Post-Camp Update

CAMP 1

Well it’s all over. It has been a wild three and a half weeks back in Albania and it feels like we never left. We have just finished up our JV summer ministries. We did two camps this year, and the Lord did many great things through both of them.

Our first camp that we did was done along side a church plant that we have been involved in. It is in a suburb of Tirana called Babrru. There are about 70,000 people there, and there has never been a church there before. It’s a dark corner of the city.

This camp was a second annual camp with this group of students. Last summer we did a non-residential day camp then spent the year following up with these students through soccer and an English club (run by our national JV teammate, Majlinda).

This year a team from Grace Church of DuPage came again to help run another JV English camp with students from Babrru. This is the second year that Grace Church of DuPage has come to work with the Babrru church plant and 7^th year that they have sent a team to Albania to do evangelistic camps.

Instead of doing a non-residential camp, we decided to try and do a residential camp about three hours away from home in a city called Pogradec in the southeastern part of Albania on the Macedonian border.

After spending the first few days before camp meeting with students and going to their homes and asking for permission from their parents, we headed off to Pogradec for our second annual camp with these students.

The theme for camps this summer was Redeem and we told stories of redemption from the Old & New Testaments followed by small groups. You have to keep in mind that most of these students know very little about the bible and Jesus Christ. After telling the story of Nicodemus and the woman at the well comments from students were things like “where can I get this living water for myself?” and “I really want to believe in this Jesus - I just need more time to process it all.” For many Albanians to become believers in Jesus means that they may shame the family name and lose their identity. These are the things that students think about when asked to repent and believe.

As a result of this camp, we will be starting a youth ministry that, Lord willing, will become a local church one day. Although no students repented at camp, we are confident that through follow-up and more interaction and conversation with these students we will see them come to know Christ as the LORD of their life.

Pray with us as we start this new youth ministry that God will save these students and that this dark corner of Tirana would be brought into the transforming light through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks, Grace Church of DuPage, for your commitment to the work here!

CAMP 2

This year instead of doing a camp with just Grace Church of Tirana (the youth group that we work with) we decided that this year would be a good year for us to do a camp with two other churches in order to train these other church leaders how to do a JV evangelistic English camp. So this year it was three churches doing one English camp.

We had a team of 18 come from Emmanuel Faith Community Church out of Escondido, CA. This was their first time that they had ever done a JV English camp. They did an awesome job! They arrived about a week before camp, so there was plenty of prep time for camp. They also did a lot of street evangelism, community service (picking up trash – that is much needed here!) and feeding the poor.

The week of camp went great!

I had to leave early from camp to take care of a water heater that fell off our wall at home crushing our toilet and coming close to landing on Violet (Please read Gretchen’s blog entry on that CLICK HERE).

However I was able to be down there for a few days. The camp was in southern Albania on the coast of the Adriatic see. I had never been this far south in Albania before (at least not on the coast side). The views we had were breathtaking. We spent the week down on the Albanian Rivera looking out into the sea at the Greek Islands. We camped right next to the sea (some slept in an old UNICEF refugee tent from the war back in 1999). Not a bad way to wake up in the morning and be surrounded by such beautiful creation.

Some of the pastors from the other churches that were involved said that this camp was the best thing that they have been to. The team did such a good job with English classes and small groups. Jeff Blied (their team leader) did a great job with bringing the camp through the stories of redemption.

By the end of the week 10 people professed faith in Jesus Christ! We are trusting the Lord for lasting fruit in their lives and for more fruit from both of the camps.

Thank you for praying for us this summer! May God continue to build his Kingdom here in Albania through the young people!