bible bowl 2012

The Lord has been gracious and He’s been blessing us with His presence and a great fellowship. The youth of the church have been gathering for classes and special meetings. Usually we had youth meetings at Fridays afternoon but the church members had a heart to spend more time with them but they couldn’t because they were at work at that time so we decided to change the days to Saturday and it seems better for both, the youth and the church members.

Praise the Lord we have had chances to meet and to study the Word and pray with the youth group. Some of them have recently started attending high-school and some of them are in the last year of high-school. We’ve been encouraging them to keep hoping in the Lord and to make him Top priority.

On the first day of the month we had the Bible Bowl of the Churches of Christ and we had a good time. There were teams from each church and two teams from our church and they were all teenagers. Our teams did not reach the top but I believe they did great. We studied together the book of Exodus for the whole month. It was a blessing to them and it was a blessing to me also to re-study the amazing principles of worship towards God and His Grace towards us.

On the 5th of this month I thought we could organize a karaoke party before school would start. There was a good attendance of the teenagers and the church members. We had the chance to compete with the teenagers and chose two winners among us. It was great! Everyone had fun even if most of us had terrible voices! LOL

On the 15th was the first day when we changed the youth class. We had a special meeting for the occasion and we could worship together, the youth and the church members, we could hang out with one another and we could also honor the new “high-schoolers” and pray for them and also pray for the ones that are in the last year. We saw the truths and principles that Jesus gives us through the Beatitudes on Matthew 5.

On the 22nd we had a great time together on the Seafarers’ Centre in Durres, a Christian organization that opened their doors for our group of teenagers. They had a gaming room and a huge sports yard in the back. The attendance was unbelievable; there were almost 50 teenagers. It was a true blessing. They had the chance to play games like soccer, PS2, snooker, table tennis, table soccer, etc. We spent 5 hours there and we also ate sandwiches that the sisters and brothers prepared for us. We had a worship hour in prayer, hymns and a sermon with the topic “Jesus, my BFF!” It was a real blessing to see that even after the time there, some of the girls would write the worship songs in their Facebook wall.

Except mini-soccer, I’ve discovered that the guys love computer games and sometimes after services we hang around with the boys and play online games and have lots of fun with them. It seems a great tool to build friendship with them.

You see, there are many things we do and organize and we have to bring all of these plans before the Lord first because the will of God is what we want to be done. Please, keep in your prayers this ministry and keep encouraging us in this work. I’m very blessed to have you on this service team and I hope you could visit us soon and join us.

If you have any resources, ideas or anything else that you think would be useful to this ministry, please don’t hesitate to suggest, offer and to share them with me and Çimi.

God bless you richly,

Ari

Report on Albanian Christian Camp Tirana, Albania

Sokol Haxhiu
On behalf of the board for the Albanian Christian Camp

“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly
our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3)”.

In the beginning of August we completed 3 full weeks of great fellowship with each-other and with the Father (from 14 July to 4 August) during the Christian camp in southern Albania with a number of almost 300 campers of all ages from 5-year old to 70-year old coming from churches of Christ located in Tirana, Durres, Elbasan, Korca, Fier, Lushnja, Vlora, Kucova, and Magjat. In addition, we had Christians coming as far as from Kosovo, Montenegro, the Netherlands, USA, and Greece.

I have to emphasize that what we are organizing each summer here is not just a simple retreat or camp but the concept and philosophy we are instilling is for having a special and unique time of fellowship with each- other where we concentrate on studying and meditating on the Word of God, on praying together for each-other and the church, on restoring/refreshing our relationship with the Lord, and boldly declaring our Savior, Jesus Christ. Some brethrens have labeled the camp as a mini Bible-school or as an evangelistic camp. To this end, there is a full Bible curricula prepared and this year’s was dedicated to the topic of Freedom in Christ in view also of Albania celebrating 100 years of independence.

The first week of camp was dedicated to children and Brother Alfred Zike from church of Christ of Adriatik, Durres, once again did an excellent job of leading and providing Bible classes for campers. Bledi Valca from church of Christ in Tirana and Edi Hoxha from church of Christ in Vlora offered the leadership and spiritual food for the second week of camp that was the week for teenagers. The fact is that for many of the churches in Albania the most active part are the youth and that’s why Bledi and his team prepared for every detail in order to provide the best possible environment for having a positive impact over the young people. And once again for the third week of camp, that is the family-week, we had a treat by having as a guest speaker Brother Mladen Jovanovic, an elder and preacher from Zagreb, Croatia. Mladen led the evening Bible studies and did a wonderful job by explaining the meaning of being free in Christ. Mladen’s insight into the Word of God, his long experience of being a Christian and serving to the Lord, and his humility and dedication has already made him a demanded speaker for the camp. And there is no surprise why the third week of camp was over-capacity with more than 110 campers and there were camp applications that had to be rejected because of lack of space. Whereas, the morning Bible studies were shared among different leaders of churches in Albania and a thank you goes to all of them for sharing their experience and thoughts on the topic of Freedom in Christ.

I never stop being amazed by God’s faithfulness and the power of prayers and persistence. For a long time, I had been inviting my brother who lives in the city of Vlora to attend church whenever I was down in Vlora or during his time in Tirana. In response, he attended church a couple of time but overall kept the distance. Meanwhile, I had asked him several times to come to this year’s camp and he had said no by claiming to be busy or not having any friends in camp. Parallel, I kept praying that God would touch his heart and make him reflect about his relationship with Him. Two days before the beginning of the third week of the camp, he had told me that didn’t want to come to camp and only in the last minute he said yes. To make this story short, my brother Ermal had such a wonderful experience at camp and was touched so much by the Word of God, that he decided to be baptized for remission of his sins and now his is also my spiritual brother and from that point on an active member of the church in Vlora. On that same very week, another camper coming from city of Korca decided to start a new life in the Lord and was baptized for remission of his sins. Praise be to the Lord for his wonderful ways of working and influencing people!

My brother, Ermal, (in the middle) after baptism

Welcoming to the Christian family,
Ani from Korca (in red shirt)

Alfred Zike teaching Bible to kids
under olive trees during 1st Week

Bledi Valca sharing a message to teens around bonfire on 2nd week

Mladen Jovanovic (in center) leading a
Bible study

During a children’s class in camp

During the Bible quiz “Who Wants to be
a Millionaire”

Playing ping-pong during free time
(winner get a free ice-cream :)

During a show programme, “Abraham & Sarah’s Story”

Great friends and fellowship

In the end, we would like to thank all of you that have actively prayed and generously supported this camp. Lord’s willing we are planning for having this camp in 2013 and we can hardly wait for what God has in store for us in 2013. If you need more information or have a question, please don’t hesitate to contact me.