Complete commitment in the call to ministry!

In June 1998 I went to Kosovo, to a place close to the town of Leposavići where my grandparents on my mother’s side lived. At that point my parents were living with them, so I spent a few months there, too. There I experienced something that gave me a new direction and new commitment in life.

It was late November. My family had been invited to a wedding. The groom’s family had waited a long time to marry off their son, and when the time finally came, a big party was in order. They invited everyone – relatives, friends, neighbours... So that’s how I ended up at the wedding too, along with my granddad and dad. There were so many people in the hall and it got so hot and stuffy that a few of us decided to go outside to cool down.

We went outside and went to the back of the building that the wedding celebration was being held in. On the wall of the building I saw some kind of metal structure that I could jump up and grab hold of. I checked whether it was attached firmly enough to the wall, and it seemed as though it was. I jumped again, grabbed the bar and did some pull-ups. Suddenly the metal structure detached itself and I fell from that height with the whole thing in my hands and hit my head hard on the concrete. I don’t remember anything that happened after that – the next thing I knew, I was coming round in front of the hospital in Kosovska Mitrovica.

Several hours had passed since the moment I had fallen into a coma. My Dad was with me in the ambulance. I reacted very badly to coming round. I was very angry, I tried to push things away from me, I was irritable, I didn’t know where I was or what was going on. I couldn’t open my eyes, and it was almost as if I didn’t want to, as if I wanted things to stay the way they were. But my Dad saw that I was coming round and started asking me question after question to see if I could remember anything, whether my brain was functioning properly after what had happened. I found that confusing. I asked him why he was asking me all these questions. He told me that my fall had really shaken everyone up, that lots of people were worried that I wasn’t coming round, and that it looked as if I was going to die.

On the way to the hospital in Kosovska Mitrovica they told me how they had given me CPR , how the doctor had given me an injection and sent me to hospital because I was comatose. When we got to hospital the doctors saw that I had come round and started running tests. I stayed quiet the whole time, and wondered what had happened to me, why and how it had happened. That was when I realised how easy it is to lose your life. A person can end up on the other side in a moment, and be gone from this world.

Soon they transferred me to a larged, cold hospital room. That night, in that dark, cold hospital room in Kosovska Mitrovica, aware that I had nearly died, I prayed a deep prayer of commitment to God: “God, I died, and this life You have now given me to live, I will live only for You.” I wasn’t really aware what I was actually saying to God at the time, but it completely changed the course of my life, and my commitment. I had wanted to serve in the military, become an officer, but God showed me that my life was meant to go in a quite different direction, and he called me to dedicate all my days to serving Him according to His plan.

After a year and a half, in mid-1999, something quite unexpected and unplanned happened that was connected to this prayer of dedication. I was travelling with a brother in Christ from Zrenjanin to Titel. In conversation this brother told me that he believed God had laid on his heart to tell me that I should go to Bible school in Novi Sad because he believed I had a calling to the ministry . On arriving in Titel I met another brother in Christ, and when I mentioned this conversation to him he said that he felt the same and that he was sure God was calling me to the ministry. The advice of two people, who recognised I had a calling from God to serve people surprised me, because I had never thought that I might have a calling like that. I went home and couldn’t sleep. I wanted peace from God and I wanted to sleep, so I prayed to Him. I asked him to answer by giving me a sign, and then I got peace. I asked God to give me a clear sign that he was calling me, by opening the way to my enrolling in theology college. I faced two challenges: an academic one and a financial one. But God really answered these prayers in a clear and supernatural way. Then I knew, and today I am all the more sure, that the Lord God has called me to follow the Lord Jesus, and in obedience to Him, serve people with everything He has given me, dedicating my time and all the capacities I have, to this ministry.

From that day, twenty years of God’s grace have passed. The experience with falling into a coma led me to the realisation that nothing in life is more valuable than living according to God’s will and serving people in the name of Jesus Christ. I am so joyful because of this calling and this ministry, because God’s grace is wonderful!