Wow what a good experience it has been to be back among old and dear friends here in
Kosova and Albania. However I must say this is the sweetest of all my trips to this region because now I can share these experiences with Cheryl! Before coming many married friends who have lived and worked in
Kosova all warned us that the spiritual climate would be very hard on us and this has proven true. However the Bible teaches us that our God is greater than these spiritual forces in the world and Cheryl and I have seen this to be true as well. The divisive spirit that plagues this region has attempted to
assault the unity we have in Christ but God has been faithful to simply use this as a means of drawing us closer. God has blessed me with an amazing wife and in the face of diverse circumstances God continually demonstrates this fact to me.
There are so many stories I could share from our days showing the Jesus Film in the villages surrounding the city of
Ferizaj but for the sake of time I will limit myself to just one with a little background first.
From the very first night we had teams that were confronted with
opposition from Muslim fanatics (that is the description of them by Albanians here and not our imposed judgements!). These persons were generally young men in a minority in the community but they would use load voices and angry speech to intimidate what tended to be the majority interested in watching the film. In two
separate villages that Cheryl and I worked old men in the village simply told these young men to leave people alone and let people decide for themselves if they wished to watch the movie.
While Cheryl and I were in villages where this opposition was always
limited to
essentially one person and maybe a few people who were there simply following along because they liked the
opportunity to be in on a controversy there were a few
occasions when sister teams left a village without showing the film because they didn't want to be remember there for creating a disturbance. In response to these persons our teams were always friendly and gracious and so people watching may have seen the Gospel more clearly in our kind actions than they would have in watching the film!
Of course we did send out many prayer requests to the various networks of people who had expressed interest in praying for our teams and the support of those prayers were clearly effective in opening doors in the villages in which we were showing the film. All of this has been background so you could understand my story from the last village we visited.
Most Albanians are more secular than anything and so in most villages if they have a Mosque you can count on your hand how many people actually attend it. This meant that the person who did oppose showing the movie was usually the leader of the Mosque. We always made sure to be respectful to these leaders and generally tried to show the film in a neutral place like the field beside the school, however in this last village this field was also next to the Mosque. Our approach to each village was to first visit the Mayor and show him the government documents giving us permission for showing the film and then he would
recommend a location if the school wasn't suitable. These leaders were always very friendly and excited to have us and this
opportunity in their village. This last village was the same and the Mayor took us to the school to show us where to set up. When we saw the Mosque we asked if there was a better location but he promised it would be
OK and that he would attend to make certain there wasn't a problem.
Next we would break up into two teams and walk door to door inviting people to see the film. Through the course of this particular day we meet two older men who were strong Muslims and they were very kind and happy to visit with us. One even wanted to come to the film showing and so we were encouraged by how friendly this community was to us. After sharing invitations my team walked back to the field and rested. While there I walked about and prayed for the evening. Normally when I would walk by a Mosque I would pray that God bind any spirit of opposition from the leader. However I had a strange thing happen in this village, God told me not to pray against the leader of this Mosque because God's hand was on him. This surprised me because normally I sense God supporting such a prayer. I even mentioned it to a fellow teammate.
Later that evening as the film began I was invited to a conversation off to the side with some men who had just finished their evening prayers. These Muslim men were different from the ones who had opposed us. They were strong in their belief but not full of hate as the others had been in the other villages. These men didn't oppose the film showing and were very interested in discussing questions of faith. As we sat speaking the Lord told me the young man we were speaking with is the one who sings the call to prayer and so he is the local leader of the Mosque. As we were sharing about Jesus I sensed God leading me to tell him that I knew he was the one who called the prayers and to tell him about how God had withheld me from challenging him in prayer. I shared with him these things and that God had withheld me because God's hand was on his heart. My sense was that God was leading me to share these things in order to show him a difference between what Islam teaches about God and what Christianity teaches. In Islam God is distant and unknowable in a personal way where as in Christianity God is close and while Holy and awesome he is also
personally knowable. In Islam it is unthinkable that God would speak back to a person and so to tell him these things it was surprising. If I were simply making a guess as to who lead the call to prayer it would make more sense to have guessed one of the older men who had been to Mecca and not this young man.
While this man did not come to faith in Jesus it was truly unique to see how open to discussion he was and how welcoming he was of ideas that are very different from what Islam teaches. We were excited that we could have a true discussion in which we each were able to share and talk rather than being confronted with an angry man who wanted to shout over you and prevent you from speaking as had been found in other
occasions. Later in the conversation the Lord spoke to me again about this man. God said that he had been considering becoming a Muslim Cleric and that if he did this it would twist and wound this man's tender heart. Then the Lord affirmed that rather than become a Muslim cleric this man would one day be a preacher of the Gospel. At the end of the conversation I shared these things with the man. I knew it was a risk at offending him but I deeply sensed that God wanted him to know these things. The man affirmed that his uncle had been pushing him to become a Muslim Cleric but it was not what he wanted to do, instead he wanted to be a lawyer. I was particularly impressed with how he
received my claim that one day he would preach the Gospel. This is a bold thing to say to a Muslim and had it not been from God it would generally be responded to in a very negative way. While this man didn't agree with this statement he didn't reject it or express anger, furthermore he agreed to pray with us in closing. Out of desire to be
sensitive to what had already been a challenging evening for this man I let him know we wouldn't pray in the name of Jesus but only in the name of God, this is a name we could agree on together. In my prayer I invited God to lead us each to the path that best reveals true relationship with Him. I suspect we left the conversation thinking God would answer this prayer by leading us to the other's faith.
Please pray that God honor this prayer in our lives! It was such a joy to be in a village so open to the Gospel even when they disagreed with our conclusions. It was a true example to how persons of faith can lovingly engage one another in dialogue while passionately sharing their faith and love of God. If only all interactions between Christians and Muslims were like the ones in this village.
PICTURES TO COME AFTER OUR RETURN TO TIRANA!!!!
Hanging out with good friends! Adrienne is a childhood friend of Cheryl's that lived in Dublin for 3 years. We caught her the week before she left to return to Canada!
A view of the Dublin City streets
This is a library at Trinity University in Dublin and the Book of Kells is quite a famous copy of the four Gospels from around 1000 years ago give or take some years. We had turned up to the library on a whim because it is one of those things your just supposed to do so while we were walking about town we figured we should try to see it. However when we got there we were too late to go in and see the book and so we were standing there debating on whether we would have time the next morning to come and see the book. That is when the attendant who overheard us whispered if you hurry through and don't stop anywhere else then we could go on in for free. Being smart travelers we decided not to ask questions but to get to walking ASAP. Originally we didn't really think this was something we would visit and would that have ever been a mistake! The artistry alone with how the pages were painstakingly drawn by the monks copying the Gospels was worth the price of admission alone, let alone all the other wonderful things we had to breeze by due to our late admission!
Being one of our more classic tourist moves we went by the home of the Irish National Drink, however being budget travelers we opted not to go on the rather pricey tour of what at the end of the day is just another brewery. My apologies to all the Guinness fans out there!
This is a taste of the healthy Irish Cuisine (ofcourse this was too early in the morning for the Irish national drink!)
This is the oldest building in the World! It is some type of religious site in Ireland called New Grange. There is no way to interpret the markings on the stones and so much of what it was about is conjecture however given its precise alignment with the Winter Solstice it is clearly connected to the cycles of the Sun.
Yours truly! :)
