Greetings from Albania,

I hope you had a great summer, getting some rest with your loving ones and renewing your energies. At least this is what happens in Albania during August. Everyone leaves for vacations with their families.

I was thinking and writing down some notes on my summer so I thought I would share them with you.

We had two summer JV English Camps this year and I keep telling everyone who asks that I clearly saw God’s Spirit move in both camps. The theme for this year was “Collision”. Everyone of us has had a collision with Christ and so did some of the characters in the bible.This is what we talked about the six days of camp. At the first camp, were kids from the church planting area. None of them are believers and although they come from Muslim families, most of them were THIRSTY to know more .They kept asking questions and opening conversations no matter what time was or what activity we were doing.

One girl, Rezi said: “I stayed up all night long thinking of the collision in my life.” Or another one, Linda: “It feels like the perfect place and the perfect atmosphere to accept Christ but I don’t truly feel it right now. When that moment comes I want it to be genuine and true and then my family’s opposition and my friend’s judgment will not be a problem because Christ will be enough. But right now I need to think more where I am in my life and to know more about Jesus.” Eda, a girl coming from a Catholic background, who has been helping in a catholic church since she was little said: “Now, I get it because all the knowledge I had in my mind finally reached my heart.” And she professed Christ during that camp. My joy was double because she is one of the first girls of the English Club that chose Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

I also can’t forget the sudden tears of a beautiful girl, Dorina, saying that she wasn’t really understanding what was going on but she couldn’t stop crying when she felt the need to repent and believe. It was a great joy to walk her through the prayer of salvation.

There was also a clear opposition by some of the guys, especially during the first camp. They would pray their Muslim prayers on their knees before going to bed or during evening sessions. It was hard for some of the leaders because they also misbehaved and distracted other students that wanted to pay attention.

To close this update, because of God’s grace there were 11 students who turned away from their sins and accepted Jesus,( some of them are shown in the picture above) among them students that strongly defended their own beliefs and ideas on God. Isn’t it clearly God’s work ?! I had a verse that became my theme verse for this summer: Isaiah 55:11 … “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” It was an encouragement every time I spoke out His Word knowing that only God is the one who can change hearts.

I hope this letter will be an encouragement to you to see what God is doing in Tirana, Albania.

With much love and appreciation for your prayers, love and support!

Majlinda

Life is but .... a breath!!

Last Saturday i decided to show a movie for the English Club girls to watch. I thought it would be a normal Saturday like every other one, but it wasn't. In the middle of the movie one of the girls, Esmeralda fainted. She fell and hit the table with her head. After the assistance of a doctor, she woke up and was feeling better afterwards. But all this made me think how one does not know what will happen the next minute, next day or the next years to come. It reminded me of how fragile life is and it might take a second for everything to change. A phone call today made me think even more.

This is another story, for another English Club girl, Geralda. Her mom was suffering from breast cancer and had a surgery a month ago. Everything seemed to be fine after that and Geralda was so happy that her mom was feeling better. But it didn’t last for long. Her mom couldn’t survive the cancer and died. She and her family are not believers and she is now wondering where was God when her and her mom needed Him? Why didn’t he think of her and her two sisters? She knows what happens after death for we have been taking a lot about this issue. It must be hard for her to accept where her mom is now and there is a battle going on in her heart so please lift up your prayers with me. Pray that God will use this hard and painful moment to change her heart, to realize that she needs God, the joy of His salvation and the comfort of His love.

I will visit her myself one of these days so please pray for words of wisdom. In these situations i feel like my mouth is tied up and i never say what i want to.

For His Glory,

Majlinda

Remember her face and keep her in your prayers

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Jewelry Fair & DIY workshops!

I am in love with DIY projects. I think two of my best gifts are creativity and patience. I could spend hours on those projects and never get bored. That is why I thought I could use this gift to reach some younger girls for Christ. So me and one of my best friends Fjori ( see her picture below :), decided to write a plan and call it Jewelry Fair and DIY workshops. This is what it is about:

Goals:

To reach high school girls for Christ. / To invite them to our youth group./ To plug them into our local church./ Involve some of the girls that are already part of our youth group.

Discription:

We ( some of the girls of our youth group) will get together and work on some jewelry. We will then go and sell them to one or two high schools, which would be our fishing ponds. We will try to choose the high schools where some of our Youth Group girls are attending so we could have a contact person that will make sure to invite them in our youth group and youth events. We will also have 3-4 workshops for all the girls who want do those things on their own. In this way we will be able to build relationships and share with them “Who we are” and “what we do”.

Workshops :

The girls who really want to learn how to do those jewelry by themselves will be invited./ There will be 3-4 workshops in total , 3-4 hours each with breaks in between./ We will have them pay a symbolic price for that just so they can cover part of the expenses but as well to give importance to our event. / There will be a 15 minute session where one of our leader girls will talk about the truths of the bible ( topics are still to be selected but it has to be something related to the event)/They will take place on Saturdays so we can have them stay at our Youth Group as well.

Challenge:

We bought all the supplies and actually tried to meet several times but it has been a challenge till now.
We are not finding the appropriate time since the school hours are different for most of the girls and also because of the private courses they take up.

Prayer requests:

Please, pray for commitment from the youth group girls./ For a certain time that we could meet and that would be good for all of us./ Pray that this project would attract new girls to our youth group and that we would introduce them to the Gospel and Christ!

Thank you! :)

Fjori and I

Surprise!!!

I love surprises! It doesn't matter how big they are. I always enjoy them! And this morning i had the greatest surprise ever. We were at church today and in the middle of worship my dad showed up! My dad!!! When i left home, i left him there! Never in the world i would have thought that he had planned to visit our church! My brother and I were ... (i just can't find a word to describe it).. amazed, surprised and shocked! This was the first time that i saw my brother in tears while we were singing the songs (for he doesn't like to show his emotions). We set together, my dad, my brother and I for the whole service. Now, my dad is a Muslim. He had listened to some of the sermons but outside the church while he was working and never entered the chapel. I know this is a big and huge step for him and he had to fight a lot of other principles to do this.

You know?? This was one of the situations where you wanna know somebody's else thoughts. I so wanted to know what was he thinking when our pastor was preaching from 1 Peter, what where his feelings and what was going on in his heart. I am so glad that God knows all of these things and I pray that He will use all of these for my dad's salvation.

I just realized, that we worship a God of surprises. That whenever we feel down or sometimes loose our hope on something, this is the moment that God decides to surprise us! Maybe, this situation for someone its not a big deal ,to me is an answer to prayer and can't wait to see what other surprises God has stored for me! (maybe my mom would want to visit next Sunday ;)

Please, join me in worship and prayer! :)

FACES I LOVE! :)

Some of the girls from the English Club (in Babrru). These are the faces i see every Saturday and the faces that are very dear to my heart.

These were the girls that came last Saturday! Missing those who were not able to come!

friends :)

Denisa

Melisa

Milidia

Esmeralda

Irini

Ina

Armela

Geralda

Linda

Lodi

Ueda

Jorinda

Kimete and Jorinda

Esterina

oops ... Jorinda again! :)

kimete

Nihal

Lies young women believe!

This is a second “English Club” with a girl, Ina who accepted Christ during the Camp. We go through this book together. It has very important issues that concern all the teenagers and what I like about it is that focuses on The Truth to change the worldly perspective of dealing with this issues. Now we are going to open it for everyone who wants to join. Please, join with me in prayers, as we want this time to be fruitful and help us grow.