light in the city, a gypsy man came up and began to wash our windows as they commonly do here when they get a chance. Rick shook his head no, but he continued to wash, hoping we would pay him. The lady with us told us to ignore him and drive on. As we drove away, he spit on our windows! Later in a parking lot, children surrounded us asking for money. We walked on because there was no way in the world we could ever do anything for these children. They persisted for a while and then left. When we came back, the air was out of our van tire. Some things just look very suspicious once in a while!