Trip to Albania

A team from Open Heaven will be heading out to Albania at the end of August where we will be linking up with and serving two churches.  The first week we will be spending in Paskuqan, a village near the capital, Tirana. Open Heaven have had links with this church for a couple of years with Steve and Lizzie Meadwell working there in 2004 and Bex visiting there last year.  In Paskuqan the team will be giving testimonies and sharing at the church service before taking the young people away on a retreat to the nearby Lure mountains.  Whilst here we will be leading through prayer, worship, teaching and devotions, as well as organizing some fun activities.

The second week we will be based in Kruje, an historic city in the north of the country.  Here we will be leading through three outreach events; one for girls, one for boys and one for young children.  Also during our time here we will spend time prayer walking the area.  This is a tourist area, however it is also known that witch craft has been, and possibly is still, practiced in the area and there is a large amount of false worship.  This has made it a spiritually dark area, in need of God�s Spirit to come in power to break through into the lives of the local population.

As a team our main aim is to be serving and blessing the two churches we are visiting.  God has already done so much in Albania but more is needed.  The young people in particularly need support as they see that there is little or no hope of a future in the country and so often leave.  This makes discipleship and training of future church leaders. 

Whilst we are away we greatly need your prayers.  James Fraser was a missionary to China and he said:

�I am feeling more and more that it is, after all, just the prayers of God�s people that call down blessing upon the work, whether they are directly engaged in it or not.  Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase; and this increase can be brought down from heaven by believing prayer, whether offered in China or in England.  .  .  .  If this is so, then Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field.  .  .  .  What I covet more than anything else is earnest, believing prayer.�

Would you be able to pray for us?  We want people to sign up so we have at least one person from here praying for us each day we are away.  If you would like to do this, please contact us and we will send you a copy of our itinerary so you can pray specifically into what we are doing that day.

General prayer points:

-  For safety for the team, especially as we travel within Albania on the rough mountain roads.
-  That we might be a real blessing to the people we are going to serve.
-  That God would use us to speak into the young peoples lives and encourage them in their work.
-  That God would impact Albania, in particular young men and women to be and raise up a church that will be real beacons of hope in the land.

Thank you for all your support so far.

The Albania Team
(LJ, Bex, Josh, Lucy, Claire, Alan, Andrea)