A heart for the spread of the Gospel and the growth of the church worldwide has always been part of the ‘DNA’ of St Mary’s. At various times, members of the congregation have gone on short-term mission service and several have been committed to long-term service.

At present we support the following people/ministries

		Open Doors which provides Bibles, Christian literature, training and practical support to the Persecuted Church worldwide.

		Ian Matchett, along with his wife Debbie and baby daughter Zoe, is ministering with YWAM, based in Aberdeen. !

		Kiwoko Hospital in Uganda through CMS Ireland

		The Katalemwa Primary School building project in Uganda which is being funded by Strathearn School and managed by Abaana.

Visit to Albania October 2010

Background

The last time I was in Albania (1988) it was still a communist country with no churches at all - either state churches or underground churches.

Albania had been part of the Ottoman Empire for over 400 years and following a brief period of independence before the second world war became the most isolated communist country in Europe, even breaking ties with Russia and China. In 1964 the Communist leader Enver Hoxha closed all places of worship (mostly Mosques and a few Catholic and Orthodox Churches), imprisoned, killed or forced all religious leaders to abandon their faith and declared Albania to be the world’s first atheist country.

When Albania opened its borders in 1991 missionary organisations, who had been waiting for this moment, flooded into the country and hundreds of people became Christians.

Today

The evangelical church in Albania is now only 20 years old and I had the privilege of visiting 3 of them on my visit.

During my visit I met the pastors of 3 churches in the towns of Fier, Patos and Lushnje. The churches in Albania are quite small – around 30-40 people in each. The people are extremely friendly and I felt very much at home on Sunday in the services I attended.

These 3 churches have no worship team, no musician and no singers to lead the worship. They also have no one to teach or help them to develop worship teams and there is currently no one who knows how to play an instrument, except in one church where there is a violinist in the congregation who is too nervous to play alone.

I have been asked to come back to Albania to help set up and develop a worship team in each of these 3 churches, so I am going back to Albania for a week at Easter and 4 weeks in the summer to begin to do that. I would value your prayers! If anyone wants to know more about Albania and the churches there just come and chat with me anytime at church.

Joan