OAC Albania - A Move From Here To There

A MOVE FROM

HERE TO THERE

A New Generation of Church Plants in Albania

Produced by OAC Albania, 2017.

This brochure is a pro bono product by: Photography/design: Emma Marie Chiang Text/design: Katie Vlaardingerbroek Special thanks to Daniel Reimer for the photographs of Pogradeรง.

All rights belong to: OAC Albania

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Welcome,

As communism fell in the early 90s, Ian and Caralee Loring, along with others, became the first generation of missionaries to enter Albania. Over the past twenty years OAC has seen a number of solid churches established and the beginnings of a Christian movement in the country. As we move into a new chapter, a new generation of Albanian church planters and evangelists have been born and are running with this vision.

‘A Move From Here to There’, tells some of their stories. It shows how the older generation of OAC church planters is bringing forth a new generation of Albanian OAC church planters, who themselves are encouraging young believers to follow in their footsteps. These are steps that often lead them back to their original farming communities, which are now getting to know God’s love through their presence.

Many young leaders are moving into church planting, which is both highly encouraging, but also brings with it a new set of challenges. These young leaders are often coming from daughter (and even granddaughter) churches and therefore have had less opportunity to become connected to the international Christian movement. As they grow as leaders, and their churches move from being dreams to becoming reality, we need to find creative ways of supporting them both spiritually, emotionally and economically.

We need to find ways of continuing their training, mentors for their spiritual and emotional growth, and ways to supplement their support from outside the movement. We are therefore looking to churches and individuals to foster and support either a church plant or one of the church planters, to enable the movement to continue to expand and thrive.

The new churches have developed rapidly, but not as rapidly as the advance of Islam and secularism in Albania. New mosques are opening regularly, often without the right planning permission, and its members often persecute and attack Christian converts and new churches. On a secular front, society is becoming more materialistic and individualistic, fuelled by a black economy based on the production of cannabis and harder drugs, which brings with it all the associated criminal activities.

Our hope and desire is that with God’s grace our new movement of village church plants will continue to take root in the communities and in the hearts of the new believers. We hope that this way the mustard seed that was planted by foreign missionaries twenty-five years ago will grow into an Albanian OAC movement that can move mountains. Your prayers and support are of invaluable contribution as we work towards realising this dream.

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‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain: “Move from here to there,” and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you.’

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‘Sepse në të vërtetë, unë po ju them, se po të keni besim sa një kokërr sinapi, do t`i thoni këtij mali: "Zhvendosu nga këtu atje", dhe ai do të zhvendoset; dhe asgjë nuk do të jetë e pamundshme për ju.’

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Matthew 17:20

Egla and Tony, respectively completely left and completely right in the middle row.

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POJAN Toni (33) and Egla (28) Lika, Esther (4)

In 2002, an eighteen year old Tony got baptised at the Korça church. This moment both represented a radical departure from his strong Islamic background, and the start of a passion for mission and ministry in the different villages surrounding Korça. It was during one of these early ministry events that he met his wife Egla, who is currently carrying their second child – a boy. From this point onwards, the couple have experienced both a strong passion for, and a calling to share their faith. Firstly they served as leaders of the Junior High Group within the Korça Church, but after five years the desire grew to do more. This led to their move to Pojan in June 2016, a village in which they had been serving part-time since 2015.

This decision was not an easy one. Pojan, a village with a population of about 6000, is notorious for its cold reception of community-based initiatives. “If I could have chosen a village to work in, this would probably have been the last village!” Tony laughs. However, a strong sense of calling has led them to sell their newly bought house in Korça and to live their lives amidst the people of this Muslim-majority village.

For Egla as a young mother, moving to a hostile place with little to no support was especially hard at the start. However, only a year later, through her intensive work among the local girls and the couple’s open-door policy, they have created a dedicated, caring and warm community, in a context in which this is not the status quo. “Now, when we go, I can’t stay away for more than a few days. I just need to get back to my girls!”

Egla and Toni are both trained nurses, and the church building, which hosts their various children’s and teenage groups, also functions as a free medical clinic. In the summer months they organise a football camp and a program of children’s ministry, in which the teenagers and young believers get to be part of the ministry teams themselves – just like Tony all those years ago.

Toni and Egla are hoping to start a Sunday service soon.

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REMBEC Melsi Plepi (24)

Melsi Plepi was only twenty-one when he started his one-man children’s and youth ministry in the village of Rembec, with the support and coaching of the Libonik church. As a young child he was “forced” to attend her church’s children’s ministry events by his younger sister.

‘I still regularly say to her: “Thank you for taking me to the doors of the church!” After unsuccessfully working as an immigrant in Greece as a seventeen year old, to support his family, Melsi came to faith, inspired by the differences he saw in the attitudes and life of his believing male friends.

In 2012, as a young believer, he took part in an outreach in the villages around Korça. As soon as he came into Rembec he felt a strong love for the village, which at the time had no active ministries or churches. He felt a deep calling to serve the village: “Five years ago when I felt this call, I prayed to God and asked that He would give me the patience, the endurance and the strength to follow it through to the end and to complete the job that He had for me there.”

Melsi followed this call and attended a Bible school for two years, before solely focussing on the work in Rembec. He now organises and runs two Bible study-groups, one for teenagers and one for adults, as well as several outreaches through soccer. Rembec is a small village, with few prospects and even less opportunities for adolescents. This leads to alcoholism and crime. In this context soccer has become a great source of joy and encouragement, and combined with the Gospel is changing behaviour and hearts, bringing hope.

By living out his faith, Melsi is now inspiring others in the same way that led him to believe in the first place: “I can see God changing their lives and the direction of their lives.”

Recently the Rembec group is now leading their own children’s ministry, illustrating how a new group of active young believers is already starting to take shape.

Melsi’s desire is to be able to live in the village and to begin a church with regular (Sunday) meetings, that can be rooted within the village and community: ‘My dream and my prayer – and I’m praying now – is that we can have our own building; a stable place where I can stay and meet the boys regularly in this village.’

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“I feel that my life should be in Rembec. I would like to live here, and I would like to see the church planted, and to see them being a church that helps others and even plants other churches. And if that takes my whole life, I am willing to give my whole life.�

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Melsi’s youth group

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BULGAREC Berti (42) and Teuta (35) Azisllari, Emi (9), Nicolas (6) Since the start of 2017, Berti and his wife Teuta, who is currently pregnant with their third child, have been leading a church plant team in Bulgarec. The team consists of young people from the villages of Libonik and Vlocisht: Erfiola (23), Tori (28), Pano (18), Enea (21), and Xhensil (17). As such, this is the first church plant to be initiated and organised through a collaboration of different villages: ‘I was so excited to see these young people think bigger than their own village!’

Bulgarec is a farmer’s village of about 2000 people. Previous to this outreach there had been no missional activity in this village which has a strong Muslim presence, and atheistic roots.

Berti himself grew up in a similar atheistic setting: “I was a product of the system here.” In 1991, when the country first opened, he walked to Greece as a seventeen year old. Here, completely alone and with no prospects, he unexpectedly found God as the One who answered his prayers. “For the first time in my life I asked God to help me. I prayed: ‘If you truly exist, help me.’” From this moment onwards he found work through an uncle, and started attending a church in Athens, which eventually led him to be involved in prison ministry among Albanian prisoners in Athens. However, with the Korça prison being built in 2006, he felt a calling to go back to Albania, and after getting married the couple decided to move back.

Currently the team is organising three meetings a week in a former restaurant: a children’s outreach for about 30 children, and a youth meeting and Bible study for 17 teenagers. “We are very much in the early days,” Berti says almost apologetically. Berti combines his prison ministry with the work in Bulgarec. where they are also providing food distribution during the tough winter months, and. Being a deprived farming village, the team also currently distribute food parcels to sixteen of the poorest families, and provide scholarships for the five families in the village whose breadwinner is prison. Berti’s desire is to start a meeting for the elderly people in the village. The team is currently looking into the possibilities of getting one of the nurses in the Korça clinic to provide regular health services for the elderly.

“My dream would be for the whole village to be saved, but as a pragmatic guy I would be grateful if all the kids and 10% of the village would come to our outreach regularly.

We’re convinced every village needs to have the Gospel proclaimed in it.”

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VLOÇISHT Margarita (41) and Petrika (42) Dhima, Darda (13), Eliada (10), Xhonatan (8)

Margarita, mother of three and surrogate mother to many, has been working consistently in Vlocisht for the last fourteen years. Originally from Ersekë, she and her husband Petrika met during the year of anarchy in 1997. Despite not being allowed out on the streets due to the curfews and general chaos, the two met and bonded during weekly Bible meetings. “Even before we knew each other well, he [Petrika] told me that the Lord had spoken to him and told him: ‘This is the woman you should marry.’ But I wasn’t as convinced at the start”, she laughs. Now the couple have been married for twenty years.

Previously Margarita, who is originally from a Muslim family, had already been doing ministry and evangelism in the villages around Ersekë since 1995. After being asked to help with the outreach in the villages surrounding Korça, the couple moved, and soon started working in Vloçisht: “It has been a long story, but God showed us this is where he wants us to be.”

In 2012, Paul Alkazraji, who became the pastor of the church, and his wife Albana, were able to raise the money necessary to purchase a church building. Prior to this, people were forced to meet in bars and drinking places. This meant that the women and girls couldn’t join in, since they weren’t allowed to go into these places. Now the church is a place where groups of all different ages meet. “It has been such a great blessing to have our own place.

Now we have meetings every day, and there is nothing stopping us.”

Besides a children’s program, which attended by 20 to 40 children, the couple have also been running a junior high group since 2013. Many of the original girls are now married and live either elsewhere in Albania or abroad – “So that’s why I always say we’ve become grandparents at an early age!” Margarita laughs. Equally, the girls of the youth group are now starting to move away to Korçe, drawn by the attraction and possibilities of a bigger city: “Most girls don’t want to stay in Vloçisht. This is very difficult for me, because they feel like my children. When they leave, I feel their absence.”

Margarita also runs a Bible study for women, and she and Petrika are heavily involved in the day to day life of the church. As one of the more mature church plants, the couple is now focussing on maturing the Christian faith of the people and children in their different groups.

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“My hope, my prayer, my desire is that the people will grow and mature in the knowledge and love of God, and that God will change their hearts. There may be many who go to church, but they’re not all believers.

And I pray that God will change their hearts so they will learn how to forgive each other, that they will love each other, love the Lord with all their hearts, and realise how important God is for their lives.�

Margarita and her girls (above), Paul with his wife Albana (bottom left), and Paul with men from the church (bottom right).

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KAMENIC Suzana (42) and Altin Dumka

Suzana and Altin have been working in Kamenic since December 2016. Previously this couple, married in 2013, worked separately in different ministries , respectively the Safe House and the Street Kids centre in Korça. Their emphasis is now on working together as a team among the village of Kamenic. “We both felt strongly that we wanted to serve together, as a couple.”

Kamenic is a small, widespread village of around a thousand people, which is known for its hardworking mentality. Here you can find people working the fields at all hours of the day.

For generations the village has been steeped in superstition and tragic deaths. “They have begun to feel like they are a cursed village.” The different households are even locally known and identified by the names and stories of the deceased children. “This is one of the ways in which we can serve. For I know God wants to help break this attitude of believing that they are under a curse and that somebody will die. Because they live in fear of that, and focus on that.”

Recently the father of Memheti (16), one of the boys that regularly attends the youth outreach, got severely injured in a tractor accident. Suzana and Altin have been helping the family through this difficult time, showing them a God who is more powerful than the evil of this world, and more caring than the love of this world. Recently the father has been discharged from intensive care and Memheti, who would never pray before, is now the first to raise his hand during prayer-time at the youth meetings. “He believes in prayer now.”

Currently the couple are organising and leading three weekly meetings: a games and activity based afternoon for children; an organised program with songs, a play, memory verses and Bible study for the junior high age group, and a Sunday afternoon program, which is also attended by the youth. At the moment these activities are still being organised by groups from Korça, but Suzana and Altin are hoping that soon they will be able to train the youth here to work within their own village: ‘Our goal is to take them from where they are and to bring them closer to the Lord.’

‘We would like to see a church planted, a place where people could come together, even though the village is all spread out, no matter what they are going through.’

‘We’d like to help this generation grow up and break the curses that have been believed in generation after generation, so they can live a free life in Christ… and of course, we’d love to have a church! These dreams are all connected.’

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SHEQERAS Sokoli Bori (21) Sokoli – or Koli as he is known by his friends - grew up in the church of Sheqeras. Sheqeras is a farmer’s village with roughly 2200 people. The village is among the poorest in the Korça area, and only gets running water twice daily. As a child Koli saw his mother working with the children in the church, and from a young age he wanted to be part of the church’s ministry team himself. He was only 14 when he told his first story in front of children, a moment he still remembers only too clearly. Between 2014 and 2015 he attended Bible school. Here the desire emerged to start a junior high program in his own village. Most people in Sheqeras dream of leaving the village behind, so for Koli to decide to stay was something quite extraordinary: “First I just had the desire to be a director and a leader. But as I began to read the Bible, I started to feel a call from God. I felt like God was telling me that the people in my village needed to be saved. At the time our church only had a children’s program and I kept thinking: ‘what about all the others?’ I just felt God wanted all the age groups to be reached out to. And now I feel it’s my obligation to do exactly this. Since I know the need, I need to do it. I will hold the weight of this responsibility on my shoulders, until I have succeeded.”

Koli has now been running a junior high group for a year and a half. For the first four months only four children attended, leaving him worried about the longevity of the project.

However, by intensively investing in those four children, he started to see them grow. Their enthusiasm and passion eventually brought the other children in. Now there is a regular group of 36, with up to 70 attending the summer projects. Recently he has also started a teenage group which currently consists of 20 local teens: “Half of the teenagers in this group have been baptised and they are all growing. They’re wanting the church to grow and are wanting to do more things in and for the village.”

His new ambition is to start a regular monthly meeting in which the different groups can come together in their recently renovated church building. Hopefully, in about a year’s time, this could develop into a weekly Sunday meeting. In September they are planning on starting a regular women’s group. Koli is also hoping to eventually start something for the elderly men in the village, whom he now joins in the town centre for dominos, raki and discussions about life and faith.

Koli’s dream is for the church to be able to distribute food to the poorest families in the village. With the youth group they are currently looking into the possibility of creating food parcels by sharing what they have.

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Koli, wearing yellow, with the boys from his junior high group.

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-Serxho Kupe (15)

‘I started coming to the children’s program ( in Sheqeras) when I was 5 years old, because I liked the games. But as I came more I got to know pastor Koli better and he helped me know God. I’m now in the youth group and I help Koli with the junior high group. My friends now also come. In the beginning, they too just joined for the games, but with time they got to know God and they now have faith!’

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One of the young men who attends the Sheqeras youth groups.

PLASA Xhentil Kora (22)

Xhentil has been active at the church plant in in his local village Plasa for the last six years, after coming to faith at one of the English camps that are organised each summer by the Pogradec church. Prior to this, he had become friends with Luke, an OAC missionary who started the church plant in Plasa, and had been attending Bible studies - but only out of a desire to win others over to his own Islamic faith. However, the day after coming back from the camp, Xhentil woke up with a feeling of joy unlike anything he had ever experienced before: “All of a sudden I wanted to talk to other people about this, because I was so excited. It was like I fell in love with something.”

Xhentil went back to Luke straight away to ask how he could help, but was very clear on what he wanted to do. “I told him: ‘Give me a man’s job, I don’t want to work with kids!”, he laughs. For now he is running the children’s program, the junior high Bible study group, and the youth study group, together with a small group of other dedicated people. “Now I understand that working with children is a great blessing and I love them.” The Plasa church plant also organises a women’s Bible study group, and – quite extraordinary for a church plant – a weekly Bible study for elderly men. Currently there are about 30 adults and 50 children that regularly attend the church plant.

Plasa has historically always been a Muslim village with a lot of superstition. For years Xhentil saw his own family, especially his ill mother, engaging with and suffering under Islamic village magic. But after intensive prayer, the family has stopped going to mosques to ask for cures and has cleansed their house of talismans. They are even going to church.

“Now when my mum reads the Bible, she forgets all about us. Sometimes she even forgets to cook! My dad has even started taking the cooking over from her.”

The youth in Plasa are becoming increasingly uninterested in any form of faith, and are instead experimenting with alcohol and drugs. This worries Xhentil and the older people in the village. However, seven years ago, Xhentil himself would probably also have been on this path to alcoholism and small crime. In fact, he and the other young believers have undergone such a change in character and heart, that this has led some of the older women in the village to come to faith themselves.

‘My greatest desire is to serve God wherever He sends me. I have tried other things and they didn’t bring me the happiness He brings me. But when I’m involved with the church here, with the people here, I feel fulfilled.’

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Xhentil: “I want them all to feel what I felt and to know who the true God is.”

Xhentil with his boys (above), Xhentil at the men’s Bible study (bottom left), Luke and Lydia (bottom right).

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Erion and his family in Pogradeç: ‘My dream is that we become a church that plants other churches.’

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POGRADEC Erion (35) and Melodie (34) Dielli, Samuel (6), Sarah (3)

Erion got baptised as a thirteen year old, following an evangelism outreach and VBS program in his village Pojan, which introduced him to the love of God. From this moment onward he was actively involved in the church ministry and outreach. From setting up the chairs in his small local church, he moved to setting up the children’s outreach ministry in villages around Korça in 2001. It was while leading the Junior High group that he met and started working together with Melodie. Originally from America, Melodie decided to move to Albania as a long-term missionary in 2005, having been to Korça twice with her Christian college. They have now been married for nine years.

In 2013 Melodie and Erion decided to move to Progradec, a lake-based town of 32.000 people in the south-east of Albania. Four years previously, a group from the Korça church had started going weekly to Pogradec, to work with four boys: “We reached a point at which we realised that if we wanted this work to grow, we needed someone to live in the town and work with the people there.” Since the couple moved to Progradec, the church plant has blossomed, something that has been made possible by the commitment of the three missionary couples currently living there.

What started with a ministry that centred around the families and friends of those original four young men, has developed into a church of about 100-120 people. Since October 2015 they have been organising a weekly Sunday service, along with ten different Bible study groups. Within the last four years, the church has had to move buildings four times, since it continuously outgrew the building it was renting. “Which is a good problem to have!” Erion laughs. However they are now looking to find and buy a permanent place in which they can grow.

Currently, 34 young believers are part of a Summer Project, in which they have committed their summer to the church. This youth team is actively helping out with the different outreach events organised by the church, including English camps, outreaches to local villages, and door to door evangelism. At the same time, the Summer Project functions as a discipling course. Erion is also hoping to start a new church plant in a local village: “We are currently working on strengthening the team, and then we are going to look into the possibilities.”

Erion and Melodie’s hope is that the church of Pogradec will become a strong, committed central point for further church planting in the area.

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MALIQ Plator Collaku (42) Twenty five years ago Plator was part of a small Bible-study group in Libonik that would later grow into a blossoming church, which he is now pastoring. In the early 1990s, Plator himself came to faith as a 14 year old, after attending – and at first “terrorising” – the group.

A high-flying literature student, he was called into ministry and was among the first generation of street evangelists. As such, he has seen and mentored younger generations of church planters throughout the years: “I thought God would never work through me, but I went to villages in which people threw stones at me, and yet two people were saved and are still doing ministry today.”

Libonik, situated in the south-east of Albania, is a prime example of a church plant that is now bringing forth new church plants and village outreaches itself. For one of the newest church plants, Plator is going back to his home town of Maliq. For more than 500 years there have been no churches in the Maliq area, and it is notorious for being particularly hostile ground for the gospel to take root. At Easter 2016, the youth from Maliq gathered in a local bar, partly drawn by the promise of free drinks, and listened in complete silence to the story of the cross. The village has now had a regular Sunday meeting for a year, which draws almost as many people as the church in Libonik: “When people come and visit us here in Maliq, they think it’s a big miracle, as if it happened in a day. But it’s been only through hard work and a lot of tears and a lot of crying out to the Lord. However in the middle of all difficulties we were facing socially and physically, we can see the hand of God moving the history of this country in his direction and towards his love. I think Albania has a future. Not because it is Albania” he adds hastily and laughs, “but because it is God.” For Plator, this future involves the hope and vision that the remaining 89 villages surrounding Maliq will eventually all have a church plant of their own: “Maybe I will not see the vision fulfilled in my life, but we want to build a church in which this generation will speak to the next generation about what God has done.” Plator himself has been actively involved in the mentoring of young church leaders and church planters, and is overseeing the five church plants that the church in Libonik has brought forth, including the one in Rembec. For him, discipling is not something that can be condensed into a two week process, but is centred around life-sharing. “Creating new leaders means giving all and being open to everything that is around you. It takes time and energy, but it is very valuable, because I as a Plator can do nothing, but as a team we can be a big force for God’s kingdom.”

Plator is hoping to start a safe house for the abandoned street boys of Maliq, and is currently looking into the possibility of buying a plot of land to make this dream possible.

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Plator in front of the church in Maliq 28

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Korça Children’s Clubs Besa, having been saved as a child, and with 11 years’ experience of working with children, is passionate about children’s work. The decreasing numbers in the church children’s program lead to brainstorming a solution: what about starting children’s clubs in some of the areas on the outskirts of Korça, where it’s difficult to get to the church?

After completing a year at Bible School, Besa was ready to commit to this, developing a team with three others (Jonada, Zake, and Mariglen) which has been holding programs in several locations. Two locations in particular were drawing 30-40 children each week, leading to the decision to establish a regular children’s program in Favina Housing Area and the French Cemetery area. Korça Children’s Club officially started in June and is proving to be timely and very well accepted.

Please pray for Besa and her team and these clubs, which we hope will lead to other clubs and future believers in the church. Pray about supporting this work as the team need support for materials, transport, renting a club room, and living expenses as they are working, training, preparing and following up on a full-time basis.

The goal is to develop a children’s ministry team which will have a national impact by teaching and training others within our movement and across the country. Often children’s clubs have been the first steps to developing relationships which later became church plants.

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Behind the scenes Xhoni Bacellari Behind every successful advance there is a logistical genius.

Without Xhoni Bacellari all these church planters would be bogged down by administration and legislative bureaucracy (let’s not forget that this is an ex-communist country). Xhoni takes care of the legal and financial issues related to all the church plants and associated workers. Through the multitude of connections and contacts that he has developed over the years, he can often pull a rabbit out of a hat in a tricky situation.

Holgar and Zhenka Dashi Holgar and Zhenka are involved in the theological training of the existing churches and church leaders, primarily through the use of the BILD material. Holgar is currently working on a doctorate in theology. Both Holgar and Zhenka have over twenty years of experience in church planting and church leadership, so they are often a wise counsel to young leaders.

Ian and Caralee Loring Ian is the national director of OAC and pastor in one of the larger mother churches. Together with his wife Caralee they have lived in Albania for over twenty six years, after moving to the country straight after it opened. Over the years they have been involved in the planting and leading of many of the first church plants, and are now attempting to pass on the lessons that they have learned through their own experiences to this next generation.

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A Hidden Treasure A Personal Note Many years ago we dreamed of a stream of strong churches across the south east of Albania. It’s very clear that by God’s grace this is happening, and that a new generation is arising with a vision to take it even further. For this we praise God. Our prayers are now for the next generation of church planters, their protection, their equipping and their support. Our plea is for people and churches to come alongside these emerging church planters and their fledgling churches. These young couples are the treasure of great worth. They are prepared to take on the task with all the sacrifice that this entails.

On a concrete level, they require encouragement, training and help in the financial costs associated with a new church plant. It has been our experience that this requires somewhere around a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a month to flourish. This covers both the development of the church and the support of the church planter and their family.

Please consider becoming a part of this church planting effort in a practical way, committing to regularly praying for church planters and the village they are serving, and giving regularly towards their needs, and in this way being part of the harvest. Please get in touch if you have any further questions, or would like to know more about the work we are doing.

Ian and Caralee Loring Director, OAC Albania ian.loring@oaci.org In the USA send to: OAC USA PO Box D, Nazareth, PA 18064 Make checks payable to: OAC Albania Memo: Church planting In UK: The George Muller Charitable Trust Muller House, 7 Cotham Park, Bristol BS6 6DA Make cheques payable to: SKI Memo: Please use this gift to support the ministry of I & C Loring in Albania (Church Planting) To give online: Visit: www.oacusa.org and click on ‘donate’ then click on the Albanian flag.

Memo: Church planting

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“Përsëri, mbretëria e qiejve i ngjan një thesari të fshehur në një arë, që një njeri që e ka gjetur e fsheh; dhe, nga gëzimi që ka, shkon, shet gjithçka që ka dhe e blen atë arë.”

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

- Matthew 13:44

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