Revonation station: Skopje, Macedonia

Macedonia’s 24-7 community has nearly finished renovating their long-awaited café, which will serve as their centre of outreach and community in Skopje.   After becoming exhausted with renting a venue to hold their gatherings, the Macedonia crew decided to open a coffee shop to serve as a ‘home- base’.   “In the beginning we were inviting people to music performances and relevant messages, and now we want to be focused on community and friendships,” said Alpin Popnikolov, a friend of 24-7 in Macedonia. “That’s why we are opening the coffee bar. We see it as our mission centre.”   It’s a perfect spot for affecting the youth culture for Jesus, which is a major focus of 24-7 Macedonia. The café neighbours a bike shop where lots of kids that are mountain biking and free riding hang out.    “It’s a great opportunity for us. Although it’s taken us awhile to finish the cafe, God provided the space for us rent-free!” said Alpin. “All we needed to do is renovate it and finish the interior.”

Glasnost??? “Two years ago, a group of us started something that we are calling ‘GLASNOST’- which means ‘to be loud,” Alpin said. “Actually, this word doesn’t exist in Macedonian. But we invented the word and named our community after it!”

 

The Glasnost community has been hanging out and praying together since 2003, and they hope to become a ‘radical and relevant church for our generation.’ Whey hold weekly prayer gatherings where they focus on praying for their friends that don’t know Jesus.		"...a radical and relevant church for our generation."
“It’s a great need. We have some tendency to run our engines without prayer, but God is constantly reminding us that prayer is the place where the war is won.”
'Glasnost'...gettin' loud	Friendships 24-7 Prayer met Alpin in 2000 at the Emerge conference in Frankfurt, Germany. ”After that,” Alpin said, “We started thinking differently about how Christianity can happen in Macedonia’s youth culture. The experience that we had with 24-7 teams was great. They think and walk in the same path as we do."

"Our 24-7 friends have really helped to shape our ideas as well. For instance, traditionally we are a more introverted group - meaning we were trying to bring people to our programs. But working together with 24-7 has taught us to go out there between the people instead of trying to bring them to us.”