Northwest of Greece and across the Adriatic from the heel of Italy is a little country called Albania. Chances are you know nothing about Albania, but this friendly little country is definitely worth knowing.
Let me help you out a little bit, rewinding to the days of the New Testament when Paul visited visited the area (Romans 15:19), then called Illyricum. One thousand years later it officially became a Christian region under the leadership of Albanias national hero, Skanderbeg, but it wasn’t long until the Ottoman Empire conquered it, converting the population to Islam, which remained it’s national religion until the nation became communist in the first half of the twentieth century, successfully erasing and condemning all religion, but some of the older generation secretly held on to their Muslim beliefs, and when Communism in Albania fell in 1991 they passed on their traditions to their children and grandchildren.
Today Albania is considered 70% Muslim. Having visited both Turkey and Egypt before, I expected to hear the call to prayer 5 times a day and see women walking around wearing head scarves when we landed in Tirana. Imagine my surprise when neither were true. We soon learned that most Albanians are what is considered traditionally Muslim. Meaning they celebrate Islamic holidays and claim Allah as their god, but they don’t attend mosque or pray often. You will still see the occasional woman wearing a head scarf, but Albania is truly an Islamic country that perplexes me.
The marginal faith that most Albanians share means they are hungry for something more. When Campus Crusade (Cru) first arrived in Albania after the communist government fell only a handful of Albanians considered themselves Christians, today in Albania thousands have come to Christ and a great deal of that harvest is due to the efforts of Campus Crusade.
This last month my team had the opportunity to partner with Cru in Albanias capital city, Tirana, more specifically with their college outreach. Albanian Universities officially start in October so we arrived at a very busy and integral time in the years ministry.
Our first two weeks with Cru were devoted to selling an evangelism magazine. When students bought the magazine they would be entered to win a Blackberry at Cru’s big kick off the school year college meeting. In the past they had just handed out the magazine to students for free, but reaped only marginal results, so this year was kind of an experiment to see if the students would become more invested if they actually had to pay for the magazine. To me selling the magazine meant one thing…. I was going to have to SELL it, yikes! No joke, when I was younger I used to be afraid of calling people on the telephone I was so afraid of rejection, and while these days I am more than willing to give someone a call, approaching someone to sell them something is nowhere near my cup of tea. So I floundered and it was frustrating, but I didn’t give up.
Each day we would go to a new school of the university (colleges in Albania are organized differently and each subject has a different building around the city, usually students only take classes in the building of their major). As students walked by we would ask if they spoke english, most did, then we would give them our pitch. Some blew us off immediately, but more often than not they listened and ended up buying the magazine, one girl even told us we made her dreams come true (she always wanted to talk to an American). In the end the hard work of the entire staff payed off, at our big kick off meeting more than 200 students came. The meeting room was so full we were left with standing room only!
Another part of our ministry was being the entrainment portion of the weekly meeting. Each week we preformed something different. The first week we did the Everything skit, the next we did an awesome dance to Chris Brown’s “Forever,” then the last week we sang a slightly out of tune version of “Lean On Me.” Each week the audience would stare back at us stone faced but without fail, each week students would exclaim the “American’s” were their favorite part of the night, so we must have been doing something right.
The final part of our ministry was “one on ones,” usually in the form of coffee dates due to Albania unhealthy obsession with the product. We would meet up with students we had met selling magazines, at the weekly meetings or just walking around the campus. Most were more than willing to practice their english and we got to throw a little Jesus in there as well.
My most memorable coffee date was with a girl I had met following God’s guidance on campus one day named Denisa). Alysa, Lauren, Ashley and I met up with Denisa and a friend of hers during the roughest week of our ministry, a week where one by one all of us come down with a stomach bug. Our conversation that night at the crepe shop started out innocent, talking about school, fashion and traveling, then it turned to religion. Denisa and her friend were both traditional Muslims, but passionate ones. We spent an hour going back an forth discussing different points as Denisas friend tensed up more and more. We’d say something about Jesus then the friend were say “No, no, no” and Denisa would translate her objection for us. Their hardest concept of Christianity to grasp? The Trinity, and I can see why. The idea of the Trinity is pretty abstract for Christians let alone non Christians. When we parted that night I was slightly frustrated but I had a feeling something would soon turn around, and that next Thursday Denisa came to our weekly meeting at Cru, she even skipped class to be there. I truly believe that God gave me a gut feeling to go down the path at the University where I met Denisa that first day because now is her time to get to know him, and while we’ve had to leave Tirana we’ve left her in some excellent hands with the Cru staff.
