Testimonies

My name is Vladimir Cizmanski. I grew up in a Christian family, where my father was an elder in the Brethren Church in Novi Sad, Serbia. I came to faith at the age of twelve, and from an early age I had a strong desire to go into missions in Montenegro.

Montenegro was the smallest of the six republics that made up the former Yugoslavia. Interestingly, all the major evangelical denominations had at least one church in each of the other five republics of Yugoslavia—Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Macedonia—but none of them had an assembly in Montenegro.

Some people have wondered why Montenegro has such a special place in my heart. From this perspective, I believe that God was preparing me for my life’s calling, so that I would be invested in spreading the Gospel in this area, which was so much in need of it.

During my teenage years, I experienced ups and downs in my walk with the Lord, but He was so faithful that, when I was nineteen, He brought me back into a living fellowship with Him. From that point on, my desire to begin a missionary work continued to grow.

After completing a year of Bible school in Vienna, Austria, I returned to Serbia, to the small town where my parents lived. Some people knew about my desire, but I did not want to talk about it too much because I did not want to give the impression that I was trying to make it happen myself. I was waiting for God to confirm His calling through other people.

I began working various jobs, trying to live a normal and decent life. This was very difficult because of the challenging economic situation in Serbia and the war that was already breaking out in the surrounding region.

At the same time, I was going through the process of obtaining an immigration visa for Canada, where my older brother Jan had already been living for some time. I was considering Canada in the hope of gaining greater financial independence, since the jobs I had been doing did not allow me to support myself or become financially independent from my parents. However, during this time, I received further encouragement from the brothers to move forward toward Montenegro.

Although I had been preparing for missions for quite some time, it was still difficult to take a step of faith and begin a completely new life in an unfamiliar place, with an uncertain future and no financial support.

After a month of wrestling with the decision, another brother from the same area and I ended up in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.

We did not know anyone in Montenegro, so we had to start completely from scratch. It was difficult. Everyone could immediately tell from our accents that we were not from the area.

At that time, people were afraid because of the wars in the neighboring countries, Croatia and Bosnia. The Orthodox Church also spread a negative image of religious groups that were considered “cults.” Any religious group that did not belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, or Islam was often regarded as a cult. People were told that these groups came from the West with the intention of destroying society from within.

Because of this propaganda, we were regarded as a cult by the local community. But the Lord was with us, and He guided us to people who were thirsty for the Truth.

There were not many of them, but we distributed literature in apartment buildings and on the streets. Although it often seemed like an unfruitful effort, we persevered because we believed that we had to start somewhere and that the Lord would eventually give us a breakthrough.

And He did.

We were able to form a few friendships here and there. They were very fragile and weak at first, but they were there.

Then the Lord sent me a great helper.

She was a new believer in Serbia who had started attending the house fellowship I was leading. During one of my occasional visits, I met Marijana, who became my wife seven months later. We were married in June 1996.

Life on the mission field became easier because we could meet women more naturally, and because Marijana had a gift for evangelism. Through contacts we had made in the past, we began reaching out to their friends and relatives. Slowly, one person at a time, a group began to form, and we started holding regular meetings in our apartment.

We grew slowly but steadily, and after a few years we needed to find a larger place for our meetings.

We are thankful that, throughout all these years, we have been able to see God at work. This small assembly continues to grow and to welcome new people who are interested in hearing the Word of God.

Over the years, we have come to the conclusion that the most effective way to reach people for the Kingdom is to develop friendships with them and show them that we are ordinary people—not dangerous people as we had been portrayed by the media.

It is a long marathon, but the Lord is helping us along the way.

A major breakthrough came through an initiative involving gift boxes made possible by Samaritan’s Purse. We organized a Christmas program for the children of our friends.

The first event took place in 2003, with around 50 children attending. But just a few years later, in 2009, the number had grown to 1,200 children.

This opened the door to a children’s ministry with CEF, where we began having around 25 children attending our weekly Sunday clubs on a regular basis.

Some of the children who participated in the children’s clubs later continued into the youth ministry, and some of them embraced faith in Jesus.

It is encouraging to see some of these young people marry Christian spouses, and to see the Lord bless them with children.

These children represent the first generation growing up in Christian families in Montenegro!

We are planning to build a building for the assembly, which would be the first purpose-built building for an evangelical church in Montenegro.

We have already purchased the land for this purpose, and we are now working to obtain a building permit from the government.

Thank you very much for your interest in this ministry, for your prayers, and for your support.

May the Lord bless you as we work together for His Kingdom.