With the terrible war in Kosovo still fresh in our minds, many friends from different parts of the world have been asking for the latest news of Pastor Ralevic and his whereabouts. The following report is based on a short meeting between the writer and our brother during a visit to Hungary in September:

When talks between representatives of the European Union and President Milosevic broke down in May, NATO was summoned to punish the Serbs by a prolonged bombing campaign, not only in Kosovo, but throughout Serbia itself. After three months, the Serb army and the paramilitary evacuated Kosovo, leaving the remaining Serb civilian population exposed both to the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and to returning Albanian civilians seeking revenge for all they had lost and suffered.

In God's providence, Pastor Ralevic and his family managed to escape to the north and to salvage from his home in Pec, (where some the heaviest fighting of the war had taken place) two-thirds of his personal library and some items of furniture. However, his literature warehouse and office building just outside the town was totally destroyed, as were the houses of his son, brothers and nephews in the village on the hill overlooking Pec. He had always had good relationships with his Albanian neighbours and for a while was able to prevent their homes from being destroyed. One of these, who eventually lost his home, lived in Simo's house temporarily, so it was not burnt down. It is now occupied by Albanian Pentecostals and an American missionary, who are also using his church which was preserved by his Albanian neighbour. Pastor Ralevic does not know if he will ever be able to see his home or church again.

In passing, it may interest your readers to know that his connections with the Banner of Truth began in 1964. Whilst working in a factory in the north of Serbia, he met the late R.C. Thomson, who was travelling in Yugoslavia accompanied by Julian Mouton, who gave him his first Banner book, 'Ecclesiastes', by Charles Bridges. This was the beginning of a very fruitful relationship which has had a profound effect on both his spoken and written ministry ever since. On his return to Pec the following year, we were able to meet and subsequenty to send him many Banner books and Puritan classics. He proved to be a voracious reader, the sermons of Spurgeon and Dr Lloyd-Jones being among his favourites.

In 1968, people who had enjoyed his preaching began to ask if they might have written copies of his sermons. These enquiries led to the commencement of his publishing ministry and its development up to the present day. Undoubtedly his numerous books, which are the fruit of his well-prepared and dynamic preaching, have spread his influence not only throughout all the republics of former Yugoslavia, but among Yugoslav communities in western Europe, America and Australia. For the past thirty years he has published three or four paperback books annually in both Serbian and Croatian scripts.
In 1969 he also began to print books and tracts in the Albanian language, which were spread throughout Kosovo and even into Albania itself He was also instrumental in publishing and distributing the first post-war edition of the Albanian New Testament. Many hundreds of souls have been saved through reading his literature, and a large part of his time is devoted to corresponding with those who have read his books and write to him asking for more. The Day alone will declare the full extent of his influence on Yugoslav Chnstianity.

He and his wife and daughter are now living in a village north of the River Danube in a region called the Vojvodina. They are about forty kilometres west of the city of Novi Sad; the name of their village is Nova Gajdobra. They live in a house built not long ago to provide a meeting place for a small group converted through reading his literature. The meetings are held in a special room designed for the purpose, but on Sunday, 3 October, sixty people were packed into a room that has now become too small. They have a large kitchen garden forty metres long, and Pastor Ralevic feels the time has come to build a separate meeting room there. He would much appreciate any help friends could give towards its construction. We are also concerned to help replace some of the English books from his private library which were lost in Pec.

His congregation in Pec were also obliged to leave. Seven families live near him in the Vojvodina, two are in Montenegro, and others are in central Serbia. Their plight can be imagined, without work, without homes and without help from the state. Some help has come to them from local Christians, but humanly speaking, they face a bleak future.

As already mentioned, the writer was able to meet Simo in Hungary recently when he passed on to him the greetings and love of some of his many friends in Britain. We briefly discussed his future ministry. There are far more churches in this part of Serbia than in Kosovo, and he is well known among them. The terrible events in Kosovo, although taking the whole world by surprise, have not taken our great God and Saviour by surprise. The next stage of our brother's ministry is unfolding before him through the wisdom and foreknowledge of God, who makes all things, including the wrath of man, to work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose.

Pen and ink cannot begin to describe what Pastor Ralevic and his family have passed through during the past few months: the bombings by day and by night, the burning houses, the gunfire, the unburied dead lying in the streets, the uncertainty of what fresh terrors and horrors a day might bring - our friend has had to live through them all.

I am sure your readers will remember all this and more in their prayers, but especially that in God's mercy an even brighter future for his work will dawn, and that, like all true sons of Zion, he will go from strength to strength.

Further details may be obtained from the writer:

Mr R.J. Weil
Slav Lands Christian Fellowship
28 Hayesford Park Drive
Bromley
Kent B12 9DB
Tel.:0181 402 0695