Growth in Albania

Albanian landscape

We met up at Skopje airport in Macedonia, where we rented a 4-wheel drive Lada. This broke down a few kilometres out and the police commandeered four taxi-drivers to repair it. The next morning we drove to the border, only to be turned back by the customs, who would not allow a hire-car out of Macedonia.

We returned the car, called a taxi, and had five minutes to pack our essentials for the week ahead. At the customs office we met a Frenchman working for Child Aid Direct and he took us in his Landrover to Pogradec and helped us to find a taxi which would drive us to Vlorë on the Adriatic coast, where our sister Tina was expecting us.

Because of the bad state of the roads - ice, potholes - the necessity to drive very slowly in places meant the journey took a lot longer than the distance warranted. By the evening we arrived, tired but thankful for a safe drive through the many checkpoints en route, manned by armed police.

We were to baptise two of Tina's sisters, Ponja and Fatmira, and the son of a neighbour, Armando, whom Tina had been instructing. Later that week, we also baptised Shefit, the son of a contact who works for Tina.

The next day saw us going again by taxi to Permet, a town near the Greek border, where a teacher of Russian had completed the course and requested baptism. There, in the icy waters of a river which flowed down right outside his home, Andrea was baptised.

In Albania, as in so many emerging mission fields, there is a great need and we pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send more workers, who are urgently needed as we see the Day approaching.

Elizabeth Willis
from The Bible Missionary, no. 156, April 2000

Information about Adriatic states