Wow - a full weekend

I don't even know where to start with how to update you on everything that happened this past weekend. It has been a blur of activity. But each day was such a blessing!

On Good Friday, we had a very special service at The Refuge for our youth. After Justin shared a bit about the purpose and meaning of communion, the students were invited to spend some quiet reflection time alone with God, writing down their confessions on a piece of paper. Then they nailed their "sins" to a cross. After that they took communion by "intinction" (a harkening back to my Wheaton College days). This very experiential and visual way of confession is powerful, and I think the students really appreciated the solemnity of it.

On Saturday, our 180 Gathering (our monthly evangelistic meeting) met for a special Easter service. Justin, Fation, and Andi worked hard putting together a video incorporating interviews they conducted around Tirana. They asked the questions Who is Jesus? Did Jesus die on a cross? Did Jesus rise from the dead? and Where will you go when you die? Then the questions were answered in the video by clips from The Passion of the Christ and Scripture verses. It was very moving and very eye-opening to all the visitors that were present. Fation then presented the gospel.

On Sunday, of course we celebrated our risen Savior with the rest of the Church here. After the service, two ladies were baptized.

Monday was an especially neat day for me (Gretchen). I organized a one-day retreat for the youth girls on the topic of "Godly Beauty". It was really wonderful to be with the girls for a solid 7 hours and talk about lots of things. Jayne (volunteer youth leader) spoke about "Women were created to be feminine, beautiful, and for God's glory". I spoke on the topic of worldly beauty vs. Godly beauty. We spent a lot of time talking about modesty, too. This retreat was an extension of the Purity Ministry, and I hope that this kind of retreat can happen in more churches more often!

Thanks for checking our blog - we really appreciate you and thank you for all your prayers and support!!!

The Refuge Christian Library

Over the past year we've slowly been buying new books and donating our own books to the Christian Library we have at our youth center, The Refuge. We are very impressed with how many students read sooo many English books! So we are really trying to keep a good stock of Christian books for them. Everything from theology to Christian living to Christian novels to study Bibles. We keep a sign out sheet in the library, and every time we check it, there are always more books out!

This is a really cool (and free) service to provide for our students and their friends. Some books are in high demand and get passed from student to student without ever making it back to the library shelf! In a society where there are not even enough school books for each high school student, it is really neat that students can come to our library and check out books for free.

There are so many more books we would like to add to our growing library. That is why we have created an Amazon Wish List. We are continually updating this list. If you could help us by buying one or two or ten books for our Refuge Library, that would be a huge help!! All you have to do is click on the link above or click on the Amazon button in the right sidebar. It will take you to our list, and when you purchase the book it will automatically be shipped to our address in West Chicago, IL.

Thank you!!

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…

Update from the past few weeks

This fall has been one of the busiest since we have been out here. There have been many things that we have been grateful to be apart of and we thankful for how the Lord is working here for the sake of his kingdom in Albania.

We want to just bring you all up to date on some of the things that have been happening around here. Following our Sports Ministry Seminars in early November with Rodger Oswald, Justin and Fation returned to the States for a short visit to be apart of the Josiah Venture Vision Night that was held in Oak Brook, IL. This was Fation's first visit to the United States and it sure was a full one. We only had seven days on the ground in Chicago, so it was pretty packed full of lunches and meetings with friends and supporters near the Wheaton area. On Thursday November 13th we attended the Vision Night. This was a great event full of many familuar faces (400 plus came). The presentation was very well done and very professional, and I am sure it was very helpful for many people to see the big picture of what God is doing through Josiah Venture in Eastern Europe! We are thankful for all of you who came to this event!

The rest of our time in the states consised of many out to eat meals (with the exception of some great cooking from the Parker house hold) and a little bit of sightseeing as well as the celebration of Justin and his mom's birthday on the 16th. Although it was a fas trip home and we wish the whole family could have come, it was a wonderful time, and it was great for Fation to see a new prespective and experience some wonderful fellowship with believers on the other side of the world.

Upon arriving back in Tirana we all have been busy with many things going on with the youth group and with planning out the next year. We have the youth center (Streha) open every Wednsday and Thursday afternoons for students to come and hang out. We have begun to get some new students from the neighborhood coming in as well. Please pray that we can build good relationships with these students and that the door would be open for the gospel to be shared.

Finally, you can be praying for this up coming week. Our team and the LC is hosting a conference with keynote speakers Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus. This has been a very stressful event for our team to prepare for as it is a national conference for not only believers, but key country leaders, and business men of Albania. There will be much happening this week, I will update you more on this event. Pray that God would be most glorified, and that we would have the chance to share the gospel with some key people who run this country. We are trusting that God has much instore.

Sports Ministry

This week we are hosting Rodger Oswald of Church Sports International as he is conducting seminars each night at our youth center revolving around how to start a sports ministry that is local church based and also evangelistic in nature. Last night was the first seminar there were about 15-20 leaders from Albanian churches there. Pray with us that God would use this time we have with Rodger as a strategic planning time on how we can reach many through the ministry of sports. I am praying that through this time that the Albanians will capture this vision and run with it and that we would see in the next year a start to a thriving sports ministry in Albania. We are thankful to Rodger for his commitment to come out here to help us launch this ministry.

Back to the grind of things...

Well we are back in Tirana. We arrived on September 1st with Justin's parents. They stayed for about ten days and helped us transition back into life in Albania. We are SO thankful for their help over the summer, and it was a huge blessing to have them travel with us and help us settle in back here in Tirana. While they were here we showed them some of the sights, got our house organized and moved back in, sold our old car, got our documents for our new car, among many other things. We are thankful that they got to see where we live and have a frame of reference of what goes on around here everyday. The time with them was too fast, and saying goodbye was hard, but we are thankful that they came.

Now we are back to the grind of things. With many meetings, and much to catch up on we have been happily busy with life and ministry. Our first Sunday back in the youth group was wonderful. We had many new faces from the Josiah Venture English camp that we did this summer, most of the students that came are still non-believers. We are still praying that the seeds that were planted at that camp would grow and God would save at least ten students. Right now we know that two girls got saved, and there are many young men who are coming regularly to church who are very interested in the gospel. Please pray with us and for us as we long for them to know Jesus Christ as their LORD!

We are looking forward to a very busy fall! Here are some things that you can be praying about!

• Pray for Gretchen as she transitions into life in Albania being the mother of two small kids. She has the hardest task, pray that I (Justin) would love and serve her!

• Pray for our youth group as we are growing in numbers every week it seems. It is hard to stay in contact with all the students all the time. We just had a student ministry team meeting last weekend, and we have divided up our leaders and are starting small group Bible Studies led by students for the first time in our group. Pray that God would move in the hearts of all these young people. This is an exciting time!

• Justin is taking five students from our youth group to the Josiah Venture fall leadership conference from September 20-29 (Fation, Andi, Bruna, Xhili, Majlinda). These students make up most of our student ministry team. They are such a blessing to us and the ministry. This will be the highlight of their year. Pray that we would all come back changed and ready to apply what we learned.
  

• Justin is taking two classes at the seminary here, you can pray that he will work diligently in the midst of many other responsibilities

• We have important board meetings October 5-10 to discuss a building project for our church and potential camp site among other things. Please pray that God would lead us and that we would have clear direction on what we should do.

• November 1-10 we have Rodger Oswald of Church Sports International coming to Tirana to help us launch a sports ministry for our church and to also lead some seminars for other church leaders throughout Albania. Please pray for Justin as he is heading much of this up.

• November 11-18 Justin & Fation will be in Chicago for a Josiah Venture event. Pray that this time would be profitable, and that we would have some great meetings with groups and individuals about what God is doing among young people in Albania.

• Finally in December Wayne Grudem & and and an investment group is coming to Albania to do a Christian Business conference. We are working through the details of that, you can pray for our team leader as he is overseeing much of this. This will be a wonderful opprotunity for the Albanian people to hear from a theologian like Wayne Grudem and from a some top investors about how to run a business without corruption.

Well I think I will stop there for now. Thanks for your prayers. We long for Jesus Christ to be made famous in this land!

For lots of pictures go to the links below. They are pictures that I posted on my FACEBOOK photo albums.

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(Right) The first Sunday we were back we had a fellowship lunch at the youth center.

We brought my parents up the Djati Express which goes up the Djati Mt. right next to Tirana (above).


(Above) Dad and Justin as we went out driving one day looking at different pieces of property.


(Above) "The Block" or Party central in Tirana. This is the road that the church is located.

Below are some other random pictures from my parents time here...

The coolest thing I've EVER seen in Albania!

We've been back in Albania for almost two weeks now. It's a lot different this time around with two little kids. I feel like my days are very busy at home, and yet I feel not "busy". I really desire to spend more time with the girls in the youth group throughout the week, but I don't yet know how to balance life with two kids and doing youth ministry. For now, it's good just to get caught up with the girls and their lives from the past 6 months that we were in the States. I have been really encouraged by the spiritual growth I see in many of them. I am really, really proud of them for taking on extra responsibilities in the youth group and seeking out opportunities to minister to their peers.

Last week I witnessed the most amazing thing ever since being here in Albania. I "visited" a new believers' Bible study that was taking place at The Refuge (the youth center we opened up last winter). It was being led by Jona (in the yellow shirt in the picture above), a relatively new believer (3 years) herself. She was leading a great discussion in Albanian about the importance of fellowship among believers. The 6 other girls around her had their Bibles opened to Acts 2. For those of you who are thinking that this all seems pretty normal, and what am I so excited about... Let me tell you that this is certain proof that the Holy Spirit is working among the youth here in Tirana! This new Bible study is the very visible fruit of my labor in discipling Jona over the past 2 years - One of my disciples is discipling other younger beilevers!!! That is exactly the model of ministry that Jesus gives us in the New Testament and I am so excited to see it so clearly lived out in the lives of our students! We have poured our time, energy, and resources into those on our Student Ministry Team, and it is really paying off. This is all testimony to God's unfailing patience and grace with us as we learn how to do ministry here. For sure, we've made a lot of mistakes and there are an infinite number of ways that we can improve, but it is just so encouraging to see some fruit so clearly.

Please pray for Jona as she leads this small group of girls. Her co-leaders are Fjori and Xhili. The three new believers since camp this summer are Inesa, Eriola and Romina. Zerina has been a believer for about a year. Please please pray for the spiritual growth of these girls and the leading of the bible study!!

Opening Day of Streha

Today after church, the entire church walked over to "Streha" (The Refuge in English) for a time of food fellowship and then prayer, giving God the glory for his provision of this center for youth.

It was a wonderful time, we had anywhere from 150 to 200 people there, the doors were overflowing on either end. The Lord provided so much, even in the last week as we were doing final preparation. Here is one example. In Albania we are still in the midst of an electric crisis, and so the government shuts off the entire city, portions at a time. However instead of letting you know when your electricity will be off, they just shut it off at random times during the day which makes it really hard to plan for a party or big gathering with people and have lights, like today.

However this past week, I was trying to figure out how to solve this problem, the best way is to get a generator, but the people I was working with on this had showed me some generators that were way too expensive and on top of that they would not run the entire room, they only could run half of the room. So we prayed that God would provide something, or at least keep the lights on for the party for us.

At the end of this past week, a student from our youth group, found a place that sold good brand name generators for a very good price. So on Friday I went with him to buy a generator that was powerful enough to run everything in our youth room with no problems. This was just the beginning.

Yesterday, I got a guy from church that works at the LC who is in charge of the up keep of those generators. He came over and helped me wire our generator. We spent the entire day, shoving wires through tubes in the wall and blowing up switch boxes and finally we got it to work last night. Praise the Lord that we did, because today during the grand opening we would have had no lights the entire time without the generator. This is just one of many examples of the Lord's provision for so many things to make this thing happen.

We are excited about the opening of Streha, and believe that today was a bench mark in the youth ministry out here, we pray that God would glorify himself in this building, and that many young people would come to know Jesus through the ministry and training that will happen here. Thank you for your prayers and support for this on going project! Praise God!

Here are some pictures from today.



The words below say why we exist. We take it from Psalm 73:28 that says, Psalm 73:28 "But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works."