Kosovo
Country
Kosovo is a troubled province in southern Serbia. While it legally is part of Serbia, it has been administered by the United Nations and the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo since the end of the 1999 Kosovo War. The history of Kosovo is interpreted by the two conflicting groups – Albanians and Serbs, as a fight for this territory that has endured for centuries. Both the Serbs and Albanians insist that their claims for the territory of Kosovo are historically valid; Albanians view themselves as ancestors of the ancient Illyrians, who had settled in the area around 1000 B.C., before Slavic tribes moved in. However, from the 12th through the 14th century Kosovo was the heart of the Serbian Kingdom and of Serbian political and religious life. The conflict between Serbs and Albanians in regard to Kosovo began after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which had dominated the region from the time of its invasion in 1389 until the end of the 19th century. In 1912, after the Balkan Wars, Kosovo became part of Serbia and Montenegro and later part of the first Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After WW II, it became an autonomous Serbian province within communist Yugoslavia.
After the collapse of communist Yugoslavia, the Kosovo Albanians insisted on becoming independent. At first their resistance was without violence, but then, under the leadership of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the conflict widened to ongoing fighting between the KLA and the Serbian army. Finally, in 1999, a NATO military operation ended the war. Today, the status of Kosovo is still pending. A NATO-led peacekeeping force, Kosovo Force (KFOR) has since been providing security in the region.
People/Society
The people in Kosovo live in a troubled society and still in troublesome times. The greatest problems that people fight are insecurity, crime, poverty, unemployment, corruption, and on a deeper level, the mental trauma of war and atrocities. People long for peace, trust, stability and security. Kosovars highly value their family and friends; life happens within the context of a large family. They also highly value education; however, the school system is underdeveloped, as is Kosovo’s whole infrastructure.
Religion
Religion in Kosovo goes along the lines of ethnicity. Of the total population of 2 million people 91 percent are Albanians and they are predominantly Sunni Muslims, 5 percent are Serbs and are in their majority adherents of the Serbian-Orthodox Church, 4 percent represent other ethnic minorities and belong to different other churches. There are about 60,000 Catholics and they are predominantly of Albanian ethnicity.
On the field, the Church of the Nazarene is ministering in the following countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia