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For the last two years, ethnic Albanian Pentecostal pastors Driton and Artur Krasniqi—along with a military escort—have taken care packages to an isolated village of Serbs. But so far the escort, which accompanies them from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, the disputed southern region of Serbia, has hardly been needed.

"We have met no negative Serbs," Artur Krasniqi told Christianity Today. "In some of the places, we were more welcome than in [ethnic] Albanian schools. Some ice melted, and when we expected stones, they gave us smiles."

The Krasniqi brothers are pastors of the Lord's Fellowship Church and part of Kosovo's emerging evangelical movement, which has blossomed amid the 38,000 peacekeeping troops stationed in the region since the 1999 military campaign toppled the Slobodan Milosevic regime in Belgrade.

With a population of 2.2 million, Kosovo is in legal limbo and as divided as ever. Of the 280,000 Serbs who lived there when NATO bombing began in 1999, only 80,000 remain. Today, Kosovo is 95 percent ethnic Albanian and mostly Muslim. The tensions due to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in the late 1990s remain strong. Mutual suspicion and hostility are common in part because of ongoing prosecution of war crimes.

The United Nations governs Kosovo according to Security Council Resolution 1244, which says Kosovo is an autonomous province in Yugoslavia (composed of Serbia and Montenegro). The Security Council hopes to resolve Kosovo's status but has set no timetable.

Still, hope for independence from Yugoslavia remains strong, even among Kosovar evangelicals. Driton Krasniqi speaks of Kosova (the word ethnic Albanians use when speaking of the region) as an independent nation. "The Serbs must see the new realities," Driton Krasniqi said. "Kosova is not what it used to be."

Since 1999 evangelicals have started some of the 20 churches in Kosovo. The 100 foreign missionaries founded about half of those 20. Mark Brinkman works at the missionary-led Association of International Missions in Pristina. He said, "The number of evangelical believers among Albanians of Kosovo, between 400 and 500, is a conservative estimate.

"This means people who actively attend a fellowship and are baptized. The number would be higher, probably double, if you include all those who have made a profession of faith at some point."

The level of contact between Serbian and ethnic Albanian evangelicals is minimal, though Christians from both ethnicities are willing to cooperate—under certain conditions. Albanians like

Driton Krasniqi want Serbians to realize that the region will never again be a part of Serbia. On the other hand, Lazar Stojsic, the head of the Serbian Evangelical Alliance (SEA), insists ethnic Albanian evangelicals cease all talk of independence: "We have an open place for the Albanians in the alliance, but Kosovo has always been and will always be Serbian." (The SEA is based in Belgrade and affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance.)

People in dialogue with both sides are rare. Among those few individuals is Serbian Zoran Grgovski, a 28-year-old geography teacher from Vlasotince in southern Serbia. He moved to Pristina in 1994 to evangelize Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Few church leaders followed his lead. Concerned about his safety, Grgovski fled Pristina two days before the NATO air campaign began in March 1999.

Now it is difficult for him as a Serb to return to Kosovo. "We lost the chance to be peacemakers in the field," Grgovski said. "We had Serbian and Albanian evangelicals, and it was a golden chance to prove the gospel."

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February 2003, Vol. 47, No. 2