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September 9, 2014

A Chance to Serve: Stojce’s Story

Stocje Nikolov grew up looking for love and happiness in the wrong places. After an attempted suicide during his mid-teens, Stojce was given a second chance at life. God led him from Macedonia to Serbia to study theology and then partner with Josiah Venture to disciple young leaders and pastor a new church plant. Now, Stojce and his wife Sara and their son live in Backa Topola where God is using their passion for young leaders to bring hope to those in need.

Q: What was your life like before you followed Christ?

A: I’m from Macedonia. I grew up in a very poor family. From an early age, I tried doing everything to be happy, to make people love me. I trained in so many sports. When I was 14 years old, I started to work as a DJ at a radio station. I was around many girls, I started drinking alcohol and doing drugs. But I saw that my life didn’t have purpose. I was asking, Why do I live?

One night, I remember coming home crying. I had drunk so much alcohol, I thought, I need to kill myself. I don’t know how many sleeping pills I took and mixed with the alcohol. It was a crazy combination! The only thing I remember is going down.

Q: Woah! What happened next?

A: I woke up in the hospital. I asked, Why, God? I want to be dead. Why didn’t you let me die?

I don’t remember who I spoke with, but I remember I heard a voice telling me, “God loves you so much. He is giving you one more chance for your life.” I talked about it with this man, and I asked him, “How does God love me? You see what I’m doing. Nobody loves me. God doesn’t love me.” He said, “Yeah, He loves you. He gave His son for you.”

I decided I had tried to find purpose and happiness in everything else in my life and now it was time to try God. That day, I received Christ in my life.

Q: How did choosing to follow God change you?

A: After that, I went to be with my friends, and I had beer in my hand. I started feeling like this beer wasn’t good anymore. I didn’t feel good with my friends. It wasn’t fun what they were doing. God had touched my heart and changed my life.

I learned more about God everyday. After one year, I came to a Bible school in Serbia. I came in and watched everybody and then looked at myself and the decisions I was making and decided it was time to fully commit to Him.

When I look back at the picture of myself seven years ago, I don’t recognize that person.

Q: How did you get started serving God in Serbia with JV?

A: I went to seminary in Serbia. I finished and thought I would go back to Macedonia and serve there in my church. I went back and after two months I felt like this wasn’t the place where I was supposed to be. I started to pray and ask God what His plan for my life was.

God said to go back to Serbia, so I did and started to work with young people. God called me to plant a new church with them. This started four years ago.

Then, I began working with Josiah Venture full-time one year ago. Before that, every summer I served with them. I came and volunteered for camps and some conferences for young leaders.

My focus now is discipleship with young leaders, and I still help with English camps. I believe God has called me to plant a new church and equip young leaders to be in ministry. I see how young people I’m discipling are growing and are in ministry, some of them preach, some of them lead worship. I see how they’re growing, and it’s amazing.

Q: What has God taught you about ministry this year?

A: I’ve learned so much about how Jesus did discipleship. It’s so different than how we do it today. When Jesus discipled someone, He trusted them. He gave people opportunities to serve. He sent them and gave them all authority.

When I prepare people for ministry I sometimes think they need to be fully trained, knowing everything, sinless before they serve. But I see that Jesus did it so differently. He said it’s okay to make mistakes, and He gave people chances to learn.

How He loves people is so different than how we love people. We sometimes only love people when they do things our way. I’ve learned to give people opportunities to serve. This is how God’s taught me this year.

Q: What excites you about what God is doing through JV in Serbia?

A: When I first came to English camp I led a discussion group, and I met a girl who said she was an atheist. She didn’t want to even talk about God. After six days, she came to me and said, “I need Jesus.”

It is amazing to see lives changed. I don’t see many organizations working with young leaders in Serbia. To see that JV is equipping young leaders, the next generation in this country, is exciting.

I knew I wanted to work with Josiah Venture because of this. I love what JV is doing, and I am so glad to be a part of it.

Stojce asks that this year you would pray with him and the rest of Josiah Venture that God would raise up more young leaders in Serbia who are fully committed to discipling people the way Jesus did, by loving and encouraging others and giving them opportunities to serve.

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Dawn Is Coming. All Is Well; I Will Rejoice.

It’s 2:51 am on March 7th when I wake to the sound of an air-raid siren via the “Air Alert!” app on my phone. For these last four-plus years serving in Ukraine, this is far from unusual, except that this time, it’s during the final night of our Josiah Venture Ukraine team’s 3-day Springfest event. The 530 participants—most of them teenagers—are under our watch and care. Since rebooting this annual fest in 2023, a year after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, there hadn’t been a single siren during the event itself. This year was different. When a siren sounds in Ukraine, it does not necessarily mean that danger is imminent. With modern technology, we can check our phones to understand the threat to which the siren warns. As I begin to scan my screen, I remind myself that our team had picked a facility for Springfest deep in the Carpathian mountains, so surely there is no reason for concern. I read that cruise missiles and attack drones are heading southwest towards a city with a name I don’t recognize. I copy it into Google Maps and quickly realize that this city is in the same region, or county, in which our event is being held. I hold my breath as I tap the “directions” button and feel a tinge of relief in my gut when I realize the city is over 200km (±125 miles) to the east. But what if the missiles aren’t targeting that city? What if they and the drones keep heading west? This is but a small taste of the thoughts and emotions that flooded my heart and head during the 1 hour and 21 minutes of tracking this particular attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the middle of the night. Russia attacks Ukraine every single day without exception. Of course, the scale varies. But not a night goes by without a siren sounding somewhere in the country. By the grace of God, there were no casualties from this specific attack in the region we were in, and the threat did not escalate to the point of needing to wake Springfest attendees to seek shelter. Our team was sleep-deprived, but as darkness turned to dawn, we could turn our attention back to the heart of our event. Our JV Ukraine team started Springfest in 2011 (back then, it was Winterfest!) to provide a touch point for churches between summer camps. The event has grown from a few dozen attendees to 530 this year, in partnership with 32 Ukrainian churches from all across the country. The current mission of Springfest is to provide a platform for Ukrainian youth leaders to build deeper relationships with their young people, both believers and non-believers. Amidst all the fun of meeting new people, playing sports or board games, creating through crafts, learning in master classes, having a blast at a themed night-party, or just hanging out with friends, we work to provide a safe environment for non-Christians to hear the gospel from the stage and have open discussion with their peers and leaders during small groups. We pray that Springfest is a spark for non-believers to have gospel conversations with their leaders that lead to repentance and belief in Jesus, while also providing a space for believers to grow in their relationship with Christ. One of the best parts of Springfest is getting messages from leaders in the days following the event and hearing stories of how God moved in the hearts of young people. For example, a leader named Anton, who, along with 3 other leaders, brought 16 non-believing teenagers with him to the event, said that Springfest was “the last hammer hit” for one of his guys to repent and follow Jesus. Another leader, Yevhen, said he was up till 3 am one night with his small group of guys, having deep conversations about questions they had about Christianity. “All such meetings gradually bring a young person closer to God,” Yevhen told us. “This festival, in my opinion, raised everyone to a new level of relationship with God.” Pray with us that these types of gospel conversations and professions of faith continue in the coming weeks! Stories of God moving in the hearts of youth and using faithful leaders to embody his Kingdom on earth always encourage us and provide endurance amidst the challenges that the war brings to daily life and ministry. I wouldn’t wish on anyone the task of creating contingency plans for cruise missiles while organizing an event where young people can simply be. It’s a place where they can step away from the terrible normal numbness of getting used to living in war and receive the love of God through his loving church. As we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus remains our morning star in the darkest nights. We will continue to look to him in all things, as we, with grateful hearts, have the privilege of partnering with him and his movement in Ukraine. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
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The Right Learning for the Right Person at the Right Time

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