Our Mission

Dear Rolling Hills Family,

On September 10, a Rolling Hills team of seven will travel to Serbia to serve with our church-partner, the Leskovac Evangelical Church.  This is the church of our beloved Mio and Else Stankovic.

The Lord took Mio on Sunday, February 22, 2009
on his way to church.

Rolling Hills has had a partnership with this church for 30 years, and it will be the privilege of our team to spend time fellowshipping and serving with those whose faith, courage and steadfastness continue to be a living example of what the Church is all about.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Leskovac Church, I’d like to share a bit about this faith community….

In 1976, Leskovac Evangelical Church was planted in what was then, Communist Yugoslavia.  Under Communist rule, members of the church were often persecuted, harassed and sent to prison because of their faith.  The Leskovac Church persevered.  When Communism fell, Yugoslavia began breaking up.  This was followed by wars, sanctions, internal strife and NATO bombings.  The Leskovac Church persevered.

During the NATO bombings, the people of Leskovac sought refuge in a bomb shelter located on the property of the Evangelical Church.  The church ministered and cared for those who came, and many trusted Christ.   Even though the country was disintegrating, the Kingdom of God was being built.  As a result, the Leskovac Church began a caring ministry for the refugees displaced from Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo.  They provided aid for the regional hospitals and schools.  A summer Bible school was established where believers of various ethnic backgrounds from Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro came for training.

As Serbia gradually regained stability, the Leskovac Church flourished.  They held to a strong conviction that they were being called to respond to the words of Jesus when He said “while the great and the noble have rejected the call, the people on the highways and the byways have responded and come to the banquet” (Matthew 22:8-10).  This church began reaching out to the Roma people, the “outcasts” of the community.  Because of the love they were experiencing, it wasn’t long before many Roma families started coming to the church to hear more about the love of Jesus.

A few years later, when competitive business and products came to Leskovac from China, local merchants shunned the Chinese, but once again, the Evangelical Church reached out and welcomed those who were not welcomed by their community.

Today, the Evangelical Church in Leskovac is a faith community of Serbs, Romas and Chinese who fellowship and work together as one in Christ.   While using different methods, the same goal is being achieved: presenting Jesus to the lost, discipling new believers and equipping them for service.

In my role as Community Global Outreach Director of Rolling Hills, I’ve seen how the Evangelical Church of Leskovac is being the Church in their community.  They have much to teach us as the Church located in Tualatin, Oregon.  It is because of this that the Rolling Hills team is going.  We are trusting that God will reveal ways that we might be more effective in our own community as we serve, side by side, in a spirit of mutuality with our brothers and sisters in Serbia.

There are many impoverished families in Leskovac, and the Evangelical Church, in their desire to extend the love of Jesus, has invited us to assist them in filling and distributing food boxes that will contain enough food staples to sustain 400 families through the severe winter months.  This is our mission, but we remain open handed, knowing that God may have other things in mind for us as we go.

If you feel led to pray, please pray that we would serve the Church in Leskovac as Jesus would, and that we would be attentive and present with each person we come in contact with.

Thank you for praying,
Faith