Christ Preached to Surrounding Villages/Towns & North Macedonia

Christ Preached to Surrounding Villages/Towns & North Macedonia

Albanian/American Evangelism Team

View of Three Counties: Albania, Greece & Macedonia

At the Cross

When we look back at all the things we have done over the past few days, we are in awe of how God has used us and worked through us. It has brought us great pleasure to take part in God’s plan to reach the nations and to see the delight in the onlookers faces of both young and old as the message goes forth. In a culture that is divided between rich traditional orthodox and Muslim religion there has been much openness to this message of good news and people have noted that we are different and are serious about what we are proclaiming. Thoughts come with teary eyes of all that have heard the message of the Gospel in Gorcia e Madhe (North Macedonia), Plasa, Bilisht, Korça, Poradec, Zviriine and Lin.

^"To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things,..." Ephesians 3:8-9

- CA

A Smile is a Universal Language

Today all the ladies on the team went to a girls safe house. This house has only woman workers and they take in young girls who had been living in very bad circumstances. One girl by the name of Anna had a father who wasn’t able to support her. A family friend said they would take her in because they had a daughter around the same age. Everything went well for about two weeks until the father started taking Anna at night and abusing her. The father told Anna not to tell anyone or he would kill her. Finally after school one day the daughter and Anna ran away to the police. The father was thrown in jail, but the family started threatening to kill her. The ladies of the safe house were contacted and they smuggled her away, so that people do not know her location to keep her safe.

When we arrived at the house, we were shown around the small house. We were greeted with peaking heads out of bedrooms and shy waving hands. We all sat together in the living room and everyone said their name and favorite food. There were 8 girls ranging from 14 years old to 6. The girls were asked if they wanted to go for a walk with us and their smiles were so big as they pointed to each of us that they wanted to be their partner. We walked hand in hand using the little Albania we knew and speaking with the girls that knew English. We got ice cream and walked to the park. Lily gave her testimony and the girls listened intently. We then got all of our energy out by playing freeze tag. We prayed in Albanian and English. Hand in hand we walked, skipped, and ran home and after many hugs we said our goodbyes. The way we could see the girls' excitement, laughter, and smiles was the best part of the whole experience. I pray we were able to touch their lives in some way and that we were a witness for Christ. - Emily

Ghost Town Given The Water of Life.

On Friday we went to Gorica e Madhe, on the north border of macedonia. The Albanian evangelism team had never been to Gorica e Madhe before so they did not know what to expect. We had prepared a kids message, an adult message, and more for this village. Once we arrived in Gorica e Madhe, we all realized that our plans were probably about to change. This village was a ghost town. There was close to no one walking around and kids seemed non existent. We quickly scrapped all of our plans that we previously had and started walking around with Bibles. People gradually started to appear from their homes as they heard voices and footsteps. We started handing out Bibles to everyone we made contact with. Through handing out the Bibles and talking to the people in the village we found out that the village had no water. Due to this, a lot of the village had left and most of the children were taken somewhere else. It was very sad to see all of the people walking around with buckets of milk from their animals as their source of fluid.

Usually during this kind of ministry if I don't have a translater I feel useless because I cannot speak Albanian so it is very hard to communicate with the people. This time felt different and I was very pumped. Almost every day we sit with the Albanian evangelism team and share one testimony from our team and one testimony from an Albanian. Listening to the Albanian testimonies really encouraged me because two of them talked about how they came to know Christ simply because an American missionary handed them a Bible a long time ago and they started to read it. I was so excited to hand out a Bible every time! This village was very poor so almost every time we handed out a Bible the peoples faces would light up. I am very excited to do more ministry like this and hear more of the Albanians testimonies. Who knows, maybe one day one of those people I handed one of the Bibles to will share their testimony to someone and tell them how God worked through an American to hand them a Bible and their eyes were open, and hearts changed by the grace of God and His gospel. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans‬ ‭10:17‬ - Cameron

Help Through Prayer 2 Corinthians 1:11

John 14:13 ESV — Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

It has been the most wonderful joy to see prayer at work in Albania. Even from before this trip began, the team and other saints were praying for God's blessing, grace, protection, the proclamation of His truth, and for His will to be done. As a team, we've seen how the Lord has answered these prayers. He went before us in the airport details, sparing us delays and ticket issues, protecting us in turbulence, and granting some of us gospel opportunities on the plane.

He has helped us adjust in Korçë. He has helped us knit very quickly with the local church body, and He has helped us all proclaim Christ with boldness.

In it all, God has been glorified.

It has also been a joy to see the people of God pray. My heart is stirred every time we get together as a whole group to pray for upcoming ministry. It doesn't matter if the prayer is in English or Albanian, our hearts are one seeking the Lord's blessing and praying that the Gospel would go forth.

I get to see small groups of 2 or 3, praying for one another before someone stands and proclaims the truth through a message or another form of outreach. We encourage one another and pour into each other the words of truth and the reminder that above all, no matter what, we are doing all things to the glory of God.

We also pray for the souls that have heard. We plead that the Lord would open their eyes and that they will come to know the glorious free gift of salvation for those who place their trust and faith in Christ.

We are weak vessels here in Albania. But the prayers of the saints have been and are still being lifted up before the Lord God of all heaven and earth. "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him" (1 John 5:14-15 ESV).

Thank you so much for your prayers, saints. Our great God is at work in Albania. - Kandis

Proclamation Blessings
It has been such an encouragement proclaiming the good news of Christ here in Albania. Saturday morning we went to a village and did ministry to all the kids there. It is such a blessing to see the joy on their faces as they watch the puppets, or the gospel message preached to them. They are very welcoming and love to play games and sing all the songs and dance all the dances. Even to see how happy they are to learn about Jesus and what He has done for us. I praise God for this opportunity. - Sam

Girl's Safe House