Welcome

Dear reader
We trust you are all well and have had a good few months.
There has been plenty happening at Shkëndijë’ recently, including: the launch of the SPARK campaign,  Mattersey Hall on Mission, Ladies Day, RrKK Conference, and National Children’s day Outreach

You can also check out: New Opportunities Coming up and Praise and Prayer

Latest News! 

Launch of the SPARK Campaign!

Shkëndijë feels called to expand its influence to the unreached children of Albania. Albania’s Captial, Tirana, has half a million of them. To help us achieve this Shkëndijë needs to purchase a van with a side-door conversion that can be used as a stage in open air outreaches. This van will cost £12 000 ($18 600) It is Shkendije’s mission to equip the local church in reaching the children beyond their doors, so they can have the possibilty of a relationship with Christ.

We cannot raise the money alone. We need your help There are so many ways to get involved: fundraising at your church or school, giving directly to the cause, prayer and raising awareness.

Over £3000 has already been raised which is represented by the coloured squares on the image above. If you or your church are interested in sponsoring a square/squares of our van then email us at spark.albania@gmail.com. for more details. People have kindly raised money through cake sales, car washes etc. and even shaving their heads! We need even more fundraising events to help Shkëndijë to reach even children desperately in need of the Gospel.

To find out more about this fundraising campaign, check out our SPARK the Urban outreach Campaign on facebook and watch this video:

Mattersey Hall on Mission!

In March Shkëndijë welcomed 12 students from Mattersey Hall Bible College for a ten day Mission. They worked hard and achieved a great deal in their time here, including clearing up the local kindergarten, helping with building an extension on a small one-roomed house which held 7 people in a local village, renovating a poor school, providing practice for the English students and running a Fun- Day. The Fun day attracted many regulars and 15 new children to our centre, ten of whom came to our weekly Friday outreach the following Friday. The mission demonstrated Jesus’ love and giving spirit in this community.

Mother’s Day:

Shkëndijë used Mother’s day on 8^th March to reach into the local community in Shengjin; the team handed out free flowers, chocolates, calendars and Christian literature from an expo table on the side of the street. Vali had the opportunity to speak into one woman’s difficulty and offer prayer in her battle with cancer. This expo table was a good opening to bless the women in this community where they are often undervalued.
Shkëndijë also held a craft event to celebrate Mother’s Day, where children made cards and flowers for their mothers. We used this event to invite more children to our weekly Friday outreaches; praise God for the three new children who began coming after this craft event.

RrKK Conference and CCI

In March Shkëndijë attended the annual RrKK conference. RrKK is an organisation providing opportunity for Leaders of Christian camps within Albania to interconnect with each other, sharing ideas and experience. This year members from Christian Camping International (CCI) were invited, and they presented the RrKK with a certificate of acceptance into CCI Europe. Rachel is a member of the steering group for the RrKK, and as such spent five days in April in Spain at an international conference with CCI. The conference gave a chance to learn from those with a wealth of experience in the Christian Camping field. Shkëndijë firmly believes that there is a huge capacity through Christian Camps to evangelise and disciple children, and is active in encouraging others within Albania to pursue a Ministry in Christian Camping.

1st of June – Children’s Outreach 

On the 1st of June, Shkendije, working together with 4 churches from Lezhe, held a children’s fun day in a local football stadium. Children from these Christian groups were taught on envagelism prior to the event and then encouraged to invite along their non-Christian friends. At the outreach the children were exposed to the Gospel in a fun way, with games, songs, food, and even a gungeing for the leader of the losing team at the end!

Opportunities:

We have two weeks of residential camp coming up in late august, and we need your help getting it underway. So how can you get involved?
–        Pray. We need prayer for both the children who will be coming to the camps and for the staff members.
–        Give. You can transform these children’s lives; through sponsoring a child to come to camp you give them the opportunity to hear about Jesus’ love for them and for their lives to be transformed. What is a more worthy cause? If you are interested in sponsoring a child please contact us at spark.albania@gmail.com . Camp can’t go ahead without your contributions!
–        Volunteer. We always need people willing to come out to help and get stuck in. It is a great opportunity for you to get see our mission in action and you are sure to be blessed by the spirited loving kids!

Coming Up!

• Shkendije’s residential camps begin in late August.
• Ruth Jesse finishes her gap year with Shkendije and heads back to the UK this Friday.

In our next issue read about… the June-July day-camps (in partnership with World Vision), the Nottingham team’s beach outreach mission and our Shkendije adventure Camps!
Praise and rayer

Praise Points:

• Thank God for the Mattersey Hall group who have been a huge blessing towards our mission in Shengjin.
• Thank God for the new chidren who came to the Friday outreaches because of the Mattersey Mission.
• Thank God for the women that were reached through the mothers day expo
• Thank God for the unity among the four Lezhe churches and the National Children’s day outreach.
• Thank God for the outworking and success of the June-July camps.
• Thank God for the recent Beach Mission and the team from Nottingham UK.

Prayer Points:

• Please pray for the general success of the upcoming camps, that children might come to accept and know Jesus as their Saviour.
• Please pray for volunteers to come out on mission to serve at Shkendije’s summer camps. If you are interested in serving yourself, please email spark.albania@gmail.com ASAP.
• Please pray for the success of the Spark the Urban Outreach Campaign. Prayerfully consider how you might get involved.