Albanian summer

It’s 9am and I’m already sweltering. I’m teaching an English lesson to a group of intelligent, eloquent sixteen to twenty-year-olds. Aware of Albania’s deeply corrupt school system (one boy said ‘I don’t work at all, but it’s OK, my Dad knows the teacher’), I tentatively ask a question: ‘You’re doing an English test. You’re sitting next to the cleverest boy in the class, and the teacher has her back turned. Do you cheat?’ Five of the kids answer ‘no’ immediately, in mock outrage. More slowly, the last girl, Brosie, looks up and volunteers impishly, ‘it depends – if I thought I might do badly, of course I would’.

A brave answer. One of the toughest things to cope with as an English staff member on the Albania Evangelical Mission’s youth summer camps is the students’ irrepressible desire to people please, to produce the right answers. So, knowing that we are here to share the gospel, they will reel off statements of their belief in God and memorise verses word-perfect in seconds. The lessons attempt to draw them out of this default point-scoring setting and prompt some open discussion, but it’s tough going.

Still, there are encouragements: Juxhin, a seventeen-year-old who held strong atheist convictions when he started camp several years ago, became a Christian last year and now regularly attends the missionary church in his home town Tepelene, bringing swathes of friends to the youth group. At the end of the week two of the Tepelene girls wanted Bibles – one tells us that she is very serious about following Jesus, but that she can’t take a Bible until she leaves for university. Her family, after hearing about a scattering of suicides within the Albanian Jehovah’s Witnesses, have forbidden her from having anything to do with Christ. Another setback faced by the hardworking team of evangelical Christians dotted around Albania.

We leave camp shattered, impressed by the warmth and charm of the Albanian people, encouraged by the zeal of the young Albanian Christians. But we are aware more than ever of the task set before the missionaries there, whom we will continue to hold in our prayers.

Fran Fletcher

Visit your missionaries?

Why would a middle-aged working couple choose to go to a small town, 10,000 feet up in the mountains of Peru for two weeks instead of lounging on a beach?

We spent our holiday as guests of a Peruvian minister and his wife, Isaias and Olga Calle, in Andahuaylas, an Andean town of 100,000 inhabitants. Links between our church (Ebenezer Baptist Church, Mold) and Andahuaylas go back over thirty years, since Cherry Noble, one of our members, first went there as a missionary. The Calles are partially funded in their work through Ebenezer, and we have developed a deep friendship with them over the past fifteen years. This visit was the latest in a series, in which members of Ebenezer have sought to encourage and support, materially and spiritually, our fellow believers in Peru.

We went without a clear list of tasks but with willingness to be used. We participated in church meetings and helped lead the Sunday school, visited homes and enjoyed a day out with the residents of an old people’s home. We also helped paint the new church building. Gifts sent by individuals of Ebenezer bought sufficient paint for both the internal and external walls, providing a boost for the Peruvians’ building project.

What are the benefits of such a visit? Wouldn’t it be better to send a cheque? Seeing a place opens the eyes in a way that many letters or photographs never could. It challenges us personally in the way we live and spend our time. It builds the bonds and gives us an opportunity to encourage others to give and pray. In many ways we were the channels through which love could be passed from one continent to the other. It was a humbling experience to share the lives of a family so fully committed to the Lord’s work.

Many mission fields are more accessible than one might think. After twenty-four hours and three flights we had arrived at our destination and were having breakfast. Where are your missionaries? Could you be a channel of blessing to them?

Jonathan and Helen Wells

Encountering Christ on camp

Christmas came early to Bala this year. Led by the ever ambitious Aled Williams, the officers of Camp 8 baffled both campers and locals alike in attempting to fit an entire year into one week of camp! We kicked off the week with a visit from Santa on Christmas Day, used our one day of Welsh sunshine to launch the spectacular Bala Olympics, and finally finished our week with a traditional Bonfire Night.

But despite our very different approach, certain joys of EMW camps remained the same on Camp 8 this summer. The same amazing gospel was still preached, and it’s still a privilege to see God’s power changing young lives! In the morning talks John Richards worked through six ‘Encounters with Jesus’ from the gospels, and in the evening Bible studies we grappled with the idea of ‘living the whole of life for Jesus’. In one evening discussion I was particularly struck by a camper who admitted that he had ‘never thought about it that way before’ as he saw that all of life could be worship. In reflecting back on the week, another couple of campers described how they had begun to get excited about ‘loving Jesus’ as the heart of their Christian life.

However, as one leader wisely remarked to me, the real fruit of the summer camps is yet to be seen. Whilst we rejoice in the seeds of God’s word being sown into young hearts and minds, I would ask you to rejoice and to pray. Our campers go back to a hostile world after the ‘camp bubble’, and so please keep praying that our great God would continue to bring great fruit as He both keeps and transforms every single camper over this coming year.

Jon Bilton

If you go down to the woods today

Does that remind you of a song you once heard as a child? Well, if you had been down to one of twenty-eight beaches throughout this summer, you too might have had a pleasant surprise. You would have encountered the work of United Beach Missions, also reminding folk of songs, stories, and gospel truths they too might have heard when they were young.

Founded in 1950, the work of UBM has grown steadily, and every year we hear heart-warming stories of folks contacted by Beach Teams. One such account came from one of Llandudno’s weeks of mission this year where a lady was challenged five years ago to read her Bible after visiting the Stories from Wales DVD. On hearing the account of Mary Jones who walked miles to obtain a Bible she mentioned that she possessed many copies of the Bible at home but had never read any of them. She started reading the Bible regularly, Christian neighbours helping her. The team met her again this year, during questionnaire work in the town, then at the Open Air on the promenade and finally at the new Land of Song audio-visual presentation, where they had the joy of leading her to trust Christ.

An arm of UBM is Christian Answer which operates in city centres. Visits to their website have soared – 800 in August. In addition, the smartphone applications have had over 4,000 downloads with about eighty-five requests, coming from all over the world, for literature or help.

Time and time again teams meet folk whose hearts have clearly been prepared for the gospel message. What a privilege.

Pat Norbury