Written by David S, a former member of the team in Gostivar, N. Macedonia.

However you may have just celebrated Easter, it probably wasn't by focusing on the resurrection of Lazarus...

This raising from the dead makes much of Jesus, where He declares that He is 'the resurrection and the life'. But Lazarus would have to do his dying all over again.

We are promised a better resurrection, where death itself is conquered and sin is done away with - the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

This is what we need in a world with so many living 'without hope and without God'; in the face of our own battles - from inside and outside of ourselves; and when worn down by disappointments and unmet hopes in our ministries.

After over 8 years in Gostivar, serving alongside the Halilaj family, we praised God for the one local believer. But we had hoped for more: an established church, discipling many and maybe even planting more churches. Those hopes were - and so far still are - unmet.

But whatever happens in Gostivar (and wherever you are); whatever shipwrecks and thorns we face; however hopeless the world around can feel; Jesus' better resurrection has guaranteed ours to come, with "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade".

Because He did and was raised, the life and work we have in Christ will only end in a good place for us: standing before the throne of God, receiving glorified bodies freed from sin and death forever. May we live, and keep inviting others to share, in this resurrection hope.

"Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." - 1 Corinthians 15:58

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