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Evangelicals from outside Kosovo are pouring their energies into two areas: relief work and reconciliation. Humanitarian work by Christian relief agencies has made steady progress in rebuilding homes and providing education, food, clothing, and health care.

But reconciliation has proven to be much more labor intensive. To date, any successful efforts by Christians have taken place outside Kosovo. During the last six years, the European Evangelical Alliance has hosted three Hope for the Balkans conferences, two meetings for pastors in the region, and a special meeting for national leaders. For the last four years, the annual Renewing Our Minds (ROM) reconciliation conference in Fuzine, Croatia, has brought together Serbs, Albanians, and others from the Balkans.

In August, the 2002 ROM conference in Croatia drew 80 participants from 20 countries. It was an intensive three-week event. Participants spent the first week studying the life of Christ and the gospels. The second week focused on the participants' conflicts. The third week addressed reconciliation, using Christian principles.

Allen Belton, director of urban missions at University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington, has led sessions at ROM events for the past two years. An African American, Belton says face-to-face meetings are essential for reconciliation to be meaningful.

Belton says cultural or ethnic barriers are "an old trick of the enemy" to undermine relationships. "ROM allows young adults to come together and get to know each other first as human beings. Then we can establish dialogue."

Evangelicals say any credible sign of progress gives them hope. Petar Pilic, 20, is a Serbian seminary student in Novi Sad, 260 miles from Kosovo. Once a month, Pilic travels into Kosovo to help lead a small-group Bible study with Guta Cvetkovic, a staff worker with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Pilic and Cvetkovic hope to stage an outreach event for Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the divided northern city of Mitrovica.

"I want to have contact with Albanians, but we live too separately," Pilic said.

Danut Manastireanu, a Romanian who works with World Vision on reconciliation in the Balkans, says evangelicals in the region face a hard but not impossible challenge. At least two pastors are open to starting. Bekim Beka, pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church in Pristina, is ready to do more than talk with Serbian evangelicals.

"I am willing to preach in Belgrade, even if most of my people would not understand," Beka told CT. "I would also like [Christians in Belgrade] to visit Kosova to see what the Serbs did to us."

In Belgrade, the Serbian capital 200 miles north of Pristina, Dane Vidovic is the pastor of the First Baptist Church. "I would be glad to receive Bekim in my house and to preach in my church," Vidovic said. "He is still a good friend. However, he might have problems with the police, and he also might have problems with the Albanians when he returns."

Manastireanu said, "There is no greater enemy of peace than ignorance. If they will dare to meet and talk, they will be surprised to discover that they have more in common than what divides them." But Beka cautions that Serbs and Albanians are extremely different. "We don't have much in common, apart from Christ."

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Previous Christianity Today coverage of reconciliation and growth in Kosovo includes:

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February 2003, Vol. 47, No. 2