March '02

Dear brothers and sisters,

These are our latest news from Albania.

We have applied to join the Albanian Evangelical Alliance (VUSh), which has a membership of 160 churches and organisations. This will give us the chance to be recognised as the Apostolic Church (in Albanian the name is Kisha Apostolike) and to have relations to all the body of Christ in Albania, not only in the Pogradec area.

For the moment, we are on our last preparations to the "National Convention" in Italy. We have prepared a detailed and fully illustrated CD-more than 200 pictures, videos and folk songs-on our mission work in Albania.

These last weeks there are always fewer young people who attend our meetings especially in Çërrava, because now it is the time when they immigrate to Greece. Unfortunately this is the only way of financial support for many families. The Greek police, who send them back, again to Albania in a rather sorry state, often catch these illegal emigrants in surprise.

On the other hand, there are often new people who come to our meetings in Pogradec. This is a great encouragement for us. As we have already told you before, we are praying that in the end of this year our service rooms will be full of people, even though there are only thirty seats.

Our boys in the Bible School are in the end of the course. In their last two weeks of the school they, together with the rest of the group will be going on an outreach in two towns in the centre and in the north of Albania. We are looking forward to hear their reports when they return, hoping that the next year there will be more who desire to serve the Lord.

In the middle of March in the school of the village Stropcka there has been delivered a great quantity of school material (150 desks, 300 chairs and tens of writing boards). This was help from the missionary German organisation CHW that operates in some villages of Pogradec.

As you already know there is a church building project in this village, that besides its first principal spiritual purpose, it will be used for other social, medical, education and relief activities. There are already some donors, who cooperate with the Nehemia Foundation, interested to support us in this project. We will present the completed plan of the project, its costs and possibilities of realization in the next Missionary Committee. It is a big challenge for all of us, but we believe in a God who can do impossibile things possible. Everyone interested to contribute financially or who wants detailed information about this project can write to us.

Please pray for us for the following prayer requests:

For the church of Pogradec, that it will be full of new people before the end of the year
For numerous baptisms this summer
For other co-workers to go the Bible School
For the Albanian families to have the opportunity to find a job.

Thank you for your cooperation.
In the love of our Lord.
Sandro, Luciana, Carlo and Ester