Looking for Opportunities

I have had several conversations here lately that have “inspired” me to blog. There is so much going on here in Albania right now that I could talk about that I really do not know where to begin.

I met this past week with a single lady missionary who is working in a coastal area to the north of Tirana. She has been there for about 7 years with a good children’s ministry and has seen a large number of kids come through her program. The problem is, once they finish her program at about age 10 or 11 there is nowhere else for them to go. They do not have a church in their town, they have no youth ministry and the nearest town with a church is about 10 KM away.

I met this week with another missionary. He pastors a good-sized church here in Tirana. He told me there are very few real spiritual leaders in the church with which he can trust a ministry so it usually falls on him to get things done. He was discouraged at the lack of leadership his youth guy was exhibiting and was thinking about “pulling the plug” on the youth program. He asked me if I heard of anyone who was interested in youth ministry, could I please send them his way so he could have some help.

Last week we had a training session organized by the Albanian Youth Ministry network, which I have been a part of since its inception. Several people came to receive training in how to start and maintain a small youth ministry and how to incorporate worship into your youth ministry in a way that will really minister to and attract teens. At the end of the training, three ladies came up to me and said, “Would you please be sure to let us know when you do more things like this. We have so few workers, no resources, and little experience. We need all the help we can get!”

All of these conversations have been in the last 7 days. All of them illustrate just the tip of the iceberg of need here in Albania. This is all just in the area of youth work, and does not even touch the needs in other fields of ministry. And in all honesty, barely makes out of the area of Tirana where the highest concentration of missionaries is located.

I have had so many opportunities for new types of ministry presented to me recently that I find myself saying no much more frequently than I can say yes. All of these opportunities would likely have great impact in the community here and would bear fruit. The most common need is for workers.

So we keep going… and praying... and asking the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers...