Balkanization:  a geo-political term, according to Wikipedia, used to describe ‘the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other.’  

The term refers to the division of the Balkan peninsula, formerly ruled almost entirely by the Ottoman Empire, into a number of smaller states between 1817 and 1912.[3] The term however came into common use in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, with reference to the numerous new states that arose from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire.   This word has been hovering over the peninsula for over a 100 years now.

The term is also used to describe other forms of disintegration, including, for example, the subdivision of the Internet into separate enclaves,[4] the division of subfields and the creation of new fields from sociology, and the breakdown of cooperative arrangements due to the rise of independent competitive entities engaged in trade wars.  

No matter how ‘Balkanization’ is used, it is essentially a negative word that describes the breakdown or disintegration of cooperation; a word that highlights and even promotes the often violent divisions between people.  In my opinion, I would like to see it struck from our vocabulary.

So, how can the Balkans, with its many ethnics and languages, rise above its differences and start to move towards reconciliation and restoration?  Are there new words that will be used in the future to describe the relationships between people and nations?  Will the Balkans become known  for swimming in the transforming favor of God?  I pray so. 

For this reason I bow my knees before my Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. 

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen.

Ephesians 3: 14-21