2009 Outlook:

I know we are almost a month and a half into 2009, and we haven’t done anything on this blog since before Christmas! We apologize for that, life has not been as boring as our blog. We have just spent the last month with Justin’s sister visiting us here in Albania. It was a wonderful time with her and we were sad to see her leave. Enjoy some of the pictures below.
As we look into this year, we have a lot ahead of us, both in the short and long run. We are thankful for all that the Lord did both personally and on the ministry level in 2008. This year we are praying that the Lord will bring us more lasting fruit among the young people here in Albania. We believe that we have finally established a lasting leadership team (by the GRACE of GOD) here that the Lord has used and will use to impact lives for Jesus all across Tirana. Although we are small in number, we are trusting God to do great things.

The Months ahead:
Camps:
Over the next several months we will be preparing for Josiah Venture camps with three churches in Albania. Two of those three churches are new church plants in very difficult spots in Tirana. You can pray as we work with those church leaders and in those neighborhoods to establish lasting relationships and a good foundation of trust to be able to conduct an evangelistic camp. In the months ahead I will be giving you more information about these places.

Training Young Leaders:
Obviously camps are only a piece of the ministry puzzle. One of the things that we are intensely involved in are the discipling and training up of young leaders to fulfill Christ's commission. We have seen huge strides in this area, and are praising God for all that he is doing in the hearts of young men and women. We are seeing young Albanians lead small groups, bible studies, and even evangelistic services.
You can pray for us as we develop a curriculum during this spring and summer for a potential school of leaders that we would like to start. This would be a school for equipping and preparing Albanians to do youth ministry that is based in the local church setting.

Youth Center (Streha):
Currently we have the youth center open on Thursdays and Fridays for students to come and hang out. We have at least two or three different guys bible studies happening each week, most of which are run by students who have a passion to reach their own friends. Our open days are for what we call “bridging the gap” between getting students from the "outside" to the local church setting. Although it has started off slow, we believe God will bless these efforts.

Evangelism Service:
As I mentioned before, we have this desire to “bridge the gap” between just hanging out with someone and seeing them become a follower of Jesus Christ. One way we are doing this is through a once a month Evangelism Service that we have at Streha (the youth center). Last weekend was our first one. It went well, we had about ten new people there. We watched a video that we had translated into Albanian called, “Stop and Think”. We then broke up into small group and asked questions, followed by a large group panel discussion. All of this revolving around the Gospel of Jesus. Pray for these events as they happen once a month, we are pushing students to invite friends and have intentional follow-up conversations about the gospel. Pray for conversion growth.
Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for the young people of this very dark country. Pray for an awakening…