Revival in the Roma community began in Leskovac, Serbia.

During the 1970s, Serbian Pentecostal pastor Mio Stankovic prayed for a Roma woman who was healed. This reoriented his perspective to begin a “mission-within-a-mission” to the Roma in his Serbian majority church. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, growing numbers of Roma came to church for prayer and healing. In the late 1990s, in partnership with an organization from England, the church began to train church planters. Seven churches were planted throughout Serbia and the movement continues to grow.

When Roma pastors were ordained, Pastor Mio Stankovic said, “You will baptize more people in your lifetime than I have in mine.” In the early 2000s, there were over 3,000 Roma and Serbian people attending eight larger churches and eight house groups of 20–40 people each.

In 2009 Pastor Mio Stankovic died of a heart attack. The work Mio began has continued to be blessed.

Mio Stankovic

Born: July 30, 1946, in Vranovtze, Lebane, Yugoslavia

Became a U.S. citizen in 2006.

Died: Feb. 22, 2009, in Leskovac, Serbia

Biography: Mio was born into a nonobservant Serbian Orthodox family in Communist Yugoslavia during Josip Broz Tito’s rule. After school, he often visited his sister, Vera, who had become a Christian. Vera would ask Mio to read to her from the Bible while she sewed. At first, Mio rejected God. Later, Mio suffered from acute abdominal pain which medical doctors could not address. At that time his sister, Vera, prayed for him and Mio was healed. Mio Stankovic then began a lifetime committed to Jesus Christ.

In 1976, Mio became an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Protestant Church in Leskovac, Yugoslavia during Tito’s Communist regime. The church was often attacked, members and staff were degraded, and some were imprisoned. Mio Stankovic and his family were persecuted for their Christian beliefs and under constant surveillance due to American citizenship of Else, Mio’s wife. Mio welcomed everyone to the church, guided converts to become co-workers, included the Roma people in the church, ordained the first Roma pastors, and the first Roma elders.

After Mio Stankovic died in 2009, the MioLight Nonprofit was created in the United States, in Oregon, by an all-volunteer board. MioLight’s purpose is to raise funds to build the church for Roma and Serbian people on the 7.5 acres of fully owned land in the heart of Leskovac, adjacent to the Roma quarter, in Southern Serbia. MioLight is committed to fulfilling Mio’s original vision of building a new church for Roma and Serbian people. This Church is led by Pastors and Elders who are made up of ethnic Roma and Serbian people.

Today, the Roma are still among the most oppressed people in the world. 

Today, Leskovac government officials acknowledged that because of Pastor Mio Stankovic’s 35 years of faithful work and the work of Roma leaders such as Serif Bakic and Bojan Rasimovic, more Roma children stay in school, crime rates among Roma have decreased dramatically, and more Roma marriages are legalized.

Today, you can help build a Church for Roma and Serbian people by making a donation.

The Roma movement continues to grow to this day. It has been a testimony to God’s grace to see how the Roma ministry grows and expands. In the last 15 years, the ministry grew among the children, the teens, the youth, Sunday services, women’s ministry as well as the clear sign of God placing the Roma Community Church in Leskovac to be a spiritual center which will bring people from all of the Balkans, equip the leaders through trainings, seminars and conferences and send them back to impact nations. On top of all this, the Gospel of the Lord expanded in every direction with the Roma Community Church being involved directly or indirectly in planting 10 churches, 8 of them nationally and 2 international churches in Osijek (Croatia) and Lubeck (Germany.)