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Communism’s dramatic collapse in the atheistic stronghold of Albania opened the floodgates to ministries there in the early 1990s. Since then, many Albanians have crossed into neighboring countries. Most are economic refugees looking for jobs, often Albanian men seeking to provide for families back home. If they meet with success they may resettle permanently and bring in wives and families.

In 1999, the war in Kosovo again brought the plight of suffering Albanians to world attention. The Balkans’ ethnic diversity has long ranked this area among the world’s flashpoints. Those building God’s kingdom there require a tough kind of love.

Albania has total religious freedom, reports Operation Mobilization Albania country leader Andre van der Bergh. “Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ba’hais and Mormons have gained big followings. City residents are tiring of people coming to their door, and often they accept the doctrine of whomever has the best offer,” van der Bergh said. “Superstition and magic are also mixed into Islam and Orthodoxy. We see a lot of spiritual bondage.”

Discipleship and leadership training is a great need within churches. That’s why OM designed three-month courses, half classroom studies and half “hands on” experience, for believers at a center in Lushnja. Graduates sometimes go on to Bible school or mission work; others return to their home churches with fresh commitments.

Missionaries are creatively reaching into Albanian lives with practical and spiritual help. Erna Neufeld, a Paraguayan seamstress, offers sewing classes for village women. Ruth Myerscough of England applies her dance and drama training to introduce churches to new worship forms. Canadian Kevin Stoesz takes teens mountain climbing and camping. Ballet and climbing help these Christians build relationships, which are key precursors to any evangelism, especially when breaking into another culture. Often these activities are bridges into counseling, testimony and Scripture. All aim to introduce Jesus Christ.

Kosovo: Rebirth of the Church The horror of the 1999 Kosovo genocide has faded from most minds. But some missionaries in Albania who cared for the hundreds of thousands of fleeing refugees chose to follow the Kosovar Albanians home. Americans Randy and Linda Pyle with International Teams were among them. Linda ran a guest house in Peje hosting international volunteer teams, and Randy rebuilt widows’ homes. Along with seeing Kosovo rebuilt, the Pyles have witnessed the rebirth of the Kosovar Albanian church.

Since the war, the number of believers has grown from 80 to at least 800. Fellowships are mainly teenagers and men; women have less freedom than in Albania, so few can attend church. Almost all these new fellowships are mission-supported. More discipleship and leadership training are needed before the Kosovar church can come into its own.

Fear remains a barrier to the gospel in Kosovo. Islam, though not extreme, is entrenched in the culture. Along with waning political tension has come a rise in religious tension. “Believers are persecuted and it doesn’t stop,” said church-planter [name withheld] of South Africa. “Some have fallen away. The glory days when everyone was interested in them are over. Now Christians are looking at reality.” She knows girls who, after accepting Christ, have been forced to hide their testimonies—as well as their Bibles—from their families.

On the other end of the spectrum is a pastor in Pristina, the capital city, who boldly wrote an article titled “Why I converted from Islam.” It ran on the center-page spread of a Pristina newspaper. “I was blown away by his courage,” she said. “But since it was a local man and not a foreigner trying to get others to change their religion, it was okay.” That pastor has opened a Christian bookstore in Pristina and assembled a team of believers from different churches to translate, edit and print good Christian literature from other countries.

A united Easter church service was held in a Pristina theater last year. As many as 500 attended, likely making it Kosovo’s largest-ever Christian gathering. Evangelism continues at many levels. The Jesus film has been televised nationally a few dozen times, probably providing the biggest exposure to Christ. OM plans to offer a Bible correspondence course, translated from a successful one being used in Turkey.

Several missions in Kosovo are eager to build a resource center that all churches may use for training, retreats, sports and camping. Randy Pyle is keen to see more ministries started among youth; 50 percent of the population is under age 25 and little is being done to reach them.

But Pyle is encouraged that missionaries realize the benefit of a united effort: “As our disciples see many of us from different mission agencies working together, they will get the idea that this a good plan to follow for developing the church in Kosovo when we missionaries leave,” he said. He believes the church, which has a history of division between pastors, should demonstrate unity wherever possible by sharing resources, talent and experience while respecting other Christians’ strategies to reach Kosovars for Christ.

Macedonia: Fear Inhibits Conversion Welsh missionaries David and Pauline Wilcox lived in Skopje when they went to Macedonia in 1997. After seeing the lack of workers in the rest of the country they moved south to Struga, near the Albanian border. About a third of Macedonia’s 2.5 million people are Albanians. Most are culturally Muslim, and it’s rare to see them change their faith. Wilcox says the 30 or so Christians among the 100,000 residents in his area are not interested in outreach. “Macedonian Christians say, ‘We don’t like Albanians.’ And they don’t seem to work together,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox plans to open a Christian bookstore in June. Until a few years ago, no Christian literature was available in the Macedonian language. The bookstore will stock works in English, Albanian, Turkish and Macedonian.

Jovan Jonovski, an elder of God’s Voice Baptist Church in Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, said that schools are offering optional religion classes in Islam or Orthodoxy. Two-thirds of Macedonians are Orthodox, and thirty percent are Muslim.

Interestingly enough, the recently deceased former President Boris Trajkovski was a Methodist. Several small Baptist and independent churches also exist, though mostly in Skopje. However, “The government says, ‘If you’re Protestant, okay, but don’t make others Protestant.’ We have very restrictive laws about religious groups,” Jonovski said.

Although people were spiritually receptive in the 1990s, that openness is gone. Now when people receive literature, the first thing they do is look where it’s published. If it’s from a Protestant source, it’s a sect according to the Orthodox Church. “People put [Protestant] in the same basket as Satanists,” Jonovski said. “Yet some are coming to the Protestant church because they’re disappointed in Orthodoxy.”

But as in other Balkan areas, fear inhibits conversion. Identity is very important in Macedonia. “It’s considered a betrayal of your national identity to change churches,” Jonovski said. Indigenous churches face multiple challenges; for example, most songs are translated from English. “The biggest obstacle to church growth is that church leaders are influenced by finance or education from the West, so they’re ‘locked’ into the West.

“Pray that God will raise up people with a vision for an indigenous Macedonian church, not just a Western copy,” Jonovski said.

Greece: Cultures in Conflict Since the iron curtain fell in Albania, between 500,000 and 800,000 Albanians have crossed the border into Greece seeking jobs. No one knows how many because Albanians often enter illegally by paying the mafia all they own to get across. When OM started a ministry to Albanians in Greece in 2000, a half-dozen other missionaries were working with this minority. Now Kees and Rahel den Toom from the Netherlands and Switzerland are the only ones remaining.

“In the beginning the Greeks showed the immigrants hospitality,” Kees den Toom said. “But then Albania’s prisons opened and the criminal element [entering Greece] ruined the relationship. Now, Greeks tend to blame all their problems on Albanians.”

These immigrants live in the poorest housing and take jobs no one else wants for less pay. Thousands of Albanians are in Greek prisons, den Toom said. In Larissa alone, where the den Tooms’ ministry is based, there are more than 200. Often the prisoners have no relatives nearby to visit them, and their days are empty. Many suffer injustice in the judicial system. “When believers say that they are not Orthodox, they have no possibility of doing some kind of work in the prison with which they can ‘earn’ 24 days off their sentence each month,” den Toom said.

Only Orthodox priests can visit prisoners. Since den Toom is not Orthodox, he encourages them by phone. Rahel den Toom visits Albanian wives who feel isolated and often have a poor grasp of the Greek language.

The den Tooms have imported Albanian literature and begun several Bible studies in Larissa and a nearby village. Between 25 and 30 attend monthly services for Albanians at the local Greek Evangelical Church.

Believers from Crete, Athens and all over Greece have asked the den Tooms to send someone to work with Albanians. Among the needs are helping immigrants with practical problems such as marriage and money management. Another need is for leadership training to Christian Albanians, and training for pastors wanting to reach out to Albanians.

“There’s a lot of bitterness between Albanians and Greeks, but we believe they can be a challenge and encouragement to each other,” den Toom said. “Our goal is to see more Albanians in Greek churches, and see them reaching out to each other.” —Debbie Meroff

Debbie Meroff is a photojournalist based in London who writes for Operation Mobilization and other Christian periodicals.