Recently, a man named Mark Orfila left the missions field in Eastern Europe. He and his family had served God in the field since 1995. Mark had worked in a number of Balkan cities, including Mitrovica, before moving to Skopje to begin a mission there. His efforts resulted in Qendra Qiriazi, a center named after one of the most influential Christian Albanians of the Modern Age. Mark Orfila is the person who invited me to participate in God’s work in Macedonia. He and I sat down over coffee during the Christmas holiday season in 2010.
While I was undergoing the seven-month application process to become a missionary with the Assemblies of God Church, Mark and his family moved home to New Orleans. I was then reassigned to work under another missionary in Macedonia. When that missionary family left the field as well, I was reassigned to the Plagenhoefs in Albania, which is how I came to serve here in the first place. On Tuesday of last week I visited Qendra Qiriazi for the first time. I was encouraged and energized by what I saw. It is a beacon of light in the otherwise spiritually dark landscape of Skopje. Young people gather there to talk, learn English, and sing songs together. I am very happy to report that even though there is not a seasoned missionary to lead operations there, the center is thriving, and so are the five young missionaries who serve there.
Two of these amazing people I had already met. Rina graduated from the Bible College in Sauk three years ago. Since that time she has been in Macedonia. Dardajan graduated from his third year extension of schooling with last years class. One student from each class is invited to serve out a third year of school as a missionary abroad. The Bible School has a total of three graduates serving in the field as missionaries. A woman named Bruna has been our representative in Turkey for a little over a month now. Rina and Dardajan have joined with three Romanian missionaries in Skopje. The Romanian Church is doing great things for God.
A married couple named Betu and Bianca have been serving for two years in Skopje, while Nik has been serving for just under a year. The most vocal of the three is Nik. He has a heart to reach the Gypsy community of Macedonia. Macedonia has the greatest concentration of Roma Gypsies of any nation in Europe. Betu wants to serve and walk beside the men of Macedonia, while Bianca’s passion is for reaching the female population. These three are mature, driven, intelligent, hopeful, passionate, sincere, kind, and full of fire for God. Skopje has the team God wanted to have there. I will boast in saying that they invited me to join them in their work there. Skopje is a pioneer work much like Mitrovica.
This weekend we also met David and Jacob. They are two Christians who serve in the church in Constanta, Romania; a city on the Black Sea. There was a formal meeting held at Betu and Bianca’s house yesterday which marked the first personal interaction between the Albanian Assemblies of God mission and the mission from Romania. I was impressed with Jacob’s gift for languages and David’s aptitude for Physics. Mostly I was impressed by the Church in Romania as a whole. That Body is producing some very good fruit.
albaniacalling 