Pogradec, Albania
Pogradec is situated on the South-East of Albania. It is a beautiful place where air is fresh and clean and it’s a town of flowers. There is Lake Ohrid with hills and mountains; the lake is ideal for immersions. Because of wars our country has had a long ‘pause’ in faith. However, a lot of people are interested and everyone belongs to a religious group.
This beautiful earth is old, but the living God has always existed. In the beginning the living God spoke. Think of it – God made the earth, the sun, moon and the stars and the planets by simply giving the command. At first the earth was completely empty – no tall mountains or green valleys. The earth was without form and there was total darkness. There was no life at all. We see that God is eternal, all-powerful, intelligent, personal and the source of life. God owns the world.
As Christadelphians in Pogradec, we are gradually growing in faith through the Bible especially, but also through Bible Basics, the Christadelphian Isolation League and Gospel News.
Brethren and Sisters struggle with the problem of their preaching being rejected. It may be we have preached zealously, distributed leaflets, placed advertisements, tutored people and spoken to our family and contacts about the truth and ultimately – no response. However, we are taking spiritual food into our minds through the word of God. It helps us to grow in faith more and more and to stay strong and we will continue in this way. We have chosen to be Christadelphians.
Vision is about understanding ourselves: what we want to do, what good has to be done and to know what it entails and it may mean some research before we set the vision before the meeting. We all need to be able to see the picture for the future to visualise for ourselves the new horizon and how we, individually, may fit into the view and hence what part we need to play.
Now, when we share together a prayer for the bread and for the wine there are choices to be made. It is all about cleansing our hearts and minds, ridding them of bad thoughts and ideas and putting the past on one side and seeking forgiveness for things done wrong and seeking for grace to do the right. Purging and cleansing is hard and is only achieved by a washing by the word of Life; only this can overcome the fleshly mind.
The worship brought to the ‘table’ is of “sincerity and truth”. As we break the bread and drink from the cup, we marvel that so much was accomplished on our behalf and offered to us in return for the homage and praise of our hearts. As we break bread and drink wine together we think of the love that has been shown to each of us, so that we might rejoice and go to our houses justified, as did the sinner, with joy in our hearts, knowing that one day we will have the wonderful privilege of standing before Jesus and looking at his smiling face. God bless us all.
FEARLESS EVANGELISTS.
To the thoughtful mind the greatest argument for the resurrection of Christ must always be the fact that Christianity rose with its founder. Nothing but resurrection can explain the transformation of the men we saw running in panic from Gethsemane into the fearless evangelists of the Acts of the Apostles. These cowed, despondent men stood forth in the city they dreaded and faced rulers and people alike, indicting them for slaying their Lord, announcing his resurrection, and baptising thousands of repentant Jews who trembled at their words. Before, they had been in mortal fear of arrest; now they were to go forth boldly facing imprisonment, persecution and death, and they were to go forth gloriously, counting it joy to suffer for his sake.
Bro Melva Purkis – A Life of Jesus
Sis Buturie Kadra (Pogradec, Albania)
