Linking Partners began after a 2007 trip to Serbia as part of an entrepreneurial mission sent by Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company. Brotherhood Mutual is a company run by dedicated Christian people and they have developed a ministry arm of the company at the corporate level. They had started a project in Serbia in 2006 to help some Christians in a Serbian Evangelical Church to start businesses of their own. Intentions were for our founder, Jim Greene, to make this trip, contribute what he could and then possibly support their work in Serbia monetarily but not with his time. His life was already full.
There is a popular quote ‘Man proposes, God disposes’. This proverb is a translation from "The Imitation of Christ" by the German-born Thomas à Kempis (c.1380-1471): "For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand. For man proposes, but God disposes; neither is the way of man in his own hands." This may be a reflection of a verse in the Bible (Proverbs 16:9): "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps." Shakespeare, too, had a similar message in "Hamlet" by Hamlet: "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."
á Kempis’ quote came to life during that first visit to Serbia. Once in Serbia, it did not take long for Jim's agenda to be radically rearranged. God impressed on him the great need of the Serbian people for the gospel and the fact that He had made it possible for Jim to develop some business experience over the past fifty years. Maybe this was his ‘Esther’ time, as he thought back over his business career and was drawn to the thought that maybe all the training he had received was not necessarily for him to make a living and build a secular business but to use this in carrying out the Great Commission in Serbia.
When he found out there were less than 200 evangelical churches
in Serbia with the number of born again Christians probably under 15,000, Jim
knew he was not brought to Serbia just to help troubleshoot a Christian business
project. With eight million people in
this country, it truly was ‘white unto harvest’.
Several trips were made to Serbia trying to find where God was working and with whom. Eventually Jerry Hill, Don Weiss, and LaJuana Oswalt became involved in this venture. An official ministry organization was established to help in the work in Serbia and any other areas where God might lead. The name “Linking Partners” demonstrates our desire to link as many groups as possible to deserving ministries in Serbia and then let them work with those groups as God led. The role of Linking Partners is to find areas of need and then to find groups with the means to meet these needs. We are available to help on whatever level needed. This could be anywhere from no help needed to having Linking Partners do the majority of the coordination and verification.
Linking Partners' initial vision was to help equip the local church to evangelize and disciple their fellow Serbians. Two of our first three major projects were the training of church planters/Bible study leaders, etc. and helping to start Bible studies and churches in un-evangelized parts of Serbia. The third major project was a ministry working with the Roma (gypsy) people in Serbia. The Roma are perhaps the most discriminated people group in the entire world. They face a life of hopelessness without the Savior.
As our work moved forward we experienced what we believe is a “God thing.” Most of the doors in the Serbian communities seemed to be closed to us, while doors to the Roma communities began to open up to us. Nearly everything we read gave us the impression that it would be very hard for a Westerner to be truly accepted into their community. God took care of that hurdle by leading us to areas where we were accepted and where God was working. We had heard that a good plan for going into another country was to find out where God was working and join Him, so this is what we have done.
For the time we have these open doors in the Roma community we will be making this our major priority, while at the same time continuing to work and pray for God to give us opportunities in the Serbian communities. To reach the whole of Serbia like we believe the Great Commission commands us to do will require a strong Evangelical body of believers in the Serbian community.
Someone who has a passion and a plan for the evangelization and discipleship of the whole of Serbia and is willing to move out of their comfort zone with a sense of urgency, in working toward their calling. Always keeping in mind that it is the Holy Spirit that draws people to God and not themselves.
This statement paints a picture of someone with pretty high standards. We realize that none of us have reached the place that we want to be in most areas of our spiritual and ministry life, but the key thing here is a spirit of Philippians 3:12-14.
Linking Partners is not tied to a single denomination, or a sole focus -- other than sharing Christ in Serbia. We see our role as helping to raise up Evangelical leaders in the communities where God gives us open doors. Because of lack of funds to build church buildings in every community and the fact that the church of the first century was grown primarily through the use of house churches as meeting places we have elected to pursue this method of church expansion. This is not to rule out our involvement with ministries that have or wish to build buildings, but we will not have resources to help in those areas.
There have also been open doors in the business community
and we have and will continue to take advantage of these opportunities with the
hope of not only pursuing our core ministry but also in helping those in or
seeking to be part of the business community in any way we are qualified to
help. We have held several business
seminars, and spoken at professional events such as TedX events, and will
continue to do so.
The following are some other projects we either have done, are doing, or are planning on doing.
- Setting up training conferences for local church leaders geared toward Bible study
- Conducting English as a Second Language (ESL) classes where it fits in with ministry support.
- Developing a Serbian language electronic and print library of Bible & ministry based publications for church leaders. We are identifying Serbian books, periodicals, and resource documents already in print or in electronic form and collecting these for sharing. We are also translating other materials as resources permit, given the permission of the copyright holder. In many cases, Linking Partners is able to supply newly translated materials back to the developer, so they can also distribute the materials in Serbian.
- Encouraging key leaders to learn English to open doors for study and training resources, as well as aiding in communications.
- Doing strategic humanitarian work where it supports ministry objectives.
- Developing a GPS based database of helpful information for ministry work and expansion.
- Encouraging and helping support small entrepreneurial projects for qualified leaders.
- Conducting Marriage/Family and Financial Planning Seminars where requested and locally supported with appropriate follow-up.
- Helping develop a training program that would not take leaders from the field more than a 1 to 3 or 2 to 6 ratio. (1 week in class, 3 weeks in field, or 2 weeks in class & 6 weeks in field.
- Helping develop some means of better communication between the different evangelical groups in Serbia mainly for fellowship and encouragement.
- Participating in NGO and government sponsored activities (such as American Corner, TedX, consulate-sponsored events) where doing so can raise awareness of and respect for the Roma and Serbian believers.
