Tirana Church Service

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Village Church Service

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Some Newer Photos

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Radio and Rockstars

We've just appeared on Radio 7! It is a Christian radio station in Tirana. Pete G and I were interviewed (Pete did really well - I'd picked him hoping he'd be rubbish and make me look good, but my ploy failed!)

Then Simon, our resident rockstar, sang a song and then we all became rockstars for 5 minutes as we all sang as well.

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Minarets and Melodrama

At about 5:30 we went to a village outside Luchnia. A group of Albanian Christians gathered in a dirt covered car park. Just as they began to set up a small sound system the local mosque on the hill above us began the call to prayer.

The Albanian Christians played some upbeat Christian songs through the sound system as some of our team went with Albanian guys to invite men from the numerous bars and cafés to come to a "presentation of English culture"!!!

A crowd gathered and we introduced ourselves. Then, finally, after all our practicing, we got to perform our drama. The two Petes, Owen, Ben and Don performed fantastically! They had the crowd laughing and received a hearty round of applause at the end. (Be at church on Sunday 7th to see a repeat performance!)

After the drama Simon sang Shackles and then Don gave a short testimony that was really, really good - about what he loves and how God is strong and powerful and helps us to have self-control.

We then sang a song all together and I did a little gospel preach.

It went really well. We were interrupted by a drunk guy and several lorries that needed to get through, but the people from the Albanian church thought it was a success.

I asked the pastor about what we'd done. She said this is their 5th village. There are 100 villages around Lushnia and they have a sense of responsibility to reach all of them.

They start with a few of these street meetings and get to know people. Then they do fun kids activities and somehow this becomes a church!

I was really struck by their get up and go to see something happen for these people in the villages. What would that sort of passion look like in Exeter, I wonder?



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Felons and Frogs

This morning we had an early start when we left for Lushnia, a city of 75,000 to the south of Tirana.

We met up with a local pastor and visited a prison there. We went through numerous security cheques, as officious looking Albanian police checked our passports and the contents of our pockets.

We went in, through several gates and barbed-wire fences, into the prison. It was a fairly oppressive place. The buildings looked down onto a quad that was separated by fences into several courts where prisoners played football or chatted.

We went into a room and were joined by about 25 prisoners. Simon sang a song, and then we all sang a couple. I introduced the team and then Andrew and Pete told a story about how God had helped them in their lives. I then spoke about how God has a special place in his heart for prisoners and how, in Jesus, he had experienced being arrested as a criminal. I said we could do nothing about the physical bars in this prison, but Jesus could do something about the bars of fear, hate and insecurity that surround our hearts.

We prayed and invited God to come and then finished with another song.

After the service we hung out with the prisoners. A few spoke English, usually because they had spent some time in England in the past. We heard some eye-opening stories about why they were there, but also met two guys who were believers.

After the prison visit we went for lunch and ate a local delicacy - frogs' legs.









Very tasty!

We're now waiting in a cafe in Lushnia until we can go to a village nearby. A city church has recently planted a church in this village and we're going to go to meet the people there and do a presentation.





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Our Pool Hall Gig

Simon warms up the audience (about 8 old guys and a couple of Albanian boy racers) before the main act...







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Learning Our Drama

We've been told that doing a drama in the Albanian prison is a bad idea - it is bot macho enough and so will cause offence! I don't know why they'd thing that... have a look for yourself:

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We've Hit The WiFi Goldmine!

We're having coffee in a café on the way to visit a prison and they have the fastest wifi we've found in Albania (1MB/S for you geeks!)

So using the opportunity to upload some photos















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Simon & Albanian Customs

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More Photos

Preaching at the church in Shkroda




Simon's first gig! An Albanian pool hall.




Don's pulled!!!


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Pool and Poos

Since all the diary entries have two words starting with the same letter, I thought I'd continue the tradition!

This afternoon we were meant to play dominoes with the older guys from the village, but only one guy turned up. So instead we played some volleyball with some young guys while Simon entertained about 15 kids.

After it got dark, about 6:30, we went down to a room where there were two pool tables and about 8 local guys. We played some pool with them.





Then just before we had to leave Simon sang two songs and we all sang "Father God, I wonder"!

I said a quick thing about the reason we came to Albania was because of our faith and the worldwide family of God.

We then went to play football with young guys from the village. We gave a better accounting of ourselves - despite a day of hard labour - and lost 8-5.

And so to finish - why "Poos"? Only because it seems to be the most common subject of conversation! This never happens with mixed teams!


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Birds and Bricks

Last night we split into two groups and went to homegroups of the Tirana church. We were really welcomed and some of us shared personal experiences of God at work in our lives and Owen and Don led Bible studies in a group each.

This morning we had team time and then Shpresa arrived - carrying 4 live chickens! This was to be our lunch. On the concrete forecourt outside our house the chickens went to meet their maker! Genti killed the first to show us how to do it. Here's a quick quiz for the comments, which 3 guys from our team then killed a chicken?





At 10 we went back to our team's nemesis - the hill! At the bottom were three large piles of concrete blocks. We worked out that there was somewhere between 4 & 5 tonnes of them to get to the top.

If we thought yesterday with the sand was tough, today was worse! We each worked a section of the hill, collecting one or two blocks and walking the 15m to the next guy.

After 2.5 hours I asked Genti (who was at the bottom) whether we'd done more than half yet. "Oh no, not half!" he said as if it were stupid even to think we were close. Luckily it was a 'lost in translation' moment, as Genti meant we had less than half still to take.

After 3 hours we stopped, again being treated to pancakes, coffee and raći by the family. It has been a beautiful, hot day today. From the family's home we could see the Mediterranean glistening on the horizon, while lush green hills curled around behind us.

This afternoon we are joining with the men from the village - coffee, dominoes and pool - and then we will have an opportunity to tell them about Jesus!



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More Photos

We're all Tottenham fans now!!!




Donkey No. 1




Pancakes and Raki



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Some Photos

View from our house




Mosque in Skhroda




View from church meeting place





Outside Tani and Eloni's apartment




At Lake Shkroda



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The Drought and The Donkeys

Last night we played football against some of the guys from the Tirana. I think we gave a good accounting of ourselves, especially as none of us had played for at least 3 years - and some not for 15! We scored three goals. They stopped counting their goals after 30!

We got back to our house to try to have a shower and discovered we had no water. However showering became the least of our problems - as eight guys all with healthy appetites came to the realisation that the toilet wouldn't flush either!

This morning we woke up to the same problem - but the situation was even more pressurised! I won't go into any more details, but the problem was finally solved at 10:30 when Genti came and was able to pump water up from his house to fill our tank!

We started this morning with team time, worshipping and praying together. Simon did a bible study which included his telling us about his dream last night - so we had the extra bonus of a psychological insight into how his subconscious works (or doesn't!)

At 10:45 (after the queue for the toilet had died down) we went to help a poor family mend a wall that had broken down. It was damaged three years ago when a nearby ammunitions dump exploded.

Some of the money we raised before coming out has paid for the materials and now we were acting as labourers. I guess we all had different pictures of what this work would look like, but no one expected what we found!

We arrived at the bottom of a hill, where a muddy track wound it's way up between steep sides and pomegranate trees. In front of us were our materials - large piles of sand and aggregate - and our machinery to get it all up the track… two donkeys!




We spent the morning loading bags, heaving them onto the donkeys and leading the donkeys up the steep and slippery path. This went on for a few hours until we stopped at the families house for a rest. It was a single story building with 3 rooms and a porch. We sat on the porch and the mother of the family gave us glasses of raki - a home-brewed spirit made from the grapes growing in their garden - and pancakes. The raki, in my humble opinion, was more akin to wallpaper stripper than a beverage, but the pancakes were delicious - served with sugar and fig jam.

The whole family were so hospitable to us. The grandmother took a shine to Don and sat with her hand on his knee. The father said he thought Simon's hair looked like his donkey's! Grandad sat in the corner smiling. Mother plied us with raki, pancakes and Turkish coffee. Their son, who was about 7 didn't seem able to talk normally, just to shout excitedly!



This morning our Bible passage was from James chapter 2. In verse 17 it says, "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

There is a whole tension between faith and deeds. We can't do anything to make God love us more (or less). There is no deed that can earn us anything from God. It's important that we don't get the idea that our good deeds are the way we get into God's good books.

But conversely, to sit around believing but doing nothing about it is equally as redundant. All mouth and no trousers is a modern way of putting it.

This verse came back to me as I was walking up the track alongside a donkey, trying to support a bag of sand to stop it tipping and knowing I will wake up aching tomorrow. I had been calculating in my head about how much a few Albanian labourers might cost and how much I'd like to be relaxing at home.

Supporting this family by buying them the materials was easy to do. It showed them that a bunch of strangers cared about them simply because we believed that God cared about them.

But the deed we were doing - working alongside them, getting muddy and sore - perhaps showed God's love for them more profoundly than throwing money at a problem. Or I hope so anyway.


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Church then Coffee

An early start this morning. Don got up for his shower at 5:30am (4:30 UK time!) No one slept that well - turns out there are a number of snorers among us. Who'd have thought!

Genti came around at 7am and spoke to us about the day. He had to do a funeral in the morning. The man who died had been a high ranking member of the Communist Party and at one time was the Prime Minister in Enver Hoxha's government. After communism fell in 1992 his wife and then his three children became Christian. Having been so involved with the communist party he was very critical of his wife and children, but 4 years ago also became a Christian.

We went off at 7:30 in the minibus to Skhroda. We went to the church meeting of the church where the pastor has been murdered. I did a talk with a translator and there was opportunity to pray for some people. The widow and her children were there.

After the service we went back to the widow's home as is the custom. We sat in her front room, with a couple of people from her church and also a few from the Tirana church and drank coffee.

She told us about Tanny and why he was killed. His uncle had killed a man 6-years ago and that has started a blood feud between the two clans. The men of the murdered man's extended family now needed to get revenge by killing a man from Tanny's family.

So immediately all the men in Tanny's family go into hiding. They become housebound, unable to go out in case they are killed. Tanny spent 2 years not leaving their 2 bedroom flat. Although the revenge wouldn't be taken on a woman or a child there was still a period when Tanny's 4 year old son couldn't go out in case he was grabbed and held to force Tanny to come out.

Tanny could have easily separated himself from the rest of the family and then possibly been freed from the blood feud. He had already been disowned by his uncles because he was seen as having abandoned his Catholic faith to become an evangelical Christian.

Tanny and his family then had the opportunity to go to England. They worked for a year (I think) as assistant pastors of a church in Kent. But even though they could have stayed longer Tanny felt that God was saying they had to go back.

Back in Skhroda Tanny started to walk around freely. He began to work with other victims of blood feuds, guys who'd been trapped in their houses for years. When terrible flooding hit the area Tanny and the church were able to help loads and loads of families - including many members of the family that had the blood feud with Tanny's clan.

The Easter following the floods they had 180 adults come to their Easter service. They squeezes them into the room that normally only fits 80. 50 people accepted Jesus that morning!

Tanny was working with the government leading a task force looking at how to stop the culture of blood feuds, but there wasn't much political will to see anything happen.

Tanny had sent many intermediaries and elders from their church to the other clan seeking reconciliation, but to no avail. In mid-October, as he was leaving the church office with his Bible, he was shot twice in the legs by a 21 year old man from the other family. He managed to crawl into a café and block the door but the guy shot him twice through the window and then came inside and shot him a further three times.

Elonia spoke really movingly of her husband's death and the effect on her children, a 10 year old boy and 8 year old girl. As we heard her speak about this many of us struggled to not cry.

She says she doesn't understand why, as they followed what they felt God had said, this has happened but she trusts that God has it in control. She said she felt that Tanny's death wouldn't be in vain and that God would work through this tragedy to bring change and blessing.

As we sat in her living room, drinking coffee, there were a number of long silences. What could anyone say? But it felt like an honour to be there. We finished by praying for her and her children and we went on our way, each leaving 1,000 Lek (£6) under our coffee cups, as is the Albanian tradition.


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Safely Arrived

We've arrived in Albania. The British Airways flight went smoothly (those among the group with an EasyJet mindset were kicking themselves for not getting free wine or beer!)




At the airport we were met my Mandi holding a sign saying "Dave Vinall". He will be driving us around this week. Genti couldn't meet us because someone in his church died earlier today in hospital. He was busy sorting out the funeral arrangements.




We were bought to the village where we'll be staying - Vlashaj. We're staying in a large house that has the feel of an alpine chalet. The downstairs is a classroom and meeting place (we haven't seen inside it yet). Upstairs are two bedrooms with bunk-beds and a kitchen diner. There's one bathroom. There's also an attic room with a couple of sofas. We've all settled in and drawn straws for bedrooms.

Tomorrow we travel to a town 2 hours north from here. We will be going to the service of the church where the pastor was murdered a week or so ago. I have to do the sermon and after we visit his widow and children. Unfortunately Genti and Shpresa will be in Tirana at the funeral of the guy who died today. They were our cultural safety net - it's scary dealing with death, suffering and the hard questions of life when there are also cultural differences to consider. I would be horrified if my sermon was inappropriate or insensitive.

Today our group's reading was from James 1:19-27. Not only did it give a group of guys travelling together some very practical and wise advice: Take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. But it also says that true religion is to look after the widows and orphans in their distress. Remarkably poignant considering our time tomorrow.

Anyway - I'm writing this not even knowing if I'll be able to upload it - but we will appreciate your prayers, and now I'll see if I can get a data signal. Goodnight.


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Arriving at Gatwick

Almost at Gatwick. Simon's obviously bored by out discussion of the nuances of the Premier League, but isn't he cute?



As innocent as a baby...


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Location:Antlands Ln,,United Kingdom

Our First Hitch

"Pete, aren't we meant to take the M4 towards London?"
"Arrrrrrrrgggg!"



Pete G's face upon realising he's a muppet when it comes to navigating! Doesn't look very repentant!

UPDATE: Our second hitch - Pete G's alternator warning light has lit up on the dashboard!


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Our Journey Starts

So far, so good. All met up on time at the services and we're on our way to Gatwick!



The team (from left):
Pete A, Andrew, Pete G, Simon, Owen, Don, Dave & Ben


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Our Itinerary

If you want to know what we'll be up to, here's the initial  plan Genti has sent us:


SATURDAY 23RD OCTOBER
Arrival at Tirana airport.  Genti will meet us there with a minibus taxi.

SUNDAY 24TH OCTOBER
Travelling to Shkodra (a little bit less than 2 hours drive), participating in the church service there.  This is the church where the Pastor was murdered 10-days ago as part of a blood feud!  After the service w will be paying a visit to the family.

In the afternoon we will travel back directly to Tirana for sight seeing and in the night we will have football match with Tirana church guys.

MONDAY 25TH OCTOBER
In the morning we will work helping a poor family to rebuild their surrounding wall that was broken down.

At 5:00pm travel to Tirana.  The team will be divided in two teams, 4 in each team.  There will be two cell groups meetings that start 6:00 p.m.  You will lead a short teaching and then testimonies from your
team members.

TUESDAY 26TH OCTOBER
In the morning continue the work on the wall.

At 5:00pm there will be a men’s gathering, which is a social time of drinking coffee and playing pool.  Then we can have drama and evangelistic presentation.  After that have a football match with village guys.

WEDNESDAY 27TH OCTOBER
In the morning traveling to Lushnja, which is near to the prison.  Visiting the prison and ministering to the prisoners.

In the afternoon we’ll do an evangelistic event in a village close to Lushnja.

THURSDAY 28TH OCTOBER
In the morning travelling to a castle and have lunch there.

At 6:00pm there will be two cell group meetings, again your team will divided in two.

FRIDAY 29TH OCTOBER
Travelling to Durres where the ancient amphitheatre is and where the Albanian Christians were martyred in 2nd – 3rd  century.  Then have a free time in the beach.

In the afternoon travelling back to Vlashaj village.  At 6:00pm we will have church service.

SATURDAY 20TH OCTOBER
There are two options, either house visits in the village or travelling to the beach to have a free time.

Then turning back to the village to pack and get ready for flying.  Travelling to Tirana and you can preach in our church.  The Tirana church meeting is from 6:00 to 8:00pm.  Then you and your team can leave directly from our church to the airport.  From Tirana in that hour the airport travel is 20 minutes.

Fundraising

An update on our fundraising for the trip.

We estimated that the trip, for 8 guys, was going to cost about £3,900.  This includes our airfare (which was £2,689.40), our travel, accommodation, food and day to day expenses.

The 8 guys contributed £2,932, leaving us £968 to raise.

We actually have raised at least £2,233!

The money was raised by the following methods:

• Slave Auction - £774
• Sponsored Cycle - £626
• eBay 4 Albania -  £190 (selling people's unwanted stuff on eBay for them)
• Cake Sale - £63
• Gifts - £530

So well done to all of the team for slaving, cycling, eBay'ing and caking our way into solvency!  And thanks to everyone who has supported us with generous donations of their money, skills or unwanted stuff. 

We will have about £1,265 to give away to people and projects in Albania.  This may change as we find we can live more or less cheaply once there.  Anyway, we'll keep you updated on what we do and where the money goes!

_ 

The last Albania planning meeting

Our last meeting before we go. This time next week we'll be in Albania!

Simon has made another appointment and so isn't coming at all... and we're still waiting for Ben (25 mins late!)







The question is, how long do we wait for Ben?


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