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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