January 12, 2026
The Gospel is advancing in Europe’s Balkan region despite instability and hostility
Despite conflicts and hostility to the Gospel, The Tide still finds ways to move forward to share God’s healing word to Christians in the Balkans
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — Because it includes a wide variety of ethnicities and people groups, the Balkan Region is rife with conflict. Yet, despite the political instability and hostility toward the Gospel, The Tide® (www.thetide.org) ministry, a global Gospel broadcast ministry located on three continents and in multiple languages, still finds ways to move forward to share God’s healing Word to Christians.
Don Shenk, executive director of The Tide, stated, “We are excited to share the Good News in the Balkan region, which is Europe’s easternmost southern peninsula, through our Balkan Expansion Project, which began in 2024.”
The Tide ministry is proud to partner with Media 7 Balkan, the largest Christian radio network in the Balkan region, reaching over 7 million people with the Gospel through eight FM radio stations broadcasting in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Greece.
The goal of The Tide Ministry’s Balkan Expansion Project is to help Media 7 Balkan establish indigenous Christian television channels and radio stations in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro. Content aired on these channels will include personal testimonials from local believers to encourage believers while inspiring interested viewers to learn more about the transformative power of the Gospel. The heart language television testimonies from each country will later be edited for radio and turned into a radio program that will be broadcast on each of the radio stations.
Progress on licensing and construction of new broadcasting facilities has been hampered by red tape and opposition, but programs are already being produced and posted online, and The Tide Ministry’s new Serbian TV program, entitled “Moja Prica” (“My Story”), featuring a series of testimonies from Serbian believers, is having a great impact. One of the stories published on YouTube four weeks ago has 24,000 views and attracted the attention of national newspapers, which now encourage people who have issues with addiction to go to church and ask God for a miracle. This is the first time a radical Orthodox country like Serbia (the Russian Orthodox church practically runs the whole country) has spoken positively in secular media about evangelical Christians. The stories have sparked thousands of conversations on social media and resulted in over 400 people engaging in online discipleship program follow-up from local churches.
One listener shared,“What a joy these stories are for all of us! I invite my neighbor friend to watch and talk together about faith and how to live our lives as people who believe in God. She is a wonderful lady, and says she is an orthodox, like everyone else in Serbia, and thinks that changing religion is bad. I have been trying to tell her for years that God wants to fellowship with us. Since we started to watch these stories together, she has changed, and one day told me, ‘I want to have the same relationship with God as these people have.’ My heart is overflowing with joy to see her come to this conclusion by herself. There is so much power in our testimony. Thank you for choosing these people to share. I pray everyone in Serbia will be able to watch and listen to these stories. Beautiful work. I’m praying for much fruit for His Kingdom.”
“Since Serbia is the largest country and most influential in all the other surrounding Balkan countries, establishing the work well in Serbia is key to the success of this project,” says Shenk.
“We plan to keep airing the Serbian stories in order to encourage and strengthen believers in the Balkan region. These are salvation stories that will be broadcast over and over for years on both radio and TV. They do not lose power with time. Our broadcast quality is very high, and this is the first time local believers are publicly sharing their faith. It means a lot for the Christian community and is a wonderful way to share the Gospel with more people.”
From its humble origins in 1946 as a local Gospel radio broadcast in Chambersburg, PA, The Tide® ministry has grown into a global network of Christian media broadcasting partnerships committed to worldwide evangelism and discipleship. In 2008, The Tide® ministry ended all English-language programming in order to focus on developing and distributing indigenous heart-language content in areas around the world that are less touched by the Gospel. Today, The Tide® ministry works with partners in multiple countries across three continents to broadcast Gospel-centered messages via radio, satellite TV and other media. In order to make disciples and plant churches, The Tide® ministry also provides resources for literature distribution, correspondence courses, discipleship and leadership training activities, and the distribution of radios and media players.
For more information about The Tide® ministry broadcast projects, history, radio programs around the world, special year-long campaigns, the weekly Global Update radio features or other news, visit its website at www.thetide.org or its Facebook page.
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To schedule interviews with Don Shenk, director of The Tide® global radio ministry, contact Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, Beth Bogucki, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, Dawn Foglein, ext. 100, or Daniel Moyer, ext. 104.
To inquire about airing any of The Tide® ministry radio broadcasts, contact Michael Hamilton, 610.584.1096, ext. 101.
