Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Colossians 3:13
Can a man forgive his father’s killers? Jeton did—but not on his own.
“Please don’t shoot the children!” was the cry of Jeton’s mother the day armed men entered their home. They had come to thousands of homes in Kosovo, seeking to kill every man in the villages. Jeton’s father was hiding, but upon hearing his wife’s pleas, he came out of hiding … to his death. Jeton was 15. He, his mother and siblings were forced to walk for a week to find refuge in Albania. It took the family four years to locate his father’s body in a mass grave.
That was in 1999, when ethnic conflict ravaged the country. Thirteen thousand were killed and close to 1.5 million were displaced. When missionaries came to rebuild the country, young Jeton was deeply touched. He couldn’t resist the love of Christ. After coming to faith in Jesus, he grappled with Bible verses like this: “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you … the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Colossians 3:13).
Jeton recounts, “… only the Holy Spirit working inside of me … made it possible to forgive my father’s killers. The Bible says that ‘ … anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!’ [I] became a completely new person in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Today, fear and distrust are still part of the cultural fabric of Kosovo. When Jeton started a church, his Muslim neighbors said, “We thought you were going to kill us.” Instead, Pastor Jeton met them with love and shares the hope of the gospel over the radio. The love of Christ now has a stake in the ground and flows over the airwaves.
You can help the love of Christ reach more people through radio in Kosovo and beyond. Give a gift today at guidelines.org.
